Socrates Cafe Summary: Who Should Not Marry?

Fellow Philosophers -

My thanks to everyone who participated in Wednesday evening's meeting. Here are some highlights from the discussion:

1. QUESTION: At the start of the meeting, each of the participants offered an initial answer to the question: "Who Should Not Marry?" The following prohibitions were suggested by the 19 participants with regards to legal or civil marriages: underage (8), close relatives (3), same sex (2), those already married (2), group (2). Five of the participants said marriages should not be regulated by the government.

2. DEFINITIONS: Participants were first asked to define what is meant by "Should Not." Since our group has already discussed a number of questions that included the word should (e.g. "Should Arizona legalize prostitution?", "Who should be president?", "What should you do for your country?"), the veterans in the group suggested that it be defined as unacceptable under at least one of the five ethical approaches: Utilitarian, Rights, Fairness, Common Good, Virtue. For details on the approaches, read "A Framework for Thinking Ethically" at http://www.scu.edu/et...

Defining the term "Marry" or "Marriage" was much more difficult and took up most of the meeting time. The following definitions were suggested: a) Limited Liability Corporation (LLC). b) Legal partnership. c) Public declaration of a private association. d) Binding union. e) Structure for creating family, raising children, and establishing property rights. f) State of being united to a person of the opposite sex as husband or wife. g) A permanent, exclusive, freely willed, total union, intended for procreation. The LLC suggestion was withdrawn after the lawyer in the group explained that a legal partnership could be made between more than two people and that it more closely resembled the rights and obligations in a civil marriage. The common thread in the remaining suggestions was that of a contract to associate. The argument among the participants was over the terms of the contract (e.g. did the association have to be oriented toward raising children and intended to persist until "death do us part"?). The group was not able to agree on what should be included in the terms of a marriage contract.

Given the above definitions for each term, the question "Who Should Not Marry?" was understood to mean "What public declarations of private partnerships are unacceptable under at least one of the five ethical approaches?"

3. ASSUMPTIONS: Participants offered the following reasons for why the question "Who Should Not Marry?" was being asked: a) Marriage has a major impact on society's welfare. b) To evaluate the legitimacy of government restrictions on who can marry.

Participants were then asked by the moderator to suggest propositions that if true would help answer the question. The propositions offered were: a) Government does not have the authority to regulate marriage, which would suggest that anyone should be allowed to marry. b) Gender is ambiguous, which would suggest that gender shouldn't be considered in regulating marriage. c) Contracts should not be fraudulent, which would suggest that those who can not freely and honestly accept the obligations of a marriage contract should not marry.

4. OBJECTIVES: As embodied in the paraphrased question (See DEFINITIONS), the objective is to identify which marriages would be unacceptable under at least one of the five ethical approaches.

5. OPTIONS: Since we were running out of time, the moderator asked the group to consider which of the following marriages would be unethical: a) Same sex. b) Polygamous. c) Incestuous or closely related. d) Group. e) Underage. f) Interspecific (e.g. human to animal). A participant asked that ambiguous genders (e.g. hermaphrodites) also be considered an option.

6. COST BENEFIT: At the beginning of the discussion, one participant argued against group marriage because it would be too difficult to establish property and custody rights should one member of the group decide to divorce.

7. ANSWER: At the end of the meeting, each of the participants were asked to list which of the options above should not marry. The votes were Same sex (0), Polygamous (1), Incestuous (9), Group (2), Underage (17), Interspecific (18). From the final answers, there was near unanimous agreement that anyone who couldn't willingly enter into a marriage contract should not marry.

You can post your comments to this discussion on the Message Board under the topic "Socrates Cafe Summary: Who Should Not Marry?" at http://philosophy.mee... You can also suggest a question for a future meeting by posting it on the message board under the topic "What Question Should We Discuss?"

The question for the next meeting on Wednesday, May 28th, will be "How Should Children Be Educated?" You can read an event description below my signature and RSVP here http://philosophy.mee...

Hope to see you there.

Dave

How Should Children Be Educated? - May 28th
According to a report from the 2003 National Household Education Surveys Program, about 2.2 percent or 1 million of America's children were schooled at home. This represented a 29 percent increase from the estimate in 1999. Of the reasons given for homeschooling by a sample of the parents, 85% cited concerns over school safety, 68% felt they could do a better job, and 72% wanted to provide religious and moral instruction.

At the next Socrates Cafe, we will discuss the question, "How Should Children Be Educated?" How much control should parents have over what their children learn? Should there be national standards? What skills and knowledge should children learn and what's the best way to teach them? To prepare for the meeting, read the Wikipedia entry on the Philosophy of Education at http://en.wikipedia.o...

Only 20 people can attend. RSVP now at http://philosophy.mee...

This leaves out some huge issues: 1. Gov't regulation of STDs by forbidding marriage, 2. Gov't enforcement of support rules by forbidding marriage or by requiring reversible sterilization until all support obligations are paid current (ie - If you can't feedum, don't breedum.), and 3. forbidding marriage for various other reasons, as the military academies used to do or high school athletic association rules, etc.