Princeton Professor Robert George and Ph.D candidates Sherif Girgis and Ryan T. Anderson continue their meticulous dismantling of any intellectual justification for counterfeit "marriage." We'd blogged about this back on December 8, when their essay "What is Marriage?" first appeared.
What follows is an excerpt of their December 29 response "Marriage: Merely a Social Construct?" to Northwestern Law Professor Ronald Koppelman's response to their original essay.
"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’s actively willing the other’s good, for the other’s 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.
If we said that John and Joe, who just exploited each other, were not “real friends,” 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—a human good, for which other goods are no substitute—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."
Read the whole devastating thing.
h/t Matthew J. Franck
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6 comments:
"Marriage" is an invented word of the English language, and thus its many meanings (as any dictionary plainly reveals that the word has many meanings) are dictated by the people at large. It is not the property of the Catholic Church. It is not under the control of the Catholic Church. It is not defined in the Bible. Jesus, Moses, St. Paul and the others never once in their lives ever uttered the word "marriage", whether from their lips or in writings. The word "marriage" did not exist until just a few centuries ago. There is no Commandment that says "marriage" or any other word in the English language can or should have only one meaning. The moon and the Earth are married. Peanut butter and jelly are a popular marriage. There are marriages between corporations, between fragrances and textures, and between playing cards in the game of pinochle. There are also marriages between persons of the same sex. And the fact is that the Catholic Church has no more authority over it than she has over the game of pinochle. Whether it's the marriage of the moon and Earth, or peanut butter and jelly, or between corporations, cards, or persons of the same sex, or between a man and woman, they are ALL valid marriages. The only "inherent requirement" of the English word "marriage" is as it is with every other word in the English language: it means whatever anyone means it to mean at any time in a particular context. Nothing Prof. George says changes that fact. He admits "our use of the word" varies, and his entire argument confirms this fact. The claim that "marriage" is only between a man and a woman is no more valid than, and indeed proves, the claim that "marriage" means whatever anyone means it to mean. Prof. George can puff it up as much as he wants, but he cannot disprove this fact.
Anonymous:
Is that true only of marriage, or of other things as well, like friendship (the example given) or justice?
Gibbons in SF
It's not unique to "marriage", for so too the words "friendship" and "justice" also mean different things to different people in different circumstances. For example, who doesn't know that "friendship" on Facebook does not have the same meaning as in other contexts of our lives? Who doesn't know that the rules of "justice" in a Milton Bradley game are not the rules of justice in other areas of our lives? You and Prof. George can argue all you want over what's the "true" meaning of "marriage" and "friendship", but it's just more game playing as no argument changes (1) the FACT that different people in different circumstances use the words differently, and (2) that the Church "speaks all tongues, understands and accepts all tongues in her love, and so supersedes the divisiveness of Babel." These are facts. We do not respect the truth when we do not respect the facts.
Prof. George plainly states: "the function of man-made objects [like the word 'marriage'] and processes [like civil marriage] is imposed on them by the human beings who use them". Indeed, they've even had elections where they asked voters to vote on it by popular opinion! Thus, if Prof. George means "marriage" to refer to only a particular and limited kind of relationship, then that is what Prof. George means it to mean, just as John and Joe and the rest of society can mean them to mean whatever they mean them to mean.
But Anonymous, you are discussing words, not the realities that words symbolize. Are you saying that there is no reality beyond words? Reflect: if, as you say, the Church "speaks all tongues, understands and accepts all tongues in her love, and so supersedes the divisiveness of Babel" does that not mean that the Church has moved beyond language to the reality language attempts to define? And it is the Church which says the reality of marriage is the reality Professor George articulates, the union of one man and one woman.
Gibbons in SF
Come on now, Anonymous. You've deliberately inserted your own bracketed terms into the Professor's statement to attempt to reverse his meaning. You write:
"the function of man-made objects [like the word 'marriage'] and processes [like civil marriage] is imposed on them by the human beings who use them".
Here's what the Professor actually said:
"Natural organs and organic processes are unlike man-made objects and artificial processes, which retain their dynamism toward certain goals only so long as we use them for those goals—which in turn presupposes that we think them capable of actually realizing those goals. That is, the function of man-made objects and processes is imposed on them by the human beings who use them. Thus, a piece of metal becomes a knife—an artifact whose function is to cut—only when we intend to use it for cutting. When it is no longer capable of cutting and we no longer intend to use it for cutting, it is no longer really a knife.
The same does not hold for the union between a man and a woman’s human bodies, however, because natural organs are what they are (and thus have their natural dynamism toward certain functions) independently of what we intend to use them for and even of whether the function they serve can be brought to completion. Thus, in our example, a stomach remains a stomach—an organ whose natural function is to play a certain role in digestion—regardless of whether we intend it to be used that way and even of whether digestion will be successfully completed. Something analogous is true of sexual organs with respect to reproduction."
Gibbons in SF
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