# Sex and Marriage

## Today * Kant, Defense of Marriage * McMurtry, Critique of Marriage * Bayles, Defense of Marriage

### Kant - Love of another is altruistic, human, and therefore good - Sexual desire is not love, concerned for the other nor their humanity but only their biological sex, and therefore not good - Sexual desire is suppressed by saints - It is indulged in by the licentious, wicked, and bestial (think rapists, child molesters, serial adulterers, exhibitionists, flashers, etc) - Inclination to another's biological sex dishonors their humanity and uses them for animal satisfaction

### Kant - The moral use of sexual desire would (a) not dishonor one's humanity, (b) indulge animal appetite, nor (c) merely use another person for one's own ends. - The only such moral use of sexual desire is monogamous marriage - Monogamy is the free exchange of one's whole self for the other's whole self - My body and soul belong to her, and her body and soul belong to me, and hence the use of them is not immoral - The union in marriage is also *more than* sexual

### Kant >I have given myself up as the property of another, but in turn I take that other as my property, and so win myself back again in winning the person whose property I have become. In this way the two persons become a unity of will.... a union of human beings. - Does this idea of oneness make sense? - Is reciprocal ownership of the other's body a suitable metaphor?

### McMurtry on Marriage - Marriage seems like good sense, the laws of God, nature, Government, and society - How could something be "divinely inspired, biologically determined, coerced, and reasoned out at the same time"?

### Four Laws - **Legal Bindingness**: Partners are required to enter a formal contractual relation that cannot be dissolved without tremendous legal effort and cost - **Monogamy**: The number of partners is two and only two, excluding wider intimacies - **Exclusiveness**: No one may participate in more than one marriage at a time - **Faithfulness:** No extramarital sexual relations are allowed

### Four Laws - Two and only two seems 'natural' to us - If it's so natural why do all the weights of cultural prescription, from criminal law to housing regulation and tax codes, reinforce it?

### Why marriage? - Except God's will, there are two claims - Marriage promotes affection -- could not any other form of union? - Marriage is the context of child-rearing -- but what if they are bad parents? What if the marriage produces no children? What if another form of parenting works just as well? - (Objection: Beware the fallacy of "nothing buttery")

### Attacks on marriage 1. Central control of marriage alienates partners 2. Restricts a child's sources of adult affection 3. Promotes conjugal insecurity, jealousy 4. Prevents the strengths of larger groupings 5. Stimulates aggression, apathy, frustration, etc. 6. Maintains capitalist status quo 7. Keeps families small and powerless 7. Creates high demand for homes and consumer goods 8. Makes it necessary for men to work ("sell their labor") 9. Limits sexual satisfaction 10. Promotes financial profit of lawyers, priests, etc.

### The Real Reason - Marriage turns people into property - All of our capitalist system "economizes" or "commodofies" non-commodities such as persons, art, beauty, friendship - Marriage promotes and maintains capitalism

### Reflections - Marriage is the natural result of falling in love - This author has never fallen in love

### Bayles, Critique of McMurtry - Current hedonism is vulgar, and rejected by Epicurus and Mill - Hedonists and libertines appeal to "autonomy" to defend pre-marital intercourse, gay liberation, no-fault divorce, open adultery, polygamy, polyamory (and even pedophilia and incest) -- just not bestiality - Is sexual satisfaction necessary or even helpful for eudaimonia and true human happiness?

### Purpose of Marriage - Procreation - Companionship - Legitimate expression of sexual desire

### Penal laws and Private Laws - Penal laws prohibit a behavior - Private laws allow a behavior (prohibit the prohibition) - Private laws legally recognize marriage, but do not ipso facto penalize any other relationship - Non-monogamous activity is not recognized as marriage but does not "deprive people of a freedom they previously had"

### State Interest in Marraige - Promoting love, trust, and friendship - Agapic love is universal; erotic love is particular or limited - Protecting children: the sociological and anecdotal data is overwhelming that two-parent male/female families are exponentially better for children

### Children 1. Population control 2. Social interest in children's potential 3. Social responsibility for children (education, etc.) 4. "Disruption of family leave contributes to juvenile delinquicy"

### The "Organic Whole" Argument - Marriage and sex is the natural result of falling in love (McMurtry has never fallen in love), and children are the natural result of marriage and sex, and society is the natural result of children. - Social health is the natural result of this organic whole - I.e., children with good childhoods with their parents who are healthy enough to contribute to society and form their own families through marriage and sexual fidelity and be good parents

### The "Organic Whole" Argument - No part of this whole can be artificially cut out from the whole organic cycle: - Sex without love is unfortunate and unhealthy (hurt feelings, STDs) - Erotic love without marriage is unfortunate (insecurity, de facto marriage, de facto 'divorce') - Marriage without children is unfortunate (infertility, immaturity) - Children without marriage is unfortunate (crime, emotional stuntedness) - And society without children is... well, extinct

### The "Meaning" Argument - By contrast, erotic love ruins all other forms of relationship except marriage; friends, family, children, animals, business relationships, government, etc. As Philip Mamalakis argues: a kiss *means* "I love you", a hug means "I have affection for you", erotic love *means* "I want to be with you forever".

### Discussion * What is the purpose of monogamy? * Is it replacable?

### Discussion * Your questions?

# LGBTQ+

## Today * Levin, Critique of Homosexual Eros * Corvino, Defense of Homosexual Eros

### Levin's Basic Argument 1. Body parts have functions (i.e,. what they are _for_) 2. The misuse of things is undesirable 3. The misuse of body parts is undesirable 2. The function genitals is (heterosexual) coitus and reproduction 3. Misuse of genitals is undesirable 4. Misuse of genitals leads to unhappiness, and frustrates natural desires

### Function 1. Teeth have a function (or range of functions) 2. Within that range, uses are acceptable (looking at a smile for aesthetic pleasure, clicking together for sound) 3. Outside that range, uses are unacceptable (wearing them as a necklace, playing Old MacDonald on his teeth) 4. Misuse leads to misery (cannot chew food, lose jaw muscle, develop gum problems)

### Function and Misuse 5. Misuse is an intrinsic bad (chewing is intrinsically good) 6. Creatures without teeth will eventually die out by natural selection 7. Creatures with teeth who do not use them are likely to have unfulfilled 'vague yearnings to chew something' 8. Misuse is not merely statistical deviation from norm 9. Misuse is not simply subjective preference

### Counterarguments to Function - Not just intentional or artifact, function is natural - Not just what an organ does, but what it is for (a heart lesion might help pump blood, but it is not _for_ pumping blood)

### Application to Sexuality - One of the functions of male parts is to introduce semen into female parts - Misuse is an intrinsic bad - Misuse is ill-advised, and likely to lead to yearning - Misuse will lead to evolutionary extinction (over time) - Misuse may have specific _exceptional_ cases with no obvious bad consequences; but generally and over time, the misery will become apparent

### Happiness - Heterosexual behavior is self-reinforcing - Homosexual behavior is self-estinguishing - Homosexuals may have rewarding lives, but they will find their lives less rewarding overall than their heterosexual counterparts

### Genes - Both health and sickness are "in the genes" - Whether homosexuality is "genetic" is irrelevant to its evaluation

### Evidence - Homosexuals are not happy, as advocates admit; Levin's argument explains this - 'Social and environmental disapproval and thus contributes to unhappiness' is a more complex explanation, and thus demands more evidence than the simple, 'homosexuality itself leads to unhappiness' explanation - Also, _why_ does society disapprove of homosexuality? - Also, if social disapproval causes unhappiness, then social approval should increase happiness - Has the remarkable change in public opinion in the U.S. increased LGBT happiness?

### Policy - If homosexuality is intrinsically bad in a prudential sense of leading to unhappiness, what is to be done? - Limit the social and legal approval of homosexuality to decrease its incidence - Legislation permitting being "out" doesn't really permit something that was forbidden (since LGBT people are already protected _as people_) but legitimates LGBT culture

## Corvino's Basic Argument 1. Is there a good reason why two men who (friendship) love each other shouldn't have (erotic) love? 2. Pleasure and union are good, unless there are countervailing bads 3. Homosexual eros is not unnatural, harmful, unbiblical, 4. Therefore, pleasure and union are good enough reasons for Tommy and Jim to have sex

### Unnatural (morally wrong) - Unnatural can mean many things: uncommon, not animal, not innate, misusing function, disgusting - Uncommon things are not necessarily bad - Super-animal things are not necessarily bad - Innate desires are not necessarily all good; lifestyle choices are not necessarily all bad - Misuse is bad, but many organs have multiple functions: reproduction as well as pleasure, expressing love, which infertile heterosexual couples and homosexual couples both enjoy -

### Harmful (prudentially bad) - Ramsey Colloquium argues that homosexuality harms the family and society - Corvino: there are exceptions to the general trends (Levin: exceptions don't disprove the trend) - More depression, suicide; the cause of higher depression, suicide etc., could be at least partly social mistreatment - Corvino: the general trends represented in the stats are not accurate - Correlation does not equal causation - Increase promiscuity and sexual license; promiscuity could be the result of denying legitimate relationship status

### AIDS - Not all homosexuals contract AIDS, but all AIDS victims contracted it from homosexual contact (directly or indirectly) - These risks accompany some kinds of sex

### Society and Children - Children might be molested by adults of either sex, and any orientation - Homosexuals don't reproduce; but neither do monks

### UnChristian - The Old Testament passages condemn same-sex eros (moral law) and unclean animals (ceremonial law) - The Bible doesn't condemn slavery, but that context has changed - The Bible condemns usury (lending on interest), but that context has changed - The context of same-sex eros were pagan, - Not saying the Bible is wrong, nor irrelevant; just that application takes work

### Moral Principle - Heterosexual eros is right and advisable, and everything else is wrong or ill-advised - If heterosexual *and* homosexual eros is right and advisable, is *anything* wrong? - Appeal to tradition isn't necessarily true

### Reflections - Merely animal, opposing animal, and transcending animal - Contingent infertility and necessary infertility - "It might require less of a miracle for a woman without a uterus to become pregnant than for Jim to become pregnant, but it would require a miracle nonetheless" - Voluntary virginity and celibacy versus infertility