{"id":13540,"date":"2011-06-23T10:07:59","date_gmt":"2011-06-23T17:07:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=13540"},"modified":"2011-06-23T10:08:19","modified_gmt":"2011-06-23T17:08:19","slug":"reply-to-george-v-can-we-talk-about-real-marriage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=13540","title":{"rendered":"Reply to George: V. Can We Talk About “Real” Marriage?"},"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\u00a0here<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

Pages 250-252: In which Robert George works hard to establish his right to talk about real<\/span> marriage.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

How real is \u201creal marriage\u201d?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Robert George wants to show \u201creal marriage\u201d is a meaningful concept.\u00a0\u00a0 He\u2019s got a good starting point: the fact that most \u201crevisionists\u201d think it\u2019s wrong to ban same-sex marriage but are fine with banning other kinds, such as marriage with a child or marriage between brother and sister<\/p>\n

Revisionists who arrive at this conclusion must accept at least three principles.<\/p>\n

First, marriage is not a legal construct with totally malleable contours \u2014 not \u201cjust a contract.\u201d In other words, it\u2019s not merely whatever our laws claim it to be \u2014 otherwise, there\u2019d be no basis for claiming marriage law is wrong and must be changed.<\/p>\n

Second, the state is justified in recognizing only real marriages as marriages.<\/p>\n

Third, there is no general right to marry the person you love, if this means a right to have any type of relationship that you desire recognized as marriage.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First:\u00a0 Marriage isn\u2019t just whatever we say it is.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

George has a point here.\u00a0I just don\u2019t like his reasoning. He\u2019s saying if marriage<\/em> is nothing more than a set of rules created by the government, then there\u2019s no standard for what marriage law<\/em> should be. And if there\u2019s no standard, there\u2019s no basis for saying current law is wrong.<\/p>\n

But\u2026no. Even if marriage were<\/em> just whatever the government decrees (which I don\u2019t believe), we could still appeal to more fundamental principles \u2014 like equal treatment under the law\u00a0\u2014 to argue that marriage law must not discriminate against broad swaths of the citizenry for no good reason. So marriage can be \u201cjust a contract\u201d and yet not have \u201ctotally malleable contours. \u201c It could still be possible for the law to \u201cget marriage wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

A philosophical digression (you can skip it if it\u2019s not your bag)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

George is arguing against nominalism<\/em> here.\u00a0 Remember Plato and his notion that concepts like \u201chorse\u201d and \u201ctriangle\u201d are perfect forms<\/a> that exist in a higher realm that\u2019s more real than our own?\u00a0 Nominalism goes to the opposite extreme.\u00a0 It holds that a term like human<\/em> has no meaning, no reality, except as a name we use to designate all the individual humans we can think of (nominalism<\/em> and name<\/em> have the same linguistic root).<\/p>\n

You know all that speculation about what makes humans human?\u00a0 About the essence of being human?\u00a0 Whether it’s our ability to reason, or plan, or laugh, or make tools, etc.?<\/p>\n

Nominalists would have none of that.\u00a0 To them, individual human beings are real, but abstract concepts like human<\/em> are not.\u00a0 Human<\/em> is just a label, a tag with no meaning apart from those individuals.\u00a0 It\u2019s just a handy collection of five letters that we use in our heads and in language to refer to all those individuals.\u00a0 There is no essence, no essential set of traits that make us human.<\/p>\n

Nominalists would also say there\u2019s no such thing as marriage \u2014 certainly no such thing as real<\/em> marriage.\u00a0 Marriage is just an eight-letter tag that we use to describe the arrangements of all those individuals who call themselves married.<\/p>\n

(Clearly, this simplifies a complex idea, one whose subtleties I don\u2019t fully grasp myself.\u00a0 If you like this sort of thing, check it out by starting here<\/a> and then going here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m with George on this.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a nominalist.\u00a0 George and his co-authors make this<\/a> case against nominalism:<\/p>\n

Consider friendship. As with marriage, the particulars of friendship vary widely by time and place. But also like marriage, friendship is a human reality, a distinctive human good, with certain essential features independent of our social or linguistic practices. For example, it essentially involves each person\u2019s actively willing the other\u2019s good, for the other\u2019s sake. And again like marriage, friendship (the human reality, not our use of the word) grounds certain moral privileges and obligations between its participants and even between the friends and others who might interact with them. So friendship, like marriage, is not just a social construct.<\/p>\n

If we said that John and Joe, who just exploited each other, were not \u201creal friends,\u201d we would not just mean that a certain word did not apply to their bond, or that society failed to treat that bond as it does certain others. We would primarily mean that John and Joe were missing out on a distinctive, inherently valuable reality \u2014 a human good, for which other goods are no substitute \u2014 because of a failure to meet its inherent requirements, which are not purely socially constructed. Similarly, a relationship is not a marriage just because we speak and act as if it is, nor is a relationship not a marriage just because we fail to do so.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And they sum it up even better here<\/a>:<\/p>\n

[T]wo people who do not will each other\u2019s good are not just missing out on a label, \u201cfriendship\u201d; they are missing out on a human good whose specific benefit or fulfillment is not available otherwise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019d like to point out that this is not an objective analytical argument.\u00a0 It depends entirely on your own personal experience of friendship.\u00a0 But I find it convincing anyway.<\/p>\n

Marriage is not just a word.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

So is marriage \u201creal\u201d or is it just an arbitrary whatever-we-say-it-is<\/em>?\u00a0 I bet most of us would say \u201creal.\u201d\u00a0 Maybe some activists are in the fight purely<\/em> because they oppose any law that discriminates for no good reason, but I don\u2019t know them.\u00a0 Marriage would have little emotional significance if it were in fact \u201cjust a contract,\u201d like a catering agreement or a lease on a car.<\/p>\n

Many (most?) gays and lesbians have been raised to view marriage as more than that, as something definite and real.\u00a0 Two men or two women find themselves in a relationship different from any other they\u2019ve known, and say, \u201cYes, this person \u2014 this <\/em>person! \u2014 is the one I want to marry.\u201d\u00a0 Speaking just for myself, if it weren\u2019t for that sense of reality, I wouldn\u2019t find it so bewildering to be told my relationship doesn\u2019t deserve that status.<\/p>\n

But I don\u2019t agree with George completely.\u00a0 Yes, marriage is real, but what does \u201creal\u201d mean?\u00a0 Remember that George is a Catholic natural law philosopher.\u00a0 He thinks we can reason our way to ethical and moral truth, but the conclusions have to match the church\u2019s interpretation tof he Gospels.\u00a0 He\u2019s committed to the idea that marriage was created by God for humans, and humans cannot change God.\u00a0 He may try to set that aside in his reasoning, but if he believes it he can\u2019t truly abandon it. This puts him squarely back in a Platonic frame of mind, with ideal \u201cform\u201d called \u201cmarriage\u201d that originates in a higher realm.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, I\u2019m heading down Aristotle\u2019s road: \u00a0I would say marriage is real because human beings have created it. We\u2019ve done it by trial and error over thousands of years. And if you want to find out what it is, ask the questions mentioned in my first post: let\u2019s look at what people in this world call marriage, what led them to marry, and what they hope to achieve by marrying. Use that<\/strong> to define what marriage is.<\/em><\/p>\n

This assumes, of course, that human beings have some commonality, some basic nature with basic needs we\u2019re trying to fill. Marriage is not infinitely malleable because human nature isn\u2019t, either. But marriage law<\/em> does vary from place to place and time to time. First, because some aspects of marriage law simply depend on circumstance and may not be essential to marriage. Second, because human nature isn\u2019t a narrow and obvious thing, so there are no narrow and obvious answers.\u00a0 And finally, because our understanding of human nature itself can change.<\/p>\n

Thank God marriage has changed!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

For instance: Our concept of human nature has changed in the past few centuries when it comes to women. When lawmakers stopped viewing women as fragile creatures, intellectually inferior, emotionally undependable, and helpless without male protection, that was a change in our view of human nature. And marriage changed accordingly. Coverture \u2014\u00a0the notion that married women are legally just an extension of their husbands, to whom they must submit in almost all ways (including rape and a good slap<\/em> now and then) \u2014\u00a0disappeared. Men and women approached equality in marital law, and the government no longer enforced gender roles.<\/p>\n

This created the possibility of same-sex marriage. As long as the law had one role for a man and a different role for a woman, marriage required a man and a woman. With that out of the way, though, what\u2019s to prevent two men or two women from marrying? Mostly, it seems, another change in our view of human nature. People are more open to marriage equality if they view homosexuality as a healthy, normal (though perhaps unusual) facet of human nature \u2014 if they see that love and commitment between two men or two women can mirror that of an opposite-sex couple.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, our understanding of human nature is incomplete and contradictory. Marriage is real<\/em> because it\u2019s a human invention based on human nature, but it\u2019s gone through constant tinkering as our ideas of what it means to be human constantly change. But that means we can still follow Aristotle\u2019s lead and figure marriage out by searching for its common purpose (or common purposes, as it may be).<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a bit messy for George. He wouldn\u2019t consider it \u201cprincipled thinking.\u201d And this is what I mean when I say we can\u2019t let Robert George set the terms of the discussion. He\u2019ll use careful logic to reason from as little evidence as possible. In fact, he\u2019ll view this as a virtue. We can pick apart his reasoning to some degree, but we can also dispute pieces of his argument by asking, \u201cCan he demonstrate this in reality? Does this fit my own experience? Does it match the facts of the world?\u201d<\/p>\n

Second, the state is justified in recognizing only real marriages as marriages.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

No, this is wrong: \u00a0contrary to George’s thinking, \u201crevisionists\u201d can deny government recognition of child marriage without saying “the state is justified in recognizing only real marriages as marriages.”\u00a0I\u2019m going to be picky here, just to show how George can sloppy be in his thinking.<\/p>\n

Strictly speaking, we could base our exclusion of incest and child-marriage on a different principle.\u00a0 For instance, that the government must accept any claim to marriage as valid unless there is a compelling public interest not to, and<\/span> concerns about privacy rule out any<\/em><\/strong> government determination of whether a couple is fertile. \u00a0You can invoke this principle without any reference to “real” marriage at all. (Sidenote: I\u2019m\u00a0 tossing in that privacy clause because George wants to know why \u201crevisionists\u201d don\u2019t want to let infertile incestuous couples marry.\u00a0 Trust me, I\u2019m coming back to that in a later entry.)<\/p>\n

Now, I\u2019m not comfortable with that principle, but it would do the job.\u00a0 I include it just to how George draws conclusions that go way beyond what is warranted.<\/p>\n

In fact, I can actually live with George’s second point, though perhaps not in the way George intends. George thinks that we can, with certainty, identify the core and essential features of marriage and confidently exclude any relationship that doesn\u2019t meet the standard. \u00a0I would say the question is more of a messy empirical investigation and the findings will be limited by our experience and our understanding of human nature. Certainty is a hard standard to meet, so we should only exclude people with great care and err on the side of inclusion.<\/p>\n

Third, there is no general right to marry the person you love.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Finally, I agree with the third point, in my own way. A pedophile attracted only to children has no right to marry the little girl or boy of his choosing.<\/p>\n

Okay, that\u2019s it.\u00a0 All the throat-clearing is out of the way.<\/p>\n

Next: George finally \u2013 finally! \u2013 explains why only a man and a woman can be married.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[This post is part of a series analyzing Robert George’s widely-read article, “What is Marriage“, which appeared on pages 245-286 of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. You can view all posts in the series\u00a0here.] Pages 250-252: In … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-george-what-is-marriage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13540"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13543,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13540\/revisions\/13543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}