In last Monday’s Austin Daily Herald (that’s Austin, MN), Mr. Wallace Alcorn, Ph.D., historian of religion and Bible expositor, wrote this a priori argument against same-sex marriage, where he argues that it is “ontologically impossible.” Here’s the argument:
Nothing has meaning, much less existence, if it does not have properties that belong to the universe of the thing. With only particulars and no universals, the thing does not belong to any broader thing and is betrayed as a notion and not a concept.
A red ball possesses the properties of red and round. Calling a green round object or a red square object a red ball does not make it a red ball. Calling same-sex “marriage” does not make it marriage.
The universe in this philosophic consideration is marriage, which is–by its very definition and essence–the complimentary wedding of male and female. Other properties of this particular can be health, ethnic, and intelligence. All such are non-essentials (the term is “accidentals”) and can vary greatly and still be marriage. This is so because these are either consistent with or indifferent to the essence of the univesal. In contrast, same-sex by its very nature is dissonant and incongruous with the essence of marriage…
Without such essential properties as sex that is compatible and complimentary, an alleged marriage is is not marriage at all. Without this, the relationship might be a beautiful and wonderful socially or even domestically–but it is not marriage.
I have been reluctant to offer this line of reasoning, because following it requires some knowledge of the terms and categories of technical philosophy (this, without also showing the invalidity of same-sex marriage by its violation of the laws of identity and contradiction.)…
This argument is, of course, just the tired old standby that same-sex marriage is impossible by definition, dressed up with some terminology to make it look all smart, so us dummies that don’t know philosophy can be wowed.
Let’s unpack the terminology. The punch is in the first stanza here:
Nothing has meaning, much less existence, if it does not have properties that belong to the universe of the thing. With only particulars and no universals, the thing does not belong to any broader thing and is betrayed as a notion and not a concept.
First, Alcorn is running together metaphysical and semantic notions. “Meaning” is about how we understand things, while “existence” is (probably) not. He’s saying that particulars have to, by nature, belong to universals. If you think that there are no such things as natural kinds, that all concepts are man-made, then this is simple nonsense. Even if you think that, e.g. the number 5 is a natural kind, meaning that we might call it different things (cinco, or the binary number 101), but it’s still a real thing, and not a matter of convention whether one instance of five is identified with another instance of five, then it’s a much bigger stretch to say that all concepts correspond to natural kinds. There are a number of social relations that we could arguably say are natural kinds: sex, possibly cohabitation (though “habitation” has a social component built in… how much time do you have to spend together to be “living together”)… but marriage is pretty obviously a social convention. Now, Alcorn, I’m sure doesn’t believe this; it’s not a convention, but a creation of God, and so is a natural kind. But one can’t argue this point a priori, i.e. based on the pure fact that we couldn’t understand “marriage” unless it were a natural kind. That would imply, again, that every concept is a natural kind.
Alcorn distinguishes a “concept” (presumably a legitimate universal, i.e. an idea conforming to a natural kind) from a “notion” (which would I guess be purely psychological), but these are not the only options: social convention is a fully sufficient explanation for a concept’s having objectivity (meaning that we as individuals can’t change it based on our whims). A dollar bill is a dollar bill, and you might think it has as its essential properties its being worth a certain monetary amount, but if the government changes the currency, then it wouldn’t be worth anything any more, yet it would still be a dollar bill. Or, maybe we’d find that our socially constructed concept of “dollar bill” was ambiguous, that it was defined by a collection of properties, which could not be clearly divided into “essential” and “accidental.” I suggest reading some Wittgenstein to sort this out.
Philosophers disagree about the status of universals, and about whether any properties are essential, whether that distinction between essential and accidental properties has any merit at all, and if it does, what it actually amounts to metaphysically. To simply say that “philosophy” shows that Alcorn’s argument is correct is ignorant in the extreme. It relies on the premises that:
1. All concepts involve essential properties for us to identify them at all (this is probably true for mathematics, but dubious for other concepts).
2. Marriage is an institution that has a determinate essence (it must therefore be natural, not something that societies make up).
3. Heterosexuality is part of that determinate essence (as opposed to affection, or compatibility, or love, or the ability to raise children).
All this begs the question; #3 is in fact the conclusion he’s trying to argue for, and he ends up taking it as a premise (#1 and #2 are just necessary to justify the terminology of “determinate essence” in #3).
Looking at the actual wording of his conclusion:
Without such essential properties as sex that is compatible and complimentary, an alleged marriage is is not marriage at all.
This would rule out couplings between people biologically incapable of sex (sorry, injured war veterans!), those too old to have sex (sorry grandpa!), or those who choose not to have sex but want to be together for other types of support (sorry, virgin Mary!).
Alcorn’s comment about “the laws of identity and contradiction,” along with his mention of Aristotle, make me very much suspect that he is a victim of Ayn Rand’s epistemology, which pretends to derive political, aesthetic, and moral truths from the laws of reason themselves. Sorry, folks. It doesn’t work. Please go read some more philosophy books.
-Mark Linsenmayer
(And no, I’m not going to go pick a fight with every stupid editorial, but philosophy should not be abused in this way.)
Mark, I agree with your conclusion, but I want to make sure I understand how Alcorn gets it wrong. I do remain persuaded that marriage ought to have some essential element, or else the word loses all meaning.
So, for example, I’m inclined to think one can’t marry a Barbie doll and a Ken doll, and call that “marriage.” Nor, by the same token, can a person marry a doll, (or a frog, or an infant) and call that “marriage.” It feels wrong to consider these unions eligible for marriage. I suppose I believe this because I consider two “essential elements” of marriage to be:
(1) a couple of human adults voluntarily deciding to marry, and
(2) a social institution (church or state) which “ratifies” the union
So, my disagreement with Alcorn is not so much that I believe marriage has no essential elements. I simply disagree with Alcorn as to what constitutes those elements. The essential element obviously isn’t “sex,” for all the reasons you pointed out. (And, of course, even accepting his terms, plenty of sex is likely taking place within same-sex marriages. Alcorn’s definition of “sex” apparently requires an act between different genders.) But I do feel the term “marriage” essentially requires (a) consenting adult humans, and (b) institutional ratification.
But am I just avoiding the issue? That there is no essential element to marriage whatsoever? That the rules of the language game are slowly changing as to which unions are to be recognized as marriage? That I’ve had my aspect-dawning moment, but Alcorn hasn’t? (Sorry to Wittgenstein-ize here, but if feels apt.)
Are you inclined to think there’s no such thing as essential properties? Or that there’s no such thing as essential properties in the context of social institutions? That what Alcorn means by “ontologically impossible” really means “I choose not to recognize this union”?
Hi, Daniel,
I was trying to be neutral re. essential qualities while saying that he’s wrong in assuming that there have to be some.
I do following Wittgenstein in thinking that use precedes attributions of essentiality. Both the qualities you cite as essential and the ones he does have certainly been paradigmatic qualities of marriage through its history, and to clarify which actually are essential is to reform it, to make it more abstract than it really appears in use. However, if we have a purpose in doing this, i.e. to legislate, then sure, we can try to draw the lines. But when we do this, we’re advancing a political agenda through a creative act, not just reading off the a priori concept, as it were. The concept undetermines the essential qualities you might pick, but that doesn’t mean that anything goes. We end up backing up and asking “why do we have this institution anyway?” and trying to clarify the definition in a way that makes sense of this motivation. That’s what you’ve done, and I think your argument is fine. However, it still leaves open the question re. whether further “clarification” (i.e. change) in the concept occur at some future time that would be surprising to you.
That makes sense. It’s “essential” that a bishop move diagonally in chess, but only if we’re to play chess the way we currently do. There’s no particular reason we must play chess the way we do. We didn’t discover any “essential” rules of chess so much as define them into existence.
You forgot to include his narrow definition of ‘sex’. His argument assumes that same-sex couples can’t by definition ‘marry’ but it also assumes that they can’t have sex, because his implicit definition of sex is between a vagina and a penis.
So it sounds as if Alcorn has a Platonic concept of language. There is a Marriage “out there” to which the particulars marriages must ascribe, rather than thinking that the term merely generalizes the particulars. The definition of mammal had to change when as we discovered more animals that did not fit the generalization we created, but Alcorn doesn’t seem to think that the definition of marriage should have to adhere to the same criteria.
Mark,
From the Alcorn’s quote, I’d imagine he believes social convention to be in a causal relation to nature, which in turn reflects, and participates in, universal, essential, ideas. I’m sure a competent Platonist, with a little more time and space, could flesh this out in much more depth and persuasiveness then he did, and I’m sure I’d still find it unconvincing, but I don’t understand the contempt you express.
Your emotion seems more motivated by politics then by your professed desire to protect philosophy from abuse. You may disagree with Platonism, but that’s not going to motivate you to do something as comical as accusing a Platonist of ‘abuse of philosophy.’
Being up front about his Platonism would be OK, but saying that his verdict is the dictate of “philosophy” itself, as if philosophers were in agreement (or maybe this is from the days of calling Aristotle “The Philosopher”), and wielding this like a club in a non-philosophical publication to try to cow those less educated… that’s the abuse of philosophy.
Well I look forward to Ayn Rand being torn a new one, since the creep is mentioned in this post about this anti-gay marriage argument. Because for me what is interesting is that such an issue is paid so much attention to when, frankly speaking, there’s maybe in my not humble view, hundreds of more important matters. I also look forward to the discussion on the philosophical foundations of the Constitution -which both “parties” really have pretty much abandoned, by the way (a fact the corporate media election show and pseudo-“debates” will pretty much be entirely unconcerned with unlike the deep national and global importance of the right of American homosexuals to ruin their lives like straight people and get married).
Gay marriage advocates make the argument that universal human rights, the liberal enlightenment concept behind the Constitution, are being violated when the state doesn’t recognize gay marriage. The argument is also made that the universal human right of equal protection under the law, which is specifically spelled out in the constitution, also is being violated when the state does not recognize gay marriage. So, for many, the issue of gay marriage goes to the heart of the philosophy behind the constitution as well as to the constitution itself. If they are right, then this certainly should be a very important issue for everyone. If they are wrong, this does not make their strong sense of grievance less deserving of respect and response.
For me, personally, I see no harm in legally changing the definition of marriage to include same gender couples, because I do not believe homosexuality is immoral, and certainly find arguments that society and the institution of marriage itself would be harmed by the redefinition to be unconvincing.
However, I do think the debate has become almost completely muddled (if not dishonest) from both sides, which is to be expected in political struggles. It would seem that on a philosophy forum, every attempt would be made to lay aside political emotion and address the arguments on their own merits as much as possible.
I attended the wedding of a lesbian friend of my wife almost two decades ago when the idea of state recognition of the marriage wasn’t nearly the issue in my state that it has become. Was this really a ‘marriage’? Well, according to the definition that Daniel Horne gives above, it was, since it was recognized by the church it was taking place in as well as by the two women making the commitment. These sorts of marriages have been taking place in every state in the union for decades; no one is prosecuted and taken to jail. Gay marriage, per this definition, one which has been recognized by gay marriage advocates for decades, is not banned in the USA. However, advocates for legal redefinition of marriage to include same gender couples have managed successfully (I think for the most part deliberately and dishonestly) to get the issue publicly framed as if it were. This is demonstrated by your oft repeated statement that gay people should have a right to have their lives ruined by marriage like everyone else; the fact being that gay people have been ruining their lives with marriage for decades now.
If the question is: is there a universal human right for two same gender people to make a loving life commitment, in a public ceremony, sanctified and ratified by their religious or social institution, witnessed by their friends and family, and call this ‘marriage’, I would agree that there is. I suspect most people on the anti side of this current ‘gay marriage’ debate would agree as well. It is certainly not a controversial since people have been doing it.
However, the actual question is is there a universal human right for any person or group of people to have their own definition of a social or cultural institution, such as ‘marriage’, codified in the state legal definition of that institution, specifically and particularly, when it changes the traditionally legal definition of the term in such a fundamental way. The question is not should, broadly speaking, the legal definition be changed, but, specifically, is someone’s universal human rights violated if it is not changed to include their definition. Advocates of state recognition of gay marriage almost always argue as if they would answer this in the affirmative. Yet, they know full well that any changes in definition that includes same gender marriage will still be an exclusive definition which leaves out those people who engage in polygamous commitments, sibling sexual commitments, and any other host of loving commitments that could be made by consenting adults–including such commitments as those star trek poly amorous group marriages. They are not arguing that the legal definition of marriage should be changed to mean whatever any group of consenting adults says it means, but are only arguing that it should be changed to include their definition. To base such an advocacy on an appeal to universal human rights seems to be confused at best, and deliberately dishonest at worst. To use the words of Mark, it seems a club used on the less educated or those less equipped to think critically.
On a somewhat different note, I also find the constant public characterization of those who are against the legal redefinition of marriage as hateful and bigoted, simply by virtue of being opposed to the redefinition, to be distasteful in its zealotry and extremism. Such extremism, which marginalizes traditional people as hateful and bigoted simply by virtue of being traditional, is not conducive to a pluralistic society.
Again, from what I have said, it should not be deduced that I am opposed to the legal redefinition of marriage to include same sex unions. I am not opposed to it. I see no harm it in.
Heh, I’ve posted several times here at PEL and of course by far the longest and most thoughtful response I’ve ever gotten, by far, is regarding an off the cuff post about the GAY MARRIAGE issue not being a “hot button” important issue for me. No offense to gays and lesbians, etc., whom I sincerely support in their efforts to achieve bourgeois respectability, or whatever. I guess. Not that it should be considered an important *progressive* issue. Alex Cockburn had interesting comments on this gay marriage business — like he always had interesting things to say on everything. I’m a fan. Here’s a link, if you’re interested from a piece way back from ’04: http://www.counterpunch.org/2004/03/20/sidestep-on-freedom-s-path/
I agree there are far more important things to be concerned with and debating about at this time, or any time. The fact that this argument by Alcorn is made and couched within philosophical concepts is distressing, but not surprising. His approach is a conservative religious one obviously, hence the appropriation of attributing the “concept” of marriage as of a “natural kind”. Whenever this kind of language is used–say in the world of politics–its goal is to scare the voting public into believing there are certain facts that they are not to do anything about such as–marriage.
But what bothers me–though Alcorn and anyone, really, have a right to their own beliefs–but what is confusing to me is why, if you are working from a religious position where “concepts of the natural kind” are at the core of your belief structure–why do you feel correct in disenfranchising a huge amount of people and making them feel ashamed of being who they are? Doesn’t that contradict the “social” purpose of a religious person or community? Doesn’t that, in and of itself, contradict such “concepts” of the “natural kind”?
I am going off here but there is another point that just irks me when this discussion re same-sex marriage comes up and that is the concept of marriage itself. Living in a country where the divorce rate is 50% (probably higher) and a victim of it myself, I’m confused as to the purpose of it. I understand the historical goals of it as a way to obtain structure and settlement in a society both financially and socially but isn’t that just as easily obtained through civil agreements? I think the way the “marriage” structure is set up now runs against biology and reality.
I think you make interesting points and ask good questions in your post.
As to your first paragraph, I agree but would say that it’s more accurate to say that Alcorn is using philosophical arguments (psuedo-philosophical or not, per Mark) as a sort of protection for traditional people whose beliefs are under attack by rational arguments which appeal to fairness or human rights as well as to anyone who may be sympathetic or susceptible to the authority of tradition (both cultural and religious) but are on the fence on this issue. So I wouldn’t call it ‘trying to scare’ anyone, but more an attempt to reassure the many traditional and traditional leaning people in the country.
Regarding the question in your second paragraph as to why anyone would use philosophical arguments to shore up a cultural tradition which disenfranchises people because of who they are and makes them ashamed. I think a reasonable answer to this is that traditional people see tradition as more or equally authoritative to rational argument when determining the truth of a case. Homosexuality has not been traditionally regarded as who someone is, but as sinful or immoral behavior. This view has the authority of cultural and religious tradition behind it, which is extremely powerful in it’s own right for traditional people, but it may also be supported by the personal experience of many people who have felt a low degree of same sex attraction in their lives and found it easy to overcome. This experience can easily affirm, in many people, the notion that same sex attraction is incidental to someone’s identity.
I agree completely with your point in your last paragraph the civil agreements could accomplish all the goals of ‘marriage’ in society. However, ‘marriage’ is a historical development with deep roots in thousands of years and across all cultures, while ‘civil agreements’ as applied to domestic sexual partnerships, is a new idea. So traditionalists will be suspicious of the idea that state sponsored civil agreements could replace state sponsored marriage for no other reason then that they are traditionalists, while proponents of same sex marriage agree with their opponents, the traditionalists, on the value of retaining ‘marriage’ because they see this as a way to undermine the homophobia in our traditional culture by having homosexuality sanctioned by its inclusion in the traditionally venerated institution of ‘marriage’.
“I think a reasonable answer to this is that traditional people see tradition as more or (less?) equally authoritative to rational argument when determining the truth of a case.”
Hi Bill,
Maybe that is their position but surely this is flawed thinking?
Everyone once thought the Earth was flat, that the Sun revolved around the Earth, that slavery was fine etc. The truth of a case can’t be determined based on people’s historical orientation towards it. Otherwise, for example, we’d still be drowning and burning “witches” and nothing would ever change.
This type of thinking is just dogma; wilful obstinance; a disinclination to change for the sake of the status quo.
Hi Russell,
Yes, you are right that traditionalists are engaged in flawed thinking. However, traditionalists are continually aware of the fact that all thinking is possibly flawed, this is why they are traditionalists. And in this awareness, they have some advantage over free thinkers such as you and I, who are more prone to the hubris involved in forgetting this.
Some people, very adventurous thinkers, still think the earth is flat; the idea that it is round is a world wide conspiracy. These people are free thinkers, they are not traditionalists. They also happen to be nuts along with many other free thinkers who believe the moon landing was a hoax, or believe they can talk with dead people, or that crystals heal cancer, etc.
The above mentioned free thinkers are obviously not very well equipped for thinking, especially as compared to you or I. You are I are able to see the difference between us and the nutty free thinkers, but traditionalists are not as confident in their own ability, much less yours and mine, to discern the difference. So they fall back on tradition and leave the flawless thinking to you and me.
I just want to give Wallace a big hug and a kiss. Why does Wallace care whether the two people involved in a marriage are of equal or opposite sex? He should just be quiet and let people who are doing no harm to anyone else go about their business. Marriage may well used to have been thought of as something between a man and a woman but so what? Things change. The world is becoming slowly but ever so surely less religious, less racist and less homophobic, and Wallace is no doubt struggling with much if not all of that and more. What a world.
Why is this human using philosphy :
Nothing has meaning, much less existence, if it does not have properties that belong to the universe of the thing. With only particulars and no universals, the thing does not belong to any broader thing and is betrayed as a notion and not a concept.
….. OMG I think he was talking about the obverse of his own shallow existance…. The social conversitive mind of this poor, poor man… I weep at the thought. His life is based on a greater concept of social conservatism…..
I cry for you Wllace Alcorn, in your old age, you have started using two very incongruent disciplines…. Conservitist ideals, and the liberal arts. I commend you for the attempt…. but the irony is in the very thing you choose to do it with philosphy ( crowds exclaim shock and horror), and tried to mix in sociology and failed…
You have a PHD in what was it again…. oh thats right, one of the most controversal belief systems in the world, that has it’s own political backing.
Please don’t get me unpreaching your ingnorance in heaw! OH wait, wait one moment someone already did that…. I wonder who that was.
and please don’t post on here Alcorn’s ideas coming under attack because they are not underattack, his logical reasoning is…. Alcorn spoke out of his place, using ideas that were not his but plagerized and used in a loosely fitting context.
I LOVE THIS BLOG!
Linsenmayer you did a great job <3
I find the whole conversation could be given a new spin if the claims that the Catholic church once ordained same sex marriages by John Boswell in his book Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe are valid.
Boswell argued from a controversial reading of the ceremony of Adelphopoiesis literally “brother-making”, as a form of recognized same-sex marriage. (Granted, not everyone agrees with Boswell’s reading of this particular ceremony.)
I am not saying one way or another as to the veracity of the above but, if true, the existence of such practices would, historically speaking, undermine Alcorne’s entire argument. Just some food for thought.
This sums things up as well.
This sums things up as well
The multiple perspectives and attendant ironies possible in these six words as they relate to the video link got me thinking about the nature of irony in its relation to satire and dissimulation in politics, which, in turn, is just one instance of how irony relates to human perspective on human existence itself.
I would be interested in seeing a podcast, by the boys, on irony and what irony says about the nature of human existence, truth, philosophy, politics, humor, etc. I’m relatively ignorant of the subject and would be interested in any perspectives, but such a discussion should include, and could possibly even start from, Kierkegaard’s The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates, in which he sees Socrates most accurately represented as the obnoxious buffoon Aristophanes makes of him in The Clouds, while, at the same time, seeing Socrates as an ideal representative, available for contemplation, of authentic human existence.
Here is a quote from Kierkegaard in Concept of Irony:
irony [is] the infinite absolute negativity. It is negativity, because it only negates; it is infinite, because it does not negate this or that phenomenon; it is absolute, because that by virtue of which it negates is a higher something that still is not. The irony established nothing, because that which is to be established lies behind it…. Irony is a qualification of subjectivity. In irony, the subject is negatively free, since the actuality that is supposed to give the subject content is not there. He is free from the constraint in which the given actuality holds the subject, but he is negatively free and as such is suspended, because there is nothing that holds him.
Implicit in this, it seems to me, is that everything, including politics, is in the service of irony to the extent one is a free individual, and to the degree that irony is used in the service of politics (which is, by nature, dissimulation), one becomes a victim of ones own dissimulation, loses awareness of the nature of one’s own limited perspective, and thereby becomes, unintentionally, a caricature of one’s self.
There are a great many social institutions that do not correspond to “natural types” @what ever we might mean by that). A corporation, an army, a street gang, a country club, on and on. All of these entities derive their”ontological status” from the fact that the larger social context in which they occur recognizes them as continuous in some way with itself. What one social context recognizes as ligitimate doesn’t necessarily make it legitimate in all other social contexts (being a catholic priest doesn’t confer any special authority outside of the Catholic community. On the other hand, the number five is what it is no matter what context (linguage, culture, etc) it occurs in.
Social relationships beyond the biological relationships that underlay concepts like father, son, mother, etc, must be seen as “accidental” features of reality.
Same Sex Marriage:
The argument from universals, as Alcorn makes, is not unlike the argument from privilege, from prejudice, from apriori, from arbitrary, from “I say so,” from transcendental, from “above all,” from I know better than you,” from etc. Otherwise, you just have a notion and not a true concept of how it is. Authoritarian? Pure assertion? Lack of validation?
In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling that the “universal” federal government does not have the right to impose universal truth on the states, could Alcorn be coming from a false and faulty position? It seems problematic in each claim to the universal, to try and commandeer, or impose truth on the particular, the singular, that which resists the universal. But why?
How could the particular and singular outweigh the universal? Perhaps the secret is in Alcorn’s assertion: “With only particulars and no universals, the thing does not belong to any broader thing and is betrayed as a notion and not a concept.” Alcorn is implying that the universal is foundational of the particular and the singular.
To expand that notion, since you as a parent are a universal, you get to determine me, as a particular child, you as a state get to determine me as a city, you as a country get to determine me as a state, etc. This is pure authoritarianism and prejudice at work.
So, according to Alcorn
1) The universal is truth (what he or others say is truth, i.e. marriage)
2) The particular/singular is subservient to the truth (same-sex marriage)
3) The universal (heterosexual marriage) makes the particular/singular (same-sex marriage) false
Or, as Mark points out regarding Alcorn’s presumptions:
1. All concepts involve essential properties for us to identify them at all (this is probably true for mathematics, but dubious for other concepts).
2. Marriage is an institution that has a determinate essence (it must therefore be natural, not something that societies make up).
3. Heterosexuality is part of that determinate essence (as opposed to affection, or compatibility, or love, or the ability to raise children).
Perhaps the Supreme Court in deciding that it’s own power to determine truth should not be the universal norm, has ruled in favor of the particular and the singular, the states, you, and I–as opposed to the country, they, them, the depersonalizing other.