Masterclass "The Ethics of Intimate Relationships" with Prof. Monika Betzler (LMU Munich)

The Ethics of Intimate Relationships

Masterclass with Prof. Monika Betzler (LMU Munich)

Intimate relationships and the moral challenges parties to such relationships face, have been largely neglected by moral philosophers. While there is philosophical work on friendship, the family and love more generally, philosophers, for a large part at least, took a particular interest in idealized conceptions of such relationships, and ignored what it takes to navigate intimate relationships under non-ideal conditions.

Yet important moral questions arise once we acknowledge that intimates are particularly vulnerable to each other, and that intimate relationships can flourish, but that they can also go awry.

This class addresses some of these questions surrounding the ethics intimate relationships. What role does the fact that two parties are in an intimate relationship play with regard to other moral questions? And what does it take, morally speaking, to not wrong another party to such a relationship, and to make the relationship go well? More specifically, it asks: (i) do friendships change the deontic status of actions that are impermissible if the parties involved were not friends? In other words, is paternalism in friendship morally permissible even if it is impermissible between strangers? And if so, why? (ii) Why is it so difficult to rationally decide whether to stay in an intimate relationship or whether to leave? (iii) What are the moral rights and corresponding duties in ending an intimate relationship well? Is there such a thing as an ethics of divorce? (iv) And, if we have ended an intimate relationship, are the ex-partners confronted with post-divorce duties, and if so, which ones? Or, do they turn into strangers again?

Answering these questions is important both in order to explain which changes in the moral landscape the fact of being in an intimate relationship with another person brings about, and what moral rights and duties intimates have with regard to another so as to lead (but also end) their relationship well.