In the Sixties, a groundbreaking series of experiments found that 65 per cent of us would kill if ordered to do so.
By Michael Mosley
January 06, 2011 "The Independent" -- We have vain brains; we see ourselves as better than we really are. We like to think that we exercise free will, that put into a situation where we were challenged to do something we thought unacceptable then we'd refuse. But, if you believe that, then you are probably deluded.
I make this claim, based partly on the work of psychologist Stanley Milgram. Milgram devised and carried out ingenious experiments that exposed the frailty and self-delusion that are central to our lives. He showed how easy it is to make ordinary people do terrible things, that "evil" often happens for the most mundane of reasons.
I first read about Milgram's work when I was a banker in the Seventies, working in the City. I was so fascinated by his ideas that I re-trained as a doctor, with the intention of becoming a psychiatrist. Instead I became a science journalist. Recently I got the chance to make The Brain: A Secret History, a television series which reveals how much we have learnt about ourselves through the work of some of the 20th century's most influential, and deeply flawed, psychologists.
In the course of making the series we found rare archive and first-hand accounts of the many inventive and sometimes sinister ways in which experimental psychology has been used to probe, tease, control and manipulate human behaviour. High on the list of psychologists I wanted to learn more about was Stanley Milgram.
The son of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, Milgram struggled to understand how it was that German soldiers in the Second World War were persuaded to take part in barbaric acts, such as the Holocaust. As he once wrote: "How is possible, I ask myself, that ordinary people who are courteous and decent in everyday life could act callously, inhumanely, without any limitations of conscience."
Milgram was working as an assistant professor at Yale University in 1960 when he dreamt up an experiment that would try to answer that question. It was beautifully designed to reveal uncomfortable truths about human nature. Milgram described the moment he had the idea as "incandescent".
Some claim that what Milgram did was ethically and scientifically dubious. I have always thought it was justified and hugely important, but I had never had the chance to interview any of the "volunteers" who had unwittingly taken part in his notorious experiment, to get their perspective.
Last summer, nearly 50 years after the original experiment, I finally met one of the few remaining survivors, Bill Menold. I talked to Bill in his kitchen, surrounded by his grandchildren, who were eager to hear his account.
In 1961 Bill Menold was 23 and had recently left the army. "I happened to see an ad in The New Haven Register and it said 'memory and learning experiment' and they were going to pay $4, and I thought. I'm going to be in New Haven that day, why not?"
He went along to a building where he met an earnest young man in a white lab coat – The Experimenter - and a middle-aged volunteer. The Experimenter told Bill that he would be the Teacher and the other volunteer would be the Learner. The Teacher's task was to give the Learner a simple set of memory tasks, which he would then be tested on. If the Learner got an answer wrong, the Teacher had to give him an electric shock. If he continued to give wrong answers, the shocks would steadily increase.
Bill was left in a room with a microphone and a set of electrical controls. The Learner was put in another room, where Bill could hear but not see him. Then the experiment began. The Learner was a slow learner.
"Wrong – 150 volts."
Bill sat at the desk, carrying out the task he had been asked to do. Despite the screams coming from the next room, he continued to ask questions and administer electric shocks when the Learner failed to answer correctly.
"Wrong – 195 volts."
Even now he finds it hard to explain what went on inside him that day. "You are sitting in that chair with this stuff going on and that pressure that you were under, it's very hard to think clearly. I've never had anything before or since that was like that. Where you were literally out of your mind."
"Wrong – 350 volts."
"I just said to myself, I'm just gonna play this out and pretty soon we'll be out of here. I'm finishing this thing. I don't care what happens. Once you make the decision, you've made your decision. I want to go home. I want to get out of here, go and get a beer somewhere and go home. You know?
"Wrong – 450 volts."
When I asked him if he thought he had killed the Learner, Bill replied, "Yeah. When he stopped responding."
What Bill and the other volunteers who took part weren't told was that the electric shocks were fake – and that both the Experimenter and the Learner were actors. The real purpose of the experiment was to see how far the volunteers would go. Stanley Milgram had asked colleagues how many people they thought would go all the way and administer a lethal 450-volt shock. Most said less than 1 per cent – and those would probably be psychopaths.
Yet Bill, like 65 per cent of the volunteers, gave an apparently lethal electric shock when told to do so.
I remember thinking, when I first read this, that such a figure was completely unbelievable. I was absolutely certain, and I'm sure everyone who read about Milgram's work was equally certain, that I would never give a fatal electric shock to someone simply because I had been asked to do so by someone in authority. It is inconceivable that I could be manipulated in this way.
Perhaps, I thought, the volunteers had deep-down realised that this was a fake experiment, that they were just playing along. When critics put this point to Milgram he scathingly responded, "the suggestion that the subjects only feigned sweating, trembling, and stuttering to please the Experimenter is pathetically detached from reality, equivalent to the statement that haemophiliacs bleed to keep their physicians busy".
Milgram argued that far from being in any way fake, his experiment demonstrated in a very stark way something that we all know happens, but which we can't bring ourselves to believe. It is more comfortable to imagine that there was something uniquely evil or weak about German prison guards than to believe that most of us would behave the same way when faced by the same set of circumstances. "One of the illusions about human behaviour is that it stems from personality or character, but social psychology shows us that often human behaviour is dominated by the roles that we are asked to play."
Bill was surprisingly sanguine about having been deceived, and very honest, particularly when he was talking about that moment when he abandoned his moral compass and handed over responsibility for his actions to the Experimenter. With the wisdom of hindsight he was able to admire the thoroughness of the experiment and the skill with which the actors had played their parts.
I think that a more legitimate criticism than, "they were faking it," was the relevance of Milgram's experiment to the real world. Perhaps people had behaved the way they did largely because of the artificiality of the situation? In 1966, inspired by Milgram's findings, a psychiatrist called Charles Hofling created a more realistic scenario.
He arranged for 22 nurses working in a large hospital to be rung, separately, by a man simply calling himself, "Dr Smith". Dr Smith told each of the nurses that he wanted them to give 20mg of a drug called Astroten to a patient, who he named. Dr Smith also told the nurses that he was on his way to the hospital and would sign the necessary paperwork when he arrived.
The drug, an invention of the experimenters, had been placed in the drug cabinet several days before the telephone call with a prominent warning on its side that 10mg was the maximum safe dose. Despite this, and despite the fact that hospital protocol specifically stated that no drug should ever be administered based solely on a phone call, 21 out of the 22 nurses were preparing to give the 20mg dose when they were stopped. The nurses had bowed to the imagined authority of the "doctor".
People obviously knew, long before Milgram and Hofling did their experiments, that humans have a tendency to blindly follow orders, if they are presented in a plausible fashion by someone who is apparently in authority. What these experiments revealed was just how strong this "tendency" really is. Psychology, which is often criticised for discovering the bleeding obvious, had shown that it was capable of making surprising, original, disturbing contributions to our understanding of ourselves.
Some professional bodies,such as the US army, responded to these findings by incorporating it into their training, making sure that would-be officers were aware of the pressures they might come under to follow orders they felt were unethical. Medical and nursing students are also now taught of the dangers of blindly following orders.
Others,such as the American Psychological Society, responded to criticisms of Milgram's methods by adopting new guidelines for the treatment of volunteers in psychological experiments. In a more nebulous way, I also think Milgram contributed to the widespread questioning and suspicion of authority that was characteristic of his era, the 1960s.
Milgram's own motivation for doing experiments was not mistrust of authority, but the desire to understand why authority has such a hold over us. To find out more, he then took to the streets to see how people would behave in a situation where there was no obvious authority.
Milgram went with his students on to the New York subway. Their task was to approach passengers on the train and say, pleasantly: "I'd like your seat, please". As Milgram pointed out beforehand, "if you ask a New Yorker if he would give up his seat to a man who gives no reason for asking, he would say 'never'. But what would he really do?" The answer was that in just over half of all cases people gave up their seats when asked.
Recently I decided to repeat this experiment in a busy London shopping centre, with similar results. I was surprised by how many people complied with my completely unreasonable request, but even more surprised by how uncomfortable I found asking them to do it, something Milgram also discovered.
"I was about to say the words 'excuse me, sir, may I have your seat,' but I found something very interesting, there was an enormous inhibition, the words wouldn't come out, I simply couldn't utter them, there was this terrible restraint against saying this phrase."
Although it was unexpected, Milgram thought that this was a hugely significant finding. He had found through his own personal experience just how important feeling socially awkward is when it comes to modifying behaviour. We don't like breaking the social rules – whether it's asking for somebody's seat, or disobeying the instructions of somebody whose authority we have accepted.
In everyday situations there is an implicit set of rules of who is in charge and if we violate these rules it leads to feelings of embarrassment and awkwardness so intense we prefer to accept the submissive role the occasion requires. It is a terrible critique of human behaviour that we would rather let something terrible happen than act in a socially embarrassing manner. Yet it helps explain some of the chilling crimes you read about when someone is attacked, even murdered, in a public place and no one intervenes.
Now I'd like to believe that we have, as a society and because of what psychologists like Milgram have taught us, become less blind to the demands of authority. I'd like to believe that, but I don't.
Dr Thomas Blass, Milgram's biographer, recently asked himself that question."Would Milgram find less obedience if he conducted his experiments today? I doubt it. To go beyond speculation on this question, I gathered all of Milgram's standard obedience experiments and the replications conducted by other researchers. The experiments spanned a 25-year period from 1961 to 1985.
"I did a correlational analysis relating each study's year of publication and the amount of obedience it found. I found a zero-correlation – that is, no relationship whatsoever. In other words, on the average, the later studies found no more or less obedience than the ones conducted earlier."
There was a recent example of the continuing tendency towards blind obedience in the USA when a con man, dubbed "the modern Milgram", made the staff of dozens of fast-food restaurants behave in an appalling fashion simply by ringing up and pretending to be a policeman.
He persuaded managers to strip-search their staff in search of stolen goods, to make them jog naked, even to strip off and appear naked in front of startled customers. One manager, who strip-searched an employee and was subsequently jailed, said, "I didn't want to do it, but it was like he was making me".
Milgram once wrote that we are "puppets controlled by the strings of society". Yet what is also true is that not all puppets jump when their strings are pulled. Many of the fast-food managers who were rung up the "policeman" refused to follow his orders. In Milgram's own experiment, although 65 per cent of the volunteers were prepared to give apparently lethal electric shocks, that still left 35 per cent who would not.
What no experimenter has yet been able to predict are the characteristics that mark out those who will rebel from the rest. The only way you will ever know how you measure up is when you find yourself tested. You have a one in three chance of passing.
Editor's NOTE:
It is intriguing that the referenced psychological experiments on the selecting of the proper moral response yielded only a rate of 33% and that 2/3 of those tested were prepared to comply with an obviously immoral request including delivering a lethal electric shock.
These experiments would seem to demonstrate how difficult it can be to develop a properly formed moral conscience particularly in a society in which rank Utilitarianism and moral relativism are the rule rather than the exception. The effects of social pressure can be exceedingly great where a virtual societal moral vaccuum prevails. The important thing to recognize of course is that morally virtuous behavior cannot be completely extinguished any more than the Natural Law can be.
For millennia, the wisdom of the perennial philosophy has taught us that solitary virtuous acts are more likely to be performed where the common morality is highly developed and where virtuous character is developed through practice.
On a more practical level, parents recognize that they cannot teach the importance of virtuous behavior to their children in a milieu where they are constantly bombarded by immorality. If we wish to avoid whole-sale acts of morally reprehensible societal behavior, it behooves us to work toward the establishment of a much more highly developed common morality which follows the natural moral law.
Unfortunately, in the so-called developed West, the natural moral law has been replaced by a largely immoral kind of rank Utilitarianism--and with it the legalization of obviously immoral behavior(s) most commonly justified on the basis of spuriously postulated concepts of human right(s) where the "rights" in question are fictitious rather than real (based on the natural moral law and a fixed human anthropology). --Dr. J. P. Hubert
Showing posts with label Common Morality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Common Morality. Show all posts
Friday, January 7, 2011
Friday, August 6, 2010
More on Gay "Marriage"
Editor's NOTE:
In response to my editorial comment of yesterday regarding the overturning of the California Proposition 8 ban on Gay "Marriage" several readers have asked that this essay which I penned a while back be posted again in order that they might have access to critical philosophical concepts located therein. This may be seen as a companion piece to what was posted yesterday where a link was provided to the article I wrote for the Intellectual Conservative in 2005.
What of Non-Traditional Marriage?
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
Over the past several years marked interest has grown in what must for the sake of intellectual honesty be termed non-traditional “marriage.” By this is usually meant “civil unions” or arrangements in which same-sex couples formalize their relationship and in so doing derive the benefits usually reserved for married heterosexual couples. To date, little organized interest has been expressed for other kinds of non-traditional “marriages” such as polygamous ones or those involving animals and humans (bestiality). In any case it has now become necessary to flesh-out the philosophical implications of marriage including the nature of what it means to be a human person and what is meant by “tradition.”
As mathematician/physicist and philosopher Wolfgang Smith has taught, “traditional” when used as an adjective before anything connotes the transcendent not simply ancient or of historical significance. To say that marriage for example is traditionally a life-long commitment between one man and one woman is to say in part that it is based in the transcendent “other” which theists understand as God (being personified from a philosophical perspective); that it “embodies an element of revelation.” According to Smith, a “doctrine is traditional by virtue of the fact that it partakes somewhat of eternity.” In this sense traditional marriage is not only a horizontal but a vertical relationship (metaphysical reality) with God as one of the “partners.”
To develop this concept a bit further, traditional marriage (TM) is a microcosm/reflection of penultimate being that is, non-derivative being in much the same way that man was created in the imago Dei (image of God, Gen. 1:26). Orthodox Catholics understand it as a recapitulation of the Trinity [tri-unity (“3” who’s in one what)] that is the Blessed Trinity—wherein the “two (male and female possessing complementarity) become one flesh” (Gen. 2: 24) in the sense of giving life to a child (the third member of the human triad/family, not simply copulation between the 2 adults). From the perspective of human anthropology (nature or essence) marriage, in a traditional sense can join only one man and one woman in a permanent (covenant in religious terms) or exclusive relationship if it is to retain any semblance of meaning. As such the Traditional marriage union is a metaphysical (outside of space and time) reality as well as a physical one which is unbreakable by human means. It is this facet of traditional marriage which has been expunged in large part from post-modernity by the way.
The notion that individuals of the same sex or that multiple partners (in the sense of the simultaneous pleural marriages practiced by polygamists) could “marry” is to rob the term “traditional” marriage of any real meaning. These and other “unions” such as between humans and animals are non-traditional in the extreme. Not only do they fail to mirror in microcosm the transcendent other (GOD) as understood in Christianity, they for the most part lack complementarity (anatomically at least) as well. While pleural marriage (simultaneous or serial) on an anatomic basis may possess complementarity, it clearly lacks exclusivity. Traditional marriage then for Christians must contain the elements of complementarity and exclusivity. This is true because of the essence of what it means to be human and because traditional marriage has both a vertical and a horizontal dimension, one in space and time; one outside of or beyond it. Unfortunately, the Enlightenment, much of modern philosophy (particularly the Utilitarianism of J. S. Mill) including Cartesian Dualism followed on by Baconian notions of science including Darwinist philosophy (philosophical naturalism) have emptied traditional marriage of its true meaning. The details of these assaults on traditional marriage (TM) are beyond the scope of this short essay. However, suffice it to say that as a result of the above--human nature is no longer considered “fixed.” It is simply assumed that one can create their own nature and for that matter reality itself. This reduces marriage to a completely horizontal “arrangement” of our own making that can be undone at will--resembling something more akin to a business transaction.
Admittedly, the idea that marriage is a recapitulation of the Blessed Trinity is unique to Christianity as it is predicated on a unique and divinely revealed understanding of the nature of God. Both Judaism and Islam which either tacitly or explicitly reject the Blessed Trinity; have historically allowed simultaneous pleural marriage between human beings, (multiple wives with one husband) usually on economic, or other utilitarian grounds including custom. Nevertheless, over time, each has moved away from the practice of polygamy. It is safe to say that no monotheistic religion has endorsed non-traditional marriage between adult human beings of the same sex or between humans and animals presumably because of the issue of lack of complementarity and the recognition that traditional marriage (TM) in order to be legitimate/genuine must contain no impediment to the natural generation of children which would ensue from a lack of complementarity. This is another way of saying that marriage arrangements must not be incompatible with the Natural Law. Procreation--and with it the education and rearing of children--has traditionally been seen as either the primary/only or dual reason for marriage (along with the obvious positive unitive benefit for the spouses). Clearly this is an impossibility in the natural for same-sex and human/animal “unions.” Moreover, incest (parent/child) in recorded history has universally been sanctioned in all of the “3” monotheistic religions at least in part for reasons having to do with complications arising as a direct result of copulation and procreation (genetic disorders for example among other severe psychological problems).
While heterosexual incest is correctly ordered anatomically, it is clearly disordered from the perspective of lacking exclusivity (parents already have or should have a monogamous and exclusive relationship), genetic complications and behavioral problems. Since traditional morality holds that sexual intercourse is proper only within the bounds of marriage, it is apparent that incest could never be morally acceptable. Even in the event of death of one of the marriage partners, incest (sexual relations with one or more of the children) would be immoral on multiple other grounds including on the basis that in doing so, the remaining marriage partner would be guilty of a sin against charity with respect to the children. This would be true even if for some misguided reason the offspring were said to have given “consent.”
Some would argue that while same-sex human or opposite-sex human/animal “unions” are not marriage in the Traditional sense, pleural marriage between for example one man and multiple women should be afforded the designation “traditional marriage.” There is a certain logic to this contention in that complementarity is preserved and with it the ability to procreate. The difficulty comes in that there is no exclusivity of the partners or of their offspring for the biological parents, thus not as organically related families in these arrangements. Such “unions” fail to recapitulate the divine pattern in microcosm and are inherently horizontal in nature; important criteria by which marriage is ultimately to be judged traditional where Christians and most monotheists are concerned. Atheists and agnostics or other nominal or fallen-away theists who embrace traditional marriage presumably do so in a more limited sense, one in which the historical, economic and conventional aspects of heterosexual marriage (in the horizontal sense only) are desired.
There is of course a certain collective wisdom of the ages which supports so-called traditional marriage. It has not been by chance that this kind of marriage has existed as the most frequent marital arrangement in virtually all cultures and time periods. TM has many obvious advantages and arguably the fewest negatives. Pleural marriage is associated with many hardships particularly where it is illegal. Even where polygamy is legal the natural tendency toward conjugal fidelity/exclusivity which is a natural part of human anthropology is difficult if not impossible to suppress and can lead to disastrous problems associated with jealousy of one or more of the spouses for each other. Attempting to preserve an equitable relationship with multiple marriage partners would seem to be an impossible undertaking. It is truly difficult to imagine how one could honor the biblical imperative to treat their neighbor fairly under such a circumstance.
Same-sex “marriages” are perhaps the most difficult to justify philosophically. Not only is there no complementarity of the sexes, statistically there is a high incidence of non-exclusivity of homosexual partners (particularly among men) which exceeds those of heterosexuals in which the marriage is considered a civil contract only and where they are not bound by the notion of indissolubility which comes with traditional marriage through verticality (covenant). If civil contract marriages between heterosexuals are removed from divorce statistics, overall divorce rates are much lower indicating that the problem in heterosexual marriage dissolution lies in the concept of a breakable civil contract. Therefore, in the interest of the common good it would be better to limit marriage to those who intend to form a traditional marriage rather than some other “arrangement” especially same-sex ones. Heterosexual couples considering marriage would be best served by exposure to traditional marriage and all of its obvious benefits since civil contract marriages fair so poorly over the long run.
Not to be underestimated are the potential medical complications predominately among male same-sex couples due to their incompatibility anatomically. For example since anal intercourse is usually involved in male/male same sex “unions”, the columnar lined rectal epithelial mucosa which is not suitable for intercourse (the vaginal mucosa is composed of squamous epithelium and designed for intercourse) is frequently damaged predisposing it to disease including anal warts, HIV/Aids, anal gonorrhea, fissures, fistulae and incontinence etc. Corresponding pathologies are invariably seen in the male partners of those who are frequently sodomized. This should alert us to the fact that something is inherently wrong with anal intercourse (heterosexual or homosexual) even if we had no other way of knowing it—fortunately, a careful study of human anatomy and physiology coupled with an adequate grounding in Aristotelian/Thomistic moral philosophy assures that other ways of knowing do exist.
As the reader may have deduced, from the moral perspective, traditional marriage follows the general construct that the “ought” should follow the “is” meaning that the proper moral formulation should flow from the reality of being in this case the human anthropology (including anatomical complementarity and the deep desire of human beings for exclusivity) of the partners. Only if one assumes that human nature is an accident, evolving or otherwise irrelevant would the nature of human being not be of critical consideration. According to the Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis human nature is fixed not evolving, meaning it is unchangeable by man. As a result only traditional marriage as described herein can be judged morally licit. All other so-called “arrangements” would lack one or more necessary key elements in order to be considered marriages at all, or traditional marriages in particular--including polygamist ones which are closer to traditional marriages than are those between individuals of the same sex. Despite this reality, it is noteworthy that public (political) pressure in the West is increasingly in favor of same sex “marriage” rather than polygamous ones, a fact which given the realities of human anthropology is difficult to comprehend. While neither should be legalized in the interest of the common good, polygamist “marriages” are less deranged from the perspective of the natural law than are those of a homosexual nature.
The most commonly proffered justification for same-sex “marriage” is that each human person should have the “right” (a claim advanced on society; the result of a personal choice) based on Western notions of freedom, equality and autonomy to marry anyone they wish. Given the necessary elements of traditional marriage as herein defined, it is clear that same-sex “marriage” could never be considered marriage in any meaningful sense without doing damage to the English language and thousands of years of history including that which is common to all “3” monotheistic religions presently encompassing the vast majority of global inhabitants.
In helping to focus the morality involved in non-traditional marriage some critical questions might be waged as follows;
To what extent should individuals be allowed freedom to act if those actions debase the common good and transgress established moral norms?
Only if no harm (direct or indirect) is done to other individuals and or the common good.
Do we as individuals have a moral responsibility to act personally in ways which are compatible with and enhancing of the common good?
YES.
Does personal freedom include the ability to act in ways which while not directly or immediately harmful to others are nonetheless indirectly so and eventually very injurious to the common good?
NO.
It is clearly in the common good for healthy life-long marriages between one man and one woman to be strongly encouraged if not codified in law. Moreover, it is beyond doubt in the best interest of our children to be reared in stable, two parent biological families. The sociological data strongly establish that this is the case irrespective of protestations to the contrary by those who advocate for non-traditional marriage.
Moreover, certain behaviors are not only immoral but have been made illegal as well. This is to protect individuals from injury and to insure the common good. Murder is both immoral and illegal as is rape for good reason. While homosexual activity and sexual activity with multiple sex partners is not illegal throughout the United States, it is currently illegal for multiple partners to marry (polygamy), for animals and humans to marry and in all but one state for same-sex partners to marry (Massachusetts, Editor's note: since originally written, other states have followed Mass.). The latter reality is extremely regrettable. Since homosexual behavior and sex with multiple partners is immoral and destructive of the common good, non-traditional marriage in these circumstances should remain illegal. Massachusetts should repeal its current same-sex marriage law on the grounds that it represents poor social planning where a commitment to the common good is concerned. The wishes of some individuals especially when they are violative of the natural law should not be allowed to eclipse the interest of the common good. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has transpired in the case of US laws allowing abortion on demand and destructive embryo research.
From a traditional (scholastic) moral philosophical perspective, sex with multiple partners, between humans and animals (bestiality) and between individuals of the same sex are all morally illicit. This is true because of the nature of what it means to be human (unique and fixed human anthropology) and because of the principles of the natural law (they cannot be expunged in the same way that the 4 fundamental forces of physics cannot be denied) which includes complementarity of the sexes. The record of the last half century in the United States stands as a testament to the fact that the natural moral law cannot be revoked—it is immutable. Nothing but misery comes from denying or breaking it particularly on a massive scale e.g. at the level of nation states. Those who are familiar with the so-called perennial philosophy are well aware of this reality. Obviously, those who are steeped in Modern and post-Modern philosophy find this exceedingly difficult to accept.
Therefore, a key question remains; Are non-traditional “marriage” arrangements morally licit?
No, because; they are contrary to the common good and established moral norms including those between heterosexual couples who arrange civil contract marriages. The answer is simple but not easy given post-modern confusion with respect to what constitutes truth, reality and morality. In a pluralistic secular society such as ours, it would be impossible to make heterosexual non-traditional marriages illegal (although they should be discouraged) given the nature of current civil and human rights laws. On the basis of these, proponents of same-sex marriage have made similar appeals the results of which are in flux. From the perspective of the common good of society it would clearly be best if all marriages were “traditional” in the sense utilized herein that is, both vertical and horizontal and understood as a life-long commitment between one man and one woman. The fact that this is not possible in the developed West is a testament to the disadvantageous nature of living in a pluralistic society. This negative development which can be traced to the Enlightenment is extremely regrettable.
Finally, should non-traditional marriage be legalized?
No, it is unwise public policy to legally allow behavior which is; destructive of the common good and contrary to well established moral norms. The balance between individual desires on the part of individuals and the common good is too tipped in favor of the individual to the detriment of society.
In response to my editorial comment of yesterday regarding the overturning of the California Proposition 8 ban on Gay "Marriage" several readers have asked that this essay which I penned a while back be posted again in order that they might have access to critical philosophical concepts located therein. This may be seen as a companion piece to what was posted yesterday where a link was provided to the article I wrote for the Intellectual Conservative in 2005.
What of Non-Traditional Marriage?
By: Dr. J. P. Hubert
Over the past several years marked interest has grown in what must for the sake of intellectual honesty be termed non-traditional “marriage.” By this is usually meant “civil unions” or arrangements in which same-sex couples formalize their relationship and in so doing derive the benefits usually reserved for married heterosexual couples. To date, little organized interest has been expressed for other kinds of non-traditional “marriages” such as polygamous ones or those involving animals and humans (bestiality). In any case it has now become necessary to flesh-out the philosophical implications of marriage including the nature of what it means to be a human person and what is meant by “tradition.”
As mathematician/physicist and philosopher Wolfgang Smith has taught, “traditional” when used as an adjective before anything connotes the transcendent not simply ancient or of historical significance. To say that marriage for example is traditionally a life-long commitment between one man and one woman is to say in part that it is based in the transcendent “other” which theists understand as God (being personified from a philosophical perspective); that it “embodies an element of revelation.” According to Smith, a “doctrine is traditional by virtue of the fact that it partakes somewhat of eternity.” In this sense traditional marriage is not only a horizontal but a vertical relationship (metaphysical reality) with God as one of the “partners.”
To develop this concept a bit further, traditional marriage (TM) is a microcosm/reflection of penultimate being that is, non-derivative being in much the same way that man was created in the imago Dei (image of God, Gen. 1:26). Orthodox Catholics understand it as a recapitulation of the Trinity [tri-unity (“3” who’s in one what)] that is the Blessed Trinity—wherein the “two (male and female possessing complementarity) become one flesh” (Gen. 2: 24) in the sense of giving life to a child (the third member of the human triad/family, not simply copulation between the 2 adults). From the perspective of human anthropology (nature or essence) marriage, in a traditional sense can join only one man and one woman in a permanent (covenant in religious terms) or exclusive relationship if it is to retain any semblance of meaning. As such the Traditional marriage union is a metaphysical (outside of space and time) reality as well as a physical one which is unbreakable by human means. It is this facet of traditional marriage which has been expunged in large part from post-modernity by the way.
The notion that individuals of the same sex or that multiple partners (in the sense of the simultaneous pleural marriages practiced by polygamists) could “marry” is to rob the term “traditional” marriage of any real meaning. These and other “unions” such as between humans and animals are non-traditional in the extreme. Not only do they fail to mirror in microcosm the transcendent other (GOD) as understood in Christianity, they for the most part lack complementarity (anatomically at least) as well. While pleural marriage (simultaneous or serial) on an anatomic basis may possess complementarity, it clearly lacks exclusivity. Traditional marriage then for Christians must contain the elements of complementarity and exclusivity. This is true because of the essence of what it means to be human and because traditional marriage has both a vertical and a horizontal dimension, one in space and time; one outside of or beyond it. Unfortunately, the Enlightenment, much of modern philosophy (particularly the Utilitarianism of J. S. Mill) including Cartesian Dualism followed on by Baconian notions of science including Darwinist philosophy (philosophical naturalism) have emptied traditional marriage of its true meaning. The details of these assaults on traditional marriage (TM) are beyond the scope of this short essay. However, suffice it to say that as a result of the above--human nature is no longer considered “fixed.” It is simply assumed that one can create their own nature and for that matter reality itself. This reduces marriage to a completely horizontal “arrangement” of our own making that can be undone at will--resembling something more akin to a business transaction.
Admittedly, the idea that marriage is a recapitulation of the Blessed Trinity is unique to Christianity as it is predicated on a unique and divinely revealed understanding of the nature of God. Both Judaism and Islam which either tacitly or explicitly reject the Blessed Trinity; have historically allowed simultaneous pleural marriage between human beings, (multiple wives with one husband) usually on economic, or other utilitarian grounds including custom. Nevertheless, over time, each has moved away from the practice of polygamy. It is safe to say that no monotheistic religion has endorsed non-traditional marriage between adult human beings of the same sex or between humans and animals presumably because of the issue of lack of complementarity and the recognition that traditional marriage (TM) in order to be legitimate/genuine must contain no impediment to the natural generation of children which would ensue from a lack of complementarity. This is another way of saying that marriage arrangements must not be incompatible with the Natural Law. Procreation--and with it the education and rearing of children--has traditionally been seen as either the primary/only or dual reason for marriage (along with the obvious positive unitive benefit for the spouses). Clearly this is an impossibility in the natural for same-sex and human/animal “unions.” Moreover, incest (parent/child) in recorded history has universally been sanctioned in all of the “3” monotheistic religions at least in part for reasons having to do with complications arising as a direct result of copulation and procreation (genetic disorders for example among other severe psychological problems).
While heterosexual incest is correctly ordered anatomically, it is clearly disordered from the perspective of lacking exclusivity (parents already have or should have a monogamous and exclusive relationship), genetic complications and behavioral problems. Since traditional morality holds that sexual intercourse is proper only within the bounds of marriage, it is apparent that incest could never be morally acceptable. Even in the event of death of one of the marriage partners, incest (sexual relations with one or more of the children) would be immoral on multiple other grounds including on the basis that in doing so, the remaining marriage partner would be guilty of a sin against charity with respect to the children. This would be true even if for some misguided reason the offspring were said to have given “consent.”
Some would argue that while same-sex human or opposite-sex human/animal “unions” are not marriage in the Traditional sense, pleural marriage between for example one man and multiple women should be afforded the designation “traditional marriage.” There is a certain logic to this contention in that complementarity is preserved and with it the ability to procreate. The difficulty comes in that there is no exclusivity of the partners or of their offspring for the biological parents, thus not as organically related families in these arrangements. Such “unions” fail to recapitulate the divine pattern in microcosm and are inherently horizontal in nature; important criteria by which marriage is ultimately to be judged traditional where Christians and most monotheists are concerned. Atheists and agnostics or other nominal or fallen-away theists who embrace traditional marriage presumably do so in a more limited sense, one in which the historical, economic and conventional aspects of heterosexual marriage (in the horizontal sense only) are desired.
There is of course a certain collective wisdom of the ages which supports so-called traditional marriage. It has not been by chance that this kind of marriage has existed as the most frequent marital arrangement in virtually all cultures and time periods. TM has many obvious advantages and arguably the fewest negatives. Pleural marriage is associated with many hardships particularly where it is illegal. Even where polygamy is legal the natural tendency toward conjugal fidelity/exclusivity which is a natural part of human anthropology is difficult if not impossible to suppress and can lead to disastrous problems associated with jealousy of one or more of the spouses for each other. Attempting to preserve an equitable relationship with multiple marriage partners would seem to be an impossible undertaking. It is truly difficult to imagine how one could honor the biblical imperative to treat their neighbor fairly under such a circumstance.
Same-sex “marriages” are perhaps the most difficult to justify philosophically. Not only is there no complementarity of the sexes, statistically there is a high incidence of non-exclusivity of homosexual partners (particularly among men) which exceeds those of heterosexuals in which the marriage is considered a civil contract only and where they are not bound by the notion of indissolubility which comes with traditional marriage through verticality (covenant). If civil contract marriages between heterosexuals are removed from divorce statistics, overall divorce rates are much lower indicating that the problem in heterosexual marriage dissolution lies in the concept of a breakable civil contract. Therefore, in the interest of the common good it would be better to limit marriage to those who intend to form a traditional marriage rather than some other “arrangement” especially same-sex ones. Heterosexual couples considering marriage would be best served by exposure to traditional marriage and all of its obvious benefits since civil contract marriages fair so poorly over the long run.
Not to be underestimated are the potential medical complications predominately among male same-sex couples due to their incompatibility anatomically. For example since anal intercourse is usually involved in male/male same sex “unions”, the columnar lined rectal epithelial mucosa which is not suitable for intercourse (the vaginal mucosa is composed of squamous epithelium and designed for intercourse) is frequently damaged predisposing it to disease including anal warts, HIV/Aids, anal gonorrhea, fissures, fistulae and incontinence etc. Corresponding pathologies are invariably seen in the male partners of those who are frequently sodomized. This should alert us to the fact that something is inherently wrong with anal intercourse (heterosexual or homosexual) even if we had no other way of knowing it—fortunately, a careful study of human anatomy and physiology coupled with an adequate grounding in Aristotelian/Thomistic moral philosophy assures that other ways of knowing do exist.
As the reader may have deduced, from the moral perspective, traditional marriage follows the general construct that the “ought” should follow the “is” meaning that the proper moral formulation should flow from the reality of being in this case the human anthropology (including anatomical complementarity and the deep desire of human beings for exclusivity) of the partners. Only if one assumes that human nature is an accident, evolving or otherwise irrelevant would the nature of human being not be of critical consideration. According to the Aristotelian/Thomistic synthesis human nature is fixed not evolving, meaning it is unchangeable by man. As a result only traditional marriage as described herein can be judged morally licit. All other so-called “arrangements” would lack one or more necessary key elements in order to be considered marriages at all, or traditional marriages in particular--including polygamist ones which are closer to traditional marriages than are those between individuals of the same sex. Despite this reality, it is noteworthy that public (political) pressure in the West is increasingly in favor of same sex “marriage” rather than polygamous ones, a fact which given the realities of human anthropology is difficult to comprehend. While neither should be legalized in the interest of the common good, polygamist “marriages” are less deranged from the perspective of the natural law than are those of a homosexual nature.
The most commonly proffered justification for same-sex “marriage” is that each human person should have the “right” (a claim advanced on society; the result of a personal choice) based on Western notions of freedom, equality and autonomy to marry anyone they wish. Given the necessary elements of traditional marriage as herein defined, it is clear that same-sex “marriage” could never be considered marriage in any meaningful sense without doing damage to the English language and thousands of years of history including that which is common to all “3” monotheistic religions presently encompassing the vast majority of global inhabitants.
In helping to focus the morality involved in non-traditional marriage some critical questions might be waged as follows;
To what extent should individuals be allowed freedom to act if those actions debase the common good and transgress established moral norms?
Only if no harm (direct or indirect) is done to other individuals and or the common good.
Do we as individuals have a moral responsibility to act personally in ways which are compatible with and enhancing of the common good?
YES.
Does personal freedom include the ability to act in ways which while not directly or immediately harmful to others are nonetheless indirectly so and eventually very injurious to the common good?
NO.
It is clearly in the common good for healthy life-long marriages between one man and one woman to be strongly encouraged if not codified in law. Moreover, it is beyond doubt in the best interest of our children to be reared in stable, two parent biological families. The sociological data strongly establish that this is the case irrespective of protestations to the contrary by those who advocate for non-traditional marriage.
Moreover, certain behaviors are not only immoral but have been made illegal as well. This is to protect individuals from injury and to insure the common good. Murder is both immoral and illegal as is rape for good reason. While homosexual activity and sexual activity with multiple sex partners is not illegal throughout the United States, it is currently illegal for multiple partners to marry (polygamy), for animals and humans to marry and in all but one state for same-sex partners to marry (Massachusetts, Editor's note: since originally written, other states have followed Mass.). The latter reality is extremely regrettable. Since homosexual behavior and sex with multiple partners is immoral and destructive of the common good, non-traditional marriage in these circumstances should remain illegal. Massachusetts should repeal its current same-sex marriage law on the grounds that it represents poor social planning where a commitment to the common good is concerned. The wishes of some individuals especially when they are violative of the natural law should not be allowed to eclipse the interest of the common good. Unfortunately, that is exactly what has transpired in the case of US laws allowing abortion on demand and destructive embryo research.
From a traditional (scholastic) moral philosophical perspective, sex with multiple partners, between humans and animals (bestiality) and between individuals of the same sex are all morally illicit. This is true because of the nature of what it means to be human (unique and fixed human anthropology) and because of the principles of the natural law (they cannot be expunged in the same way that the 4 fundamental forces of physics cannot be denied) which includes complementarity of the sexes. The record of the last half century in the United States stands as a testament to the fact that the natural moral law cannot be revoked—it is immutable. Nothing but misery comes from denying or breaking it particularly on a massive scale e.g. at the level of nation states. Those who are familiar with the so-called perennial philosophy are well aware of this reality. Obviously, those who are steeped in Modern and post-Modern philosophy find this exceedingly difficult to accept.
Therefore, a key question remains; Are non-traditional “marriage” arrangements morally licit?
No, because; they are contrary to the common good and established moral norms including those between heterosexual couples who arrange civil contract marriages. The answer is simple but not easy given post-modern confusion with respect to what constitutes truth, reality and morality. In a pluralistic secular society such as ours, it would be impossible to make heterosexual non-traditional marriages illegal (although they should be discouraged) given the nature of current civil and human rights laws. On the basis of these, proponents of same-sex marriage have made similar appeals the results of which are in flux. From the perspective of the common good of society it would clearly be best if all marriages were “traditional” in the sense utilized herein that is, both vertical and horizontal and understood as a life-long commitment between one man and one woman. The fact that this is not possible in the developed West is a testament to the disadvantageous nature of living in a pluralistic society. This negative development which can be traced to the Enlightenment is extremely regrettable.
Finally, should non-traditional marriage be legalized?
No, it is unwise public policy to legally allow behavior which is; destructive of the common good and contrary to well established moral norms. The balance between individual desires on the part of individuals and the common good is too tipped in favor of the individual to the detriment of society.
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