In their relationship to morals an action and its motive may be completely independent of one another, as we have already seen.
We must further note that there are various degrees of duty, and that from this cause conflicts may arise. There are duties towards one’s self, which serve to increase the worth, and particularly the social worth, of the individual by self-culture and education. In these days of effeminate culture it is too often forgotten that self-discipline and restraint, and even a certain degree of asceticism, fit the individual for freedom and happiness, while the craving for pleasure makes him useless and dependent.
Then there are duties towards the family and those nearer to us, towards the State, towards existing Humanity, and towards posterity. This last duty is the highest of all. Everything that we enjoy to-day in culture and knowledge we owe to the toil, the suffering, and often the martyrdom of our forefathers. Our most sacred duty is, therefore, to secure for our descendants a loftier, happier and worthier existence than our own.
Speaking generally, a rational system of morals must subordinate the welfare of the individual to that of the community at large. A man who is unprejudiced and possesses the ethical and social instinct will therefore hold it as a principle first of all to do no man any injury; then to develop his own individuality as highly as possible, which will be both for his own good and that of the community; and as far as in him lies to be of service to others and to Humanity.
From this we may derive the following commandment of sexual ethics:—
Thou shalt take heed in thy sexual desire, in its manifestations in thy soul, and chiefly in thy sexual acts, that thou do no hurt to thyself nor another, nor, above all, to the race of men; but shalt strive with thy might to increase the worth of each and all.
II. Sexual Ethics
Everything that we have up to the present said of ethics and the social sense in general applies also to sexual ethics in particular. The only essential thing is to discuss the matter without prejudice, and to put aside the ancient traditions of mystagogy, dogma, and custom. This should be comparatively easy when we consider our present-day conventions, hypocritical as they are to the point of nausea, and the manner in which they support the right of the stronger and other rank abuses under the false cloak of morality.
In itself the sexual desire is neither moral nor immoral. It is simply an instinct adapted to the reproduction of the species. The common confusion of sexuality with immorality is, I repeat, entirely erroneous. A man without sexual feeling must of course be extraordinarily “moral” in his sex relationships, and yet he can be the greatest scoundrel imaginable. His sexual coldness and indifference have not the smallest ethical value.