Does philosophy have anything to contribute to contemporary debates about the meaning, value, and proper definition of marriage? Can those who defend the traditional view of marriage as an intrinsically valuable union of sexually complementary spouses, or those who reject the traditional view in favor of alternatives that would recognize same-sex, polygamous, or polyamorous unions as “marriages,” cogently defend their positions philosophically? Do defenders of the traditional view contradict their own principles when they accept as marriages the unions of couples who are physiologically incapable of conceiving children? And do supporters of same-sex marriage endorse a basic understanding of marriage that removes any ground of moral principle for opposing polygamy or polyamory? In this issue of The Monist, philosophers are invited to consider whether marriage should be regarded as an institution worth preserving in any form. Some will attack, and others will defend, the proposition that marriage is intrinsically heterosexual and monogamous. Some will argue that the intelligibility of marriage is linked to its providing a uniquely apt context for human procreation and the rearing of children. Others will insist that the intelligibility of marriage is linked to procreation, if at all, only contingently. Some will suggest that marriage is a comprehensive sharing of life (emotional, rational, spiritual) that is necessarily founded on bodily (biological) unity; others will depict marriage as essentially an emotional or spiritual unity, one whose meaning does not depend on how, or even whether, the spouses engage in sexual relations with each other.
Table of Contents:
Cass R. Sunstein and Richard H. Thaler
Privatizing Marriage
John Finnis
Marriage: A Basic and Exigent Good
Adèle Mercier
On the Nature of Marriage
Patrick Lee
Marriage, Procreation, and Same-Sex Unions
Adèle Mercier: Reply to Lee
Patrick Lee: Rejoinder to Mercier
Jeremy R. Garrett
History, Tradition, and the Normative Foundations of Civil Marriage
Alex Rajczi
A Populist Argument for Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage
Bryan R. Weaver and Fiona Woollard
Marriage and the Norm of Monogamy
Mary Catherine Geach
Lying with the Body
Andrea C. Westlund
The Reunion of Marriage
Brook Sadler
Re-thinking Civil Unions and Same-Sex Marriage
Gerard Bradley
What’s in a Name?