Evaluating Adultery Bonnie Steinbock in her essay “What’s Wrong with Adultery?” starts by quoting the data from studies to show that the number of women who have committed adultery has significantly increased. Despite this increase in female adultery, it is in some degree due to the attitudes changing toward sex and sexuality, but Steinbock thinks that people should use rational justification to evaluate the disapproval of adultery. Then in the rest of the parts of Steinbock’s essay, she is generally arguing against adultery based on the plausible claim that our views toward adultery are varied, and these views are bound to be connected to important conventions about marriage, fidelity, romantic love ( Romeo and Juliet’s case ), the
Then the lack of concern and the desire to cause pain will lead to a lack of love. The fallacy of slippery slope is clearly presented here. Although sexual infidelity may to some degree to be a sign of the lack of love, there is no good reason to think that committing sexual infidelity will actually and finally result in the lack of love. For instance, a married female sex worker may still love her spouse. She sells sex which is mainly due to a financial issue. She makes money by selling sex to support her family and her spouse. In such a case, can we say that sexual infidelity means a lack of love toward one’s spouse? Definitely, the answer is no. Thus, slippery slope here weakens Steinbock’s argument considerably. Furthermore, in “Open Marriage” and “Fidelity as An Ideal” sectors, Steinbock defends the position of rejecting adultery and thinks open marriage is moral by stating that sex which involves physical and psychological exposure shows intimacy and creates trust between a couple. In such a way, sex should be reserved for couples in love and “true love” is based on Romeo and Juliet’s model of love. The author commits selective attention here. She looks at sexual fidelity as the ideal in relationship only through an emotional and psychological way but ignores nonexistent emotional and psychological aspects. This seriously limits the application of her argument. Overall, based on Steinbock’s