Lust: The Seven Deadly Sins

In the uneven 7 Deadly sins series, copublished by Oxford University press and the New York Public Library, three of the volumes are stinkers, one is above average, and three are quite good. The best of the lot is Robert Thurman's treatment of anger; third best is Francine Prose on gluttony. Second place goes to philosopher Simon Blackburn's witty, urbane, and analytically precise treatment of lust. In Blackburn's hands (pardon the bad pun) lust loses the automatically pessimistic sheen of sin that the Christian tradition has bestowed on it. As Blackburn says (p. 27), "we [should] no more criticize lust because it can get out of hand, than we [should][ criticize hunger because it can lead to gluttony or thirst because it can lead to drunkenness." Looked at in itself, lust--desire for sexual pleasure--is neutral. Context and disposition are the dividing lines in separating moral from immoral lust. Lust that fully recognizes the partner as a fellow human being and desires his or her sexual fulfillment in the encounter is, says Blackburn, the optimal situation. There's a kind of feedback look that occurs when sexual partners mutually recognize one another: I desire your pleasure, and seeing it enhances my pleasure, which enhances yours... Blackburn refers to this as Hobbesian unity (from a passage from Hobbes in which he writes of the relationship between imagination and mutual pleasuring in sex). This doesn't mean that all lust which falls short of Hobbesian unity is tarnished. One of the healthier aspects of Blackburn's approach is his recognition of degrees. As he says (p. 133), "if Hobbesian unity cannot be achieved, it can at least be aimed at, and even if it cannot be aimed at, it can be imagined and dreamed." Blackburn's book achieves what all good philosophical treatments do: it simply has the ring of familiar common sense.