har un Justice from Michael sandle we ended last time talking about the narrative conception of the South we were testing The Narrative conception of the self and the idea of obligations of solidarity or membership that did not flow from consent that claimed us for reasons unrelated to a contract or an agreement or a choice we may have made and we were debating among ourselves whether there are any obligations of this kind or whether all apparent obl ation of solidarity and membership can be translated into consent or reciprocity or a universal Duty that we owe persons
quate persons and then there were those who defended the idea of loyalty and of patriotism so the idea of loyalty and of solidarity and of membership gathered a certain kind of intuitive moral force in our discussion and then as we concluded we considered what seems to be a pretty powerful counter example to that idea namely the film of those Southern segregationists in the 1950s and they talked all about their Traditions their history the way in which their identities were bound up with their life history do you remember that and what flowed from that history from
that narrative sense of identity for those Southern segregationists they said we have to defend our way of life is this a fatal or a decisive objection to the idea of the narrative conception of the self that's the question we were left with what I would like to do today is to advance an argument and see what you make of it and let me tell you what that argument is I would like to defend the narrative conception of the person as against the voluntarist conception I would like to defend the idea that there are obligations of
solidarity or membership then I want to suggest that there being such obligations lends Force to the idea when we turn to justice that arguments about Justice can't be detached cannot be detached after all from questions of the good but I want to distinguish two different ways in which Justice might be tied to the good and argue for one of them now the voluntarist conception of the person of cont en rolls we saw was powerful and liberating a further appeal is its Universal aspiration the idea of treating persons as persons without prejudice without discrimination and I
think that's what led some among us to argue that okay maybe there are obligations of membership but they are always subordinate they must always be subordinate to the duties that we have to human beings as such the universal duties but is that right if our encompassing loyalty should always take precedence over more particular ones then the distinction between friends and strangers should ideally be overcome our special concern for the welfare of friends would be a kind of prejudice a measure of our distance from Universal human concern but if you look closely at that idea what
kind of a moral Universe what kind of moral imagination would that lead you to the enlightenment philosopher montue gives perhaps the most powerful and I think the ultimately the most honest account of where this Relentless universalizing tendency leads the moral imagination here's how monq put it he said a truly virtuous man would come to the aid of the most distant stranger as quickly as to his own friend and then he adds listen to this if men were perfectly virtuous they wouldn't have friends but it's difficult to imagine a world in which persons were so virtuous
that they had no friends only a universal disposition to friendliness the problem isn't simply that such a world would be difficult to bring about that it's unrealistic the deeper problem is that such a world would be difficult to recognize as a human world the love of humanity is a noble sentiment but most of the time we live our lives by smaller solidarities this may reflect certain limits to the bounds of moral sympathy but more important it reflects the fact that we learn to love Humanity not in general but through its particular Expressions so these are
some considerations they're not knockdown arguments but moral philosophy can't offer knockdown arguments but considerations of the kind that we've been discussing and arguing about all along well suppose that's right one way of assessing whether this picture of the person and of obligation is right is to see what are its consequences for justice and here's where it confronts a serious problem and here we go back to our Southern segregationists they felt the weight of History do we admire their character these segregationists who wanted to preserve their way of life are we committed to saying if we
accept the idea of solidarity membership are we committed to saying that Justice is tied to the good in the sense that Justice means whatever a particular Community or tradition says it means including those Southern segregationists here it's important to distinguish two different ways in which Justice can be tied to the good one is a relativist way that's the way that says to think about rights to think about Justice look to the values that happen to Prevail in any given community at any given time don't judge them by some outside standard but instead conceive Justice as
a matter of being faithful to the shared understandings of a particular tradition but there's a problem with this way of tying Justice to The Good the problem is that it makes Justice wholly conventional a product of circumstance and this deprives justice of its critical character but there is a second way in which Justice can be tied with or bound up with the good on this second non- relativist way of linking Justice with conceptions of the good principles of Justice depend for their justification not on the values that happen to Prevail at any given moment in
a certain place but instead on the moral Worth or the intrinsic good of the ends rights serve on this non- relativist view the case for recognizing a right depends on showing that it honors or advances some important human good this second way of tying Justice to the good is not strictly speaking communitarian if by communitarian you mean just giving over to a particular Community the definition of justice now I would like to suggest that of these two different ways of linking Justice to The Good the first is insufficient because the first leaves Justice the creature
of convention it doesn't give us enough moral resources to respond to those Southern segregationists who invoke their way of life their Traditions their way of doing things but if Justice is bound up with the good in a non- relativist way there's a big challenge a big question to answer how can we reason about the good what about the fact that people hold different conceptions of the good different ideas about the purposes of key social institutions different ideas about what social goods and human goods are worthy of honor and recognition we live in a pluralist society
people disagree about the good that's one of the incentive to try to find principles of justice and rights that don't depend on any particular ends or purposes or Goods so is there a way to reason about the good before addressing that question I want to address a slightly easier question is it necessary is it unavoidable when arguing about Justice to argue about the good and my answer to that question is yes it's unavoidable it's necessary so for the remainder of today I want to take up I want to try to advance that claim that reasoning
about the good about purposes and ends is an unavoidable feature of arguing about Justice it's necessary let me see if I can establish that and for that I'd like for us to begin a discussion of same-sex marriage now same-sex marriage draws on implicates deeply contested and controversial ideas morally and religiously and so there's a powerful incentive to embrace a conception of Justice or of rights that doesn't require the society as a whole to pass judgment one way or another on those hotly contested moral and religious questions about the moral permissibility of homosexuality about the proper
ends of marriage as a social institution so clearly if there's an incentive to resolve this question to Define people's rights in a way that doesn't require the society as a whole to sort out those moral and religious disputes that would be very attractive so what I would like to do now is to see using the same-sex marriage case whether it's possible to detach one's views about the moral permissibility of homosexuality and about the purpose the end of marriage to detach those questions from the question of whether the state should recognize same-sex marriage or not so
let's begin I would like to Begin by hearing the arguments of those who believe that there should be no same-sex marriage but that the state should only recognize marriage between a man and a woman do I have volunteers I had two there were two people I asked people who had voiced their views already on the Justice blog Mark L and Ryan mcaffrey where are you okay uh Mark and where's Ryan all right let's go first to Mark I have sort of a theological understanding of um the purpose of Sex and the purpose of marriage and
I think that for people like myself who are a Christian and also a Catholic the purpose of sex is one for its procreative um uses and two for a unifying purpose between a man and a woman within the within the institution of marriage you have a certain conception of the purpose or the tilos yeah of human sexuality which is bound up with procreation right as well as Union yeah and the essence of marriage the purpose of marriage as a social institution is to give expression to that tilos and to honor that purpose namely the procreative
purpose of marriage is that a fair summary of your view yeah where is Ryan go ahead do you agree more or less with Mark's reasons yes I agree um uh I think that uh the ideal of marriage is involves procreation and it's fine that you know homosexuals would go off and um and and cohabitate with each other but that the government doesn't have a responsibility to encourage that all right so the government should not encourage homosexual Behavior by conferring the recognition of marriage yeah it would be wrong to Outlaw it but encouraging it is not
necessary who has a reply yes Hannah I'd just like to ask a question to Mark um let's say you got married to a woman you did not have sex with her before marriage and then when you became married it became evident that you were an infertile couple do you think that it should be illegal for you to engage in sex if you if children will not result from that act yeah I I think that it is moral and that's why I gave the the two-fold purpose so like a woman say I think older couples can
get married someone a woman who's Beyond um who's already had menopause and who can't have a child because I think that sex has these it has purposes Beyond procreation I hate to be UNC but have you ever engaged in masturbation well all right you don't so you don't have to answer that you can yeah I think I I I all right just a minute no right make your make your I'd like to respond to that no I think wait look we've we've done pretty well over a whole semester and we're doing pretty well now dealing
with questions that most people think can't even be discussed in a university setting and Hannah you've got you have a powerful Point make that point as a general argument rather than rather than as an interrogative but make the point what's the what's the principle that you're appealing what's the argument you have in mind all right well biblically put it in the third person okay rather than rather than rather than in the second person make make the argument go ahead okay biblically masturbation or onism is not permissible because it's um you know spilling your seed on
the earth when it's not going to result in the birth of a child but what I'm saying is you know you're saying that sex you know there's something wrong with sex if it doesn't produce children or reinforce the marriage bond right but then how can you say that there's something wrong that you know masturbation is permissible if masturbation obviously is not going to you know create a child yeah I think marriage is society's way to create this separate institution where they say this is what we hold as a virtue yes every day we fall short
and people fall short in so many different other ways but I think that if you personally fall short in some moral sphere as we all do that doesn't take the right of you to argue all right I want you you to stay there I want to bring in some other voices and we'll continue stay there if you would go ahe go ahead I think that the response to the masturb tell us my name is Steve Steve go all right um the response to the masturbation issue is uh it's not something that's permissible I don't think
anyone will argue that that homosexual sex is impermissible it's just that Society has no place in letting you marry yourself if masturbation is something that you do well all right [Applause] Hannah all right Steve has dra all right that's a good argument Steve has drawn our attention to the fact that there are two issues here one of them is the moral permissibility of various practices the other is the fit between certain practices whatever their moral permissibility with the honor or recognition that the state should Accord in allowing marriage so Steve has a pretty good okay
counterargument what do you say to Steve um well I think that it's clear that human sexuality is something that is you know inherent in I believe most people and it's not something you can avoid and masturbation I mean yeah you can't marry yourself but I don't think that takes away from the fact that you know homosexuals are people too and I just I can't I can't understand why they wouldn't be able to marry each other if you want to marry yourself I mean I I don't know if you can legally do that that's fine but
I don't wait wait wa wait wait now here we're deciding we here we're deliberating as if legislators what the law should be okay so you said Steve that's fine does that mean as a legislator you would vote for a law of marriage that would be so broad that it would let people marry themselves well I mean that's really Beyond The Pale of like anything that would really happen but I don't think that but in principle yeah principal yes yeah sure I mean if Steve wants to marry himself I'm not going to stop him I I
think and you would confer State recognition on that solo marriage sure and while we're at it what about consensual polygamous marriages I I actually think that if the male and the female are like if the wives and the man and the husband or the husbands and the wife are consenting it should be permissible who else there I know there are a lot of people who yes okay down here stand up and tell us your name uh Victoria Victoria so we're talking about the theological reasoning here for marriage but I think the problem is that we're
talking about it within the Catholic Viewpoint whereas the theological and the point to marriage for another religion or someone who's an atheist could be completely different and the government doesn't have a right to impose the theological reasoning for cathol Catholicism on everyone in the state which is what my problem is with not allowing same-sex marriage because I mean your beliefs are your beliefs and that's fine but civil union is not marriage within the Catholic church and the state has a right to recognize a civil union between whoever it wants but it does not have a
right to impose the beliefs of a certain minority or majority or whoever it is based on a religion within our state all right Victoria good a question do you think the state should recognize same-sex marriage or just same-sex civil unions as something short of marriage well I think that the state doesn't have a right to recognize it as marriage within a church because that is not their place but whereas civil union I see civil union as essentially the same thing except not under a religion and the state has a right to recognize a civil union
all right so Victoria's argument is that the state should not try to decide the question of what the tilos of marriage is that's only something that religious communities can decide um who else um my point is I don't see why uh we feel like State should recognize marriages at all uh so I'm like one of these seven the people who voted State should not recognize any marriages because I believe it is like it is a union between a male and a female or two males or two females but there's no reason to like ask state
to give permission to me to unite myself and some might say that like if State recognizes these marriages it will help children it will have a b binding effect but in reality I don't think it actually has a binding effect tell us your name cesan so Victorian sesan's comments differ from earlier parts of the conversation they say the state shouldn't be in the business of honoring or recognizing or affirming any particular TS or purpose of marriage or of human sexuality and ceson is among those who says therefore maybe the state should get out of the
business of recognizing marriage at all here's the question unless you adopt sesan's position no State recognition of any kind of marriage is it possible to choose between to decide the question of same-sex marriage without taking a stand on the moral and religious controversy over the proper Los of marriage thank you very much to all of you who have participated we'll pick this up next time you did a great job when we first came came together some 13 weeks ago I tried to warn you that once the familiar turns strange once we begin to reflect on
our circumstance it's never quite the same again I hope you have by now experienced at least a little of this unease because this is the tension that animates critical reflection and political Improvement and maybe even the more life as well [Music] [Music] [Music]
