Leftist Handwringers, Afghan Viagra, Erectile Ethics

Blog vaca continues. Just want to get this off my chest.

WaPo reports CIA is bartering with Afghan warlords: Viagra for information about Taliban. Supposedly the aged warlords with multiple wives love the Viagra, and the reciprocal information has been valuable. In the WaPo story, the warlord was aged 60; had 4 wives; and CIA bartered 4 Viagra pills for info about Taliban movements and operations in the region.

Left bloggers are angry that CIA Viagra dispensers have failed to consider the feelings/circumstances of Afghan wives who may not want to have sex with their husbands. Many or most Afghan wives are basically sold into marriage by their families - some or many at ages 12, 13, 14. Some Afghan girls are married off at earlier ages(the youngest I've seen was age 8), though the Koran instructs they should not begin having sex until they reach womanhood, at approx. age 12.

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Afghan wives have their own definitions of distasteful and of inhumane. We can neither predict nor police whether Viagra will be used for sex which an Afghan wife considers distasteful or inhumane.

We can fail to encourage maybe a dozen extra instances per year of sex with a 14 year old bride - but at what cost?

A dozen instances per year of unhappy(?) intercourse is only a piece of a larger problem. If an Afghan wife is unhappy, her larger problem is an entire marriage which she cannot escape through divorce. Her even larger problem is her culture's acceptance of female subjugation.

The solution is to defeat the Taliban, democratize and modernize the nation and the region, and allow the synergy of democracy and modernization to encourage tribal cultures to reform. Implementing this will in some cases require one full generation, and maybe in some cases multiple generations. I see neither any other nor any quicker solution for Afghan women.

In this instance, withholding Viagra means the Taliban are one step closer to maintaining viability; means reform is one step further from realization; means unhappy brides are one step further from deliverance; means yet to be born daughters and granddaughters are one step closer to repeating their mothers' unhappy circumstances. Viagra handwringers evince a dulled ability to discriminate between lesser good and greater good; between lesser evil and greater evil. They also remind of an old saying: only an intellectual could believe something so stupid.

Viagra handwringers also are mightily presumptuous about the awfulness taking place inside Afghan marriages. Surely some warlord wives enjoy sex. Maybe they want children. Maybe they want to curry their husband's favor and gain status or power inside the family unit. We are mightily presumptuous to believe we know what or how much good vs. bad is going on inside Afghan marriages. Making assumptions about marital relations is not part of our objective. Defeating the Taliban is. Allowing modernity to encourage tribal reform is.

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Compare erectile ethics with Thomas Aquinas' consideration of when it might be morally permissible to take life.

Foundational: according to Aquinas' "Principle of Forfeiture", a person can forfeit his right to life via taking or attempting to take an innocent life.

Equally important: Thomas Aquinas’ "Doctrine of Double Effect". This description is from Ronald Munson, in “Ethics for Military Leaders”, Simon & Shuster, 1998, p. 397:

[A]n action should be performed only if the intention is to bring about the good effect [dead Taliban/modernized Afghanistan] and the bad effect [unhappy sex] will be an unintended or indirect consequence. [...] Four conditions must be satisfied:

1. The action [the barter] itself must be morally indifferent or morally good.
2. The bad effect [unhappy sex] must not be the means [pill = info = target + kill Taliban] by which the good effect [dead Taliban/modernized Afghanistan] is achieved.
3. The motive must be the achievement of the good effect only.
4. The good effect [dead Taliban/modernized Afghanistan] must be at least equivalent in importance to the bad effect [unhappy sex].

We have to consider that definition of "means" begins at "pill" and does not extend to "unhappy sex." We cannot know what the wives in question consider to be distasteful or inhumane. Therefore, the bartering of Viagra for information meets Thomas Aquinas' conditions.