18
that the only function of sexuality is to ensure that eggs are fertilized with sperm.” 59 They reference the
traditional idea that gender derives from biological sex. Anne Fausto-Sterling describes the modern
variation of this traditional idea in Sexing the Body, wherein she recounts the history of how the
meaning of the body became an object of the biosciences: Victorian age sensibilities regarding sex and
gender found both grounding and expression in hormone studies. 60 The Western world justified its
belief in the biological nature of masculinity and femininity through the discovery and study of sexual
hormones with the idea that a male body produces male hormones exclusively; likewise with females. 61
Of course, the modern biological reductionism described by Fausto-Sterling did not begin ex nihilo in the
late eighteen hundreds; its roots reach back to the Scholastic philosophical tradition.
According to theologians Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, Scholastic doctrine teaches
that the primary end of marriage (understood in this context to be the proper relationship for human,
sexual activity) is procreation, while union of spouses remains of secondary importance. They
specifically criticize Thomas Aquinas’ reasoning on the matter, which states that the procreative end
resides in human beings insomuch as a human being is an animal, while the unitive end resides in
human beings insomuch as a human being is human. 62 The argument may be interpreted to claim that
“the primary end of specifically human marriage is dictated by humanity’s generically animal nature.” 63
This kind of natural law argument certainly lends itself to charges of biological reductionism. Salzman
and Lawler quote Dietrich von Hildenbrand on the matter of how Scholastic teleology reduces inherent
meaning in human life to biological principles: “Human life is considered exclusively from a biological
point of view and biological principles are the measure by which all human activities are judged.” 64
While some philosophers, scholars, and theologians may interpret the Scholastic tradition on natural law
as biologically reductive, such possible interpretations do not stand for the root Aristotelian tradition
itself, or for the teleological principle in general.
59
Francis J. Catania, “Medieval Attitudes Towards Philosophia Naturalis in relation to Scientia Moralis,” in God,
Science, Sex, Gender: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Christian Ethics, eds. Patricia Beattie Jung and Aana Marie
Vigen (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2010), 65.
60
Anne Fausto-Sterling, Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the construction of Sexuality (New York: Basic Books,
2000), Chapters Six and Seven.
61
Ibid, see chapter titled “Do Sex Hormones Really Exist?”
62
Todd A. Salzman and Michael G. Lawler, The Sexual Person: Toward a Renewed Catholic Anthropology
(Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2008), 35.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid, 39.