Why I support SSM, for my conservative friends.

[ford_prefect42]

On my last post, a lot of people made the completely valid point that SSM is a serious erosion of the institution of marriage. Specifically, it moves the focus of the institution from procreation and continuity of inheritance and makes the institution of marriage about "love". Romantic "Love" being a notably fickle beast, one can reliably predict

Comments

[prester_scott]

I thank you for the compliment and for your kind and respectful treatment in all you've said in these few posts of yours. I hope that I have been no less than respectful to you. I take your position and your worldview seriously. In fact, that's what I want to write more about.

Although I did quote the Bible (and not in the stereotypical manner), I tried to be careful not to lean too hard on God as, as you say, an anthropomorphic higher power. Eternal truths need not have a person behind them. There are not many atheists who embrace the idea of Natural Law, but there are a few, so it is a tenable position at least on its face. There are some similarities with your claimed utilitarianism in that there will always be a degree of uncertainty, broadness, flexibility, and provisionality to whatever specific natural laws we posit. But the important difference is that the natural law is rooted in the warp and woof of reality itself and cannot be altogether changed at will. There are truths and we must bow before them. In utilitarianism, pushed far enough, ultimately all truth and all law bows before us. That puts us back on the same old Romans 1 slide, though maybe slower than the nihilists and pomos.

So the question you must ask yourself is, how flexible is reality with regard to SSM? And if pulling on that thread starts unraveling some other seams, then follow it back as far as it goes and consider the "workability" of the larger system.

And then there is the question that (IMO) is fatal to utilitarianism: why is the end toward which things should "work" a good one? What are your axiomatic moral values and where did you get them? Natural Law can answer that question to an extent.

ETA: I do not wish to imply that I expect full answers to all the above in a prompt reply.

[ford_prefect42]

This has had me pondering the space between utilitarianism and absolutism quite a bit. I really don't consider myself a utilitarian, despite my frequent comments about "What works". It's always "What works" at bringing about results that conform to what I perceive to be fairly absolute moral principles (Which I am now recognizing are somewhat more flexible than I might have thought), and often, it's "What works" without violating any absolute principles in the process (some ends justify some means, but other means are unjustifiable). Ultimately, utilitarian concepts are transient, depending on the conditions, resources, etcetera. Policy is utilitarian, but certain broader concepts are less negotiable (slavery, for instance, is wrong, regardless of utilitarianism).

So, the question of moment is, are sexual mores absolute principles, or utilitarian whims? There's a lot of information suggesting both. The spread of disease through promiscuity has always been a strong supporting fact for sexual mores as likely non-discardable, however, the advent of antibiotics, antivirals, and condoms has created a circumstance where people can have virtually unlimited partners and remain healthy. Similarly, the need for multiple parents (nuclear or extended families) has, for a long time in our culture been a fact that supported regimenting sexual congress. However, examining other cultures, particularly ones that don't practice our marriage customs creates some question about that. Particularly, extended families need not actually include the family of the father, so long as a strong matriarchal line is kept (IE, the mothers family is heavily involved in child-raising, you see it in island and some tribal cultures). So there's room for doubt about the role of chastity (meaning assigning a specific role to sex, rather than meaning not having it) as a strict principle. Maybe all along, it was a utilitarian principle that masqueraded as an absolute!

It's easy also to point out that cultures practicing monogamy have been more successful than other forms, however, remember that the cultures that practice monogamy are temperate agrarian cultures, that's a condition that isn't available to desert dwellers or cold climates for instance. So in this case, the marriage form and the success might share a cause rather than being directly linked.

So, basically, there is room for questioning whether or not heterosexual pair-bonding falls in that category of "the eternal", or whether it's a transient utilitarian thing. Heterosexual sex is the only form that can produce offspring, that's a fact, but we've also popularized adoption fairly recently. So, there's reason to believe that (like not eating pork), sexual mores might have been utilitarian constructs, rather than absolute principles.