Against Couples

ABSTRACT The essay attacks the convention that a person should at any period in their life have not more than one sexual partner. The issues of the care of children and the desirability of a shared household are here bracketed out. The main argument proceeds by seeing conflicts between the requirement of exclusivity in sexual life, authenticity, and the principle that sexual communion should be an expression of love. A general social inertia, defined by the possessive introversion of couples, means that individuals will inevitably sometimes have to choose between sexual solitude and cultivating a more or less artificial relationship. The ideal of a single, central relationship is criticised on the grounds that (i) in some respects it is not desirable and (ii) it is in any case unrealistic to suppose that we can choose to create such an ideal relationship at will.     

RETHINKING THE CHRISTOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF REINHOLD NIEBUHR'S CHRISTIAN REALISM

While Reinhold Niebuhr's realist political philosophy continues to find advocates in many quarters on account of its explanatory power, his Christian ideals have had difficulty gaining purchase in the material world. The tension between particular political interests and universal moral ideals threatens not only to undermine Niebuhr's efforts to preserve the ethical quality of politics but also his grounds for hope. The source of this problem can be traced to a weakness in the Christological foundations of Niebuhr's Christian realism—specifically to his intentional severing of classical Christology from politics in his appropriation of Augustine's realism. After examining the reasons for this rejection of classical reflections about Jesus, this article explains how the Christology of Niebuhr's favorite early Christian realist, Augustine, makes possible a theological reasoning that expands the social imagination, and promotes a deeply principled and hopeful material transformation, while not forfeiting its critical and explanatory capacity.