One argument against "gay marriage" is that appending "gay" to the word "marriage" violates the definition of the latter. However, philosophers have traditionally thought that incoherent definitions cancel themselves out and therefore apply to nothing in the non-lexical world. If this is the case, then "gay marriage" doesn't refer to anything, in which case it is impossible to outlaw "gay marriage." It would be like outlawing square circles, mountains without valleys, married bachelors, etc. But if that's the case, then there is no point trying to outlaw "gay marriage."
Now I actually don't tend to put "gay marriage" in quotes, and I totally support redefining "marriage" (if that's necessary) and extending the legal support married straight couples have to similarly committed gay couples. I just hope to show that appealing to definitions to solve normative problems tends towards absurdity if misused.
Definitions, laws, and "gay marriage"
Moderator: Fist and Faith
-
Mighara Sovmadhi
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 1157
- Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:50 am
- Location: Near where Broken Social Scene is gonna play on October 15th, 2010
-
Avatar
- Immanentizing The Eschaton
- Posts: 62038
- Joined: Mon Aug 02, 2004 9:17 am
- Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
- Has thanked: 25 times
- Been thanked: 32 times
- Contact:
Hi Mighara. 
Interesting spin on the topic. I'm not sure how much uptake you're going to get, although this isn't necessarily a topic about gay marriage per se, it looks like one, and we've got a 100-page thread in the 'Tank about it, so people might not be keen.
(Actually, I'm on my way there to post an interesting article.)
But as far as definitions go...I'm a big fan of definitions. Careful, extensive, well thought out definitions. Definitions which define things in such a way that nothing without all those characteristics can be a thing, and anything with all of them must be that thing.
--A
Interesting spin on the topic. I'm not sure how much uptake you're going to get, although this isn't necessarily a topic about gay marriage per se, it looks like one, and we've got a 100-page thread in the 'Tank about it, so people might not be keen.
(Actually, I'm on my way there to post an interesting article.)
But as far as definitions go...I'm a big fan of definitions. Careful, extensive, well thought out definitions. Definitions which define things in such a way that nothing without all those characteristics can be a thing, and anything with all of them must be that thing.
--A
-
Mighara Sovmadhi
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 1157
- Joined: Mon Feb 23, 2009 6:50 am
- Location: Near where Broken Social Scene is gonna play on October 15th, 2010
-
Vraith
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 10623
- Joined: Fri Nov 21, 2008 8:03 pm
- Location: everywhere, all the time
- Been thanked: 3 times
Re: Definitions, laws, and "gay marriage"
Lets play with this, ignoring the rights/legal aspects...cuz I'm not sure it's been precisely approached from this side in the other thread
But marriage is not the same category/family/kind of thing. You can, quite literally, make the definition whatever you want. [if you're not assuming it is a thing from God...more on that in a moment]. Even if you say union between one man and one woman that isn't enough...you have to define other aspects of what it is...and end up trying to say something like "light blue" and "dark blue" are incoherent modifications of "blue." Which, in a hypertechnical sense is probably true...every specific wavelength is a unique, precise, exact color. Yet there is a similarity in "blueness," such that light and dark blue make sense to us. Gay marriage makes sense in that same way...it may not have "man/woman," but the other similarities make it intelligible. And it isn't that marriage CAN't be other kinds of unions by definition, it is just that some people don't want it to be anything else.
I might even agree with them for the sake of precision in communication...except that marriage has been defined/redefined god knows how many times and ways and for various purposes, and the current argument pretends to be about denotation, but they're really arguing about a nebulous/mystic/mythical connotation of special-ness. It's interesting that both sides agree there is some value in that connotation...one side wants it, too...the other side wants to remain exclusive. The rational parts of the argument are a distant second-place consideration [though they are the only useful part in the legal arena, discussed thoroughly in the other thread].
If it is something from God, you end up in a really amusing [to me] place...no one who belongs to a different religion [or even a different off-shoot...like evangelical instead of catholic] is REALLY married at all in most cases...because the whole reason there are different ones is cuz each says others aren't really following God. [some groups/religions have some wiggle room here, but many don't].
First, I don't think the incoherence happens in the same way for "gay marriage" as it does for "square circle"...because there is and can be one and only one consistent, coherent, logical definition for both "square" and "circle."...if you define them any other way, they are literally something else AND they both still exist, you just haven't properly named them AND whatever you name them they are literally contradictory...there cannot be some thing made up entirely of points equidistant from one point and having 4 right angles and equal length sides.Mighara Sovmadhi wrote:One argument against "gay marriage" is that appending "gay" to the word "marriage" violates the definition of the latter. However, philosophers have traditionally thought that incoherent definitions cancel themselves out and therefore apply to nothing in the non-lexical world.
But marriage is not the same category/family/kind of thing. You can, quite literally, make the definition whatever you want. [if you're not assuming it is a thing from God...more on that in a moment]. Even if you say union between one man and one woman that isn't enough...you have to define other aspects of what it is...and end up trying to say something like "light blue" and "dark blue" are incoherent modifications of "blue." Which, in a hypertechnical sense is probably true...every specific wavelength is a unique, precise, exact color. Yet there is a similarity in "blueness," such that light and dark blue make sense to us. Gay marriage makes sense in that same way...it may not have "man/woman," but the other similarities make it intelligible. And it isn't that marriage CAN't be other kinds of unions by definition, it is just that some people don't want it to be anything else.
I might even agree with them for the sake of precision in communication...except that marriage has been defined/redefined god knows how many times and ways and for various purposes, and the current argument pretends to be about denotation, but they're really arguing about a nebulous/mystic/mythical connotation of special-ness. It's interesting that both sides agree there is some value in that connotation...one side wants it, too...the other side wants to remain exclusive. The rational parts of the argument are a distant second-place consideration [though they are the only useful part in the legal arena, discussed thoroughly in the other thread].
If it is something from God, you end up in a really amusing [to me] place...no one who belongs to a different religion [or even a different off-shoot...like evangelical instead of catholic] is REALLY married at all in most cases...because the whole reason there are different ones is cuz each says others aren't really following God. [some groups/religions have some wiggle room here, but many don't].
[spoiler]Sig-man, Libtard, Stupid piece of shit. change your text color to brown. Mr. Reliable, bullshit-slinging liarFucker-user.[/spoiler]
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
the difference between evidence and sources: whether they come from the horse's mouth or a horse's ass.
"Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation."
the hyperbole is a beauty...for we are then allowed to say a little more than the truth...and language is more efficient when it goes beyond reality than when it stops short of it.
-
Holsety
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 3490
- Joined: Sun May 21, 2006 8:56 pm
- Location: Principality of Sealand
- Has thanked: 5 times
- Been thanked: 5 times
I guess my main question would be regarding the relationship between semantics and ethics...I think that the only relationship is that the ethical thing to do is, when discussing something of importance, to discuss it as clearly and sincerely as possible. To avoid labels, or at least to have a willingness to move off the labels and get into the nitty gritty of what sort of real situation you are actually talking about - for instance, to avoid, when dealing with public opinion, whether people support gay marriage and to ask whether they support giving gays - and anyone who's thinking about trying to create a life together, even with sex out of the picture - the same rights as married couples.Mighara Sovmadhi wrote:I thought of putting it in the Tank, and I guess I should've checked to see whether someone already started a thread about gay marriage... But people could use this thread to explore the relationship between semantics and ethics, maybe.
-
Orlion
- The Gap Into Spam
- Posts: 6666
- Joined: Sun Aug 26, 2007 12:30 am
- Location: Getting there...
- Been thanked: 1 time
The main problem I see is that definitions change... and they change constantly. At one point, marriage could have been defined as purely religious, and then it didn't matter how many wives you had. That's change to the present definition of including the State and a one husband, one wife definition.
The real question is should we change the definition again? I say yes, particularly since it has strayed so far from being a religious ritual to a state one. Others still like to hold to an older definition and are thus, less willing.
The real question is should we change the definition again? I say yes, particularly since it has strayed so far from being a religious ritual to a state one. Others still like to hold to an older definition and are thus, less willing.
'Tis dream to think that Reason can
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
Govern the reasoning creature, man.
- Herman Melville
I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all!
"All creation is a huge, ornate, imaginary, and unintended fiction; if it could be deciphered it would yield a single shocking word."
-John Crowley
I was thinking along the same lines. These social mores and definitions depend entirely on chronological and geographical positions. Seems mostly arbitrary to me.Avatar wrote:Whereas over here, polygamy is legal.Orlion wrote:That's change to the present definition of including the State and a one husband, one wife definition.)
--A
Simple problem. People should be allowed to commingle any way they please, as long as they don't expect favorable discrimination just because their path is among the least chosen.
For example, in very socialist Portugal, in the middle of a financial crisis, people went out on the streets to demand tax breaks and subsidies for... pet owners. Their rationale was that "everyone has the right to be included in society along the same rules" and since some people have tax breaks (foster parents, those taking care of the elderly, students, large families, the disabled etc.) so they should have them as well. Such a state of affairs was reached through progressive State nannyism which invariably leads to lack of objectivity.
So to sum it up... marriage should be something totally outside the scope of civil administration. People should either be living in communion of economy, or not. Anyone who wished to get a proper, ritual marriage with a spiritual or romantic component should do this freely, under no rules and no civil implications at all, under their own supervision or that of a church, sect, group, tribe, whatever.
For example, in very socialist Portugal, in the middle of a financial crisis, people went out on the streets to demand tax breaks and subsidies for... pet owners. Their rationale was that "everyone has the right to be included in society along the same rules" and since some people have tax breaks (foster parents, those taking care of the elderly, students, large families, the disabled etc.) so they should have them as well. Such a state of affairs was reached through progressive State nannyism which invariably leads to lack of objectivity.
So to sum it up... marriage should be something totally outside the scope of civil administration. People should either be living in communion of economy, or not. Anyone who wished to get a proper, ritual marriage with a spiritual or romantic component should do this freely, under no rules and no civil implications at all, under their own supervision or that of a church, sect, group, tribe, whatever.
Ardet nec Consumitur.