{"id":13518,"date":"2011-06-19T08:16:06","date_gmt":"2011-06-19T15:16:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=13518"},"modified":"2011-06-19T08:16:06","modified_gmt":"2011-06-19T15:16:06","slug":"reply-to-george-iii-stop-sneaking-in-your-conclusion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=13518","title":{"rendered":"Reply to George: III. Stop Sneaking in Your Conclusion!"},"content":{"rendered":"

[This post is part of a series analyzing Robert George’s widely-read article, “What is Marriage<\/a>“, which appeared on pages 245-286 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. You can view all posts in the series here<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Page 246: In which Robert George sets up the argument in a way we cannot accept.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

George tries to sneak his conclusion into his reasoning.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert George opens his article by making a fundamental distinction\u00a0\u2014 one that we should not let him make.\u00a0 He writes:<\/p>\n

What is marriage?<\/p>\n

Consider two competing views:<\/p>\n

Conjugal View: Marriage is the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together. The spouses seal (consummate) and renew their union by conjugal acts\u2014acts that constitute the behavioral part of the process of reproduction, thus uniting them as a reproductive unit. Marriage is valuable in itself, but its inherent orientation to the bearing and rearing of children contributes to its distinctive structure, including norms of monogamy and fidelity. This link to the welfare of children also helps explain why marriage is important to the common good and why the state should recognize and regulate it.<\/p>\n

Revisionist View: Marriage is the union of two people (whether of the same sex or of opposite sexes) who commit to romantically loving and caring for each other and to sharing the burdens and benefits of domestic life. It is essentially a union of hearts and minds, enhanced by whatever forms of sexual intimacy both partners find agreeable. The state should recognize and regulate marriage because it has an interest in stable romantic partnerships and in the concrete needs of spouses and any children they may choose to rear.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In the last entry, I took issue with George\u2019s opening sentence, and now I take issue with his second:\u00a0 why are these views competing<\/strong> views? <\/em>The \u201crevisionist\u201d view can contain and include the \u201cconjugal\u201d view. As he describes them, instead of being mutually exclusive:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Figure 1: Competing views<\/p><\/div>\n

\u2026they look like this:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Figure 2: Compatible views<\/p><\/div>\n

Do you see what George has done here? Once you realize the second picture is the accurate picture, then logically there\u2019s only one way these views are \u201ccompeting,\u201d and that\u2019s if the conjugal view is the only<\/em> correct view — that is, if anything falling outside it isn\u2019t \u201creal marriage.\u201d But that\u2019s the very thing he\u2019s setting out to prove!<\/em><\/strong> In other words, by calling them competing views, he\u2019s asking you to accept his conclusion even before he makes his argument. \u00a0In fact, he\u2019s sneaking his conclusion into the very beginning<\/em> of his argument. We call that circular reasoning.<\/p>\n

[By the way, our opponents engage in this either\/or mistake all the time. They call themselves supporters of traditional marriage, as if we don’t support it, too. They don’t realize that the very phrase “marriage equality” means we support opposite-sex marriage exactly as much<\/em> as we do same-sex marriage.]
\n<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is just a tiny logic trap. Perhaps George could escape it by rewriting his conjugal description as:<\/p>\n

Marriage can only be<\/em><\/strong> the union of a man and a woman who make a permanent and exclusive commitment to each other of the type that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But perhaps he knows he would lose his audience right away if he said only<\/em> couples who bear and<\/em> rear children can have marriages that are \u201cfulfilled.” Here\u2019s a case where George\u2019s reasoning, careful as it may turn out to be, doesn\u2019t match the experience of real-life married couples.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, nothing in the revisionist view excludes the conjugal view. The second figure simply recognizes that children play a key role in many but not all marriages. This doesn\u2019t mean that revisionists are holding up a sign that says, \u201cStop! No children allowed.\u201d These views are \u201ccompeting\u201d only because George claims they are. If you reject that claim (as I do), you\u2019ll see many of George\u2019s later arguments fall apart.<\/p>\n

“Which ones?”\u00a0— A digression.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

We’ve already<\/a> talked about George’s rationalist, almost Platonic approach to the question, “What is marriage?”\u00a0 It shows itself here.\u00a0\u00a0Is it true that marriage is the type of relationship that is naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together?\u00a0That sort of claim is absolute and certain.\u00a0 It’s hard to know how to go about evaluating it.<\/p>\n

Unless, of course, we move our focus to the real world and ask instead, Are marriages<\/span><\/strong> naturally (inherently) fulfilled by bearing and rearing children together?<\/em><\/p>\n

And the answer to that will be:\u00a0 Which ones?<\/p>\n

Some marriages are fulfilled by kids.\u00a0 Some are broken by\u00a0them.\u00a0 In some marriages, one child fulfills the marriage and another tears it apart.<\/p>\n

Some married couples don’t want kids at all.\u00a0 Others were happy to raise to children for a couple decades,\u00a0and then are happy to send them out into the world, regaining\u00a0a measure of\u00a0privacy and intimacy; such couples have marriages that were fulfilled by raising children and now are fulfilled by not doing so.<\/p>\n

And none of this helped by George’s definition of fulfilled<\/em> as it appears in footnote 18:\u00a0“That is, made even richer as the kind of reality it is.”<\/p>\n

I’ll come back to the vagueness and circularity of that<\/em> later.<\/p>\n

All of these observations are empirical, of course.\u00a0 George wouldn’t approve: he’d probably say this is all based on circumstance rather than principle, and he only cares about principles.\u00a0 But George’s principles conflict with reality.\u00a0 At this point, you need to ask yourself whether you’re a rationalist, willing to sacrifice reality so that you can bask in an empty logical certainty, or are you an empiricist, willing to give up that certainty to work toward understanding a messy and confusing reality?<\/p>\n

(Okay, I may not have phrased that with complete impartiality.)<\/p>\n

By the way, I like this question, “Which ones?”\u00a0\u00a0when people are trying to extend a generalization way too far. For instance:<\/p>\n