The institution of marriage makes women vulnerable, as does being unmarried in a society that idealises marriage as the norm. It is argued that the use of civil unions as an alternative to legal marriage does not protect women from this vulnerability, and nor do proposed reforms to the institution. The institution of legal marriage therefore must be abolished. A hybrid of Clare Chambers’ piecemeal regulation of relationships and Elizabeth Brake’s minimal marriage, termed the anti-vulnerability approach to relationship regulation (or (...) the AVA) is put forward as the best means to regulate relationships in a way that will protect women from vulnerability. The AVA is implementable in countries where Western marriage is not always the norm, such as South Africa, and is also strongly compatible with LGBTQIA+ relationship styles and arguments against marriage. However, as a piecemeal regulation of relationships cannot be implemented alongside holistic regulation systems, such as legal marriage, legal marriage would need to be abolished to create a system of regulating relationships that will be able to protect women from vulnerability. (shrink)

For more than 40 years, the Kingdom of Bhutan has eschewed evaluating its socio-economic status in terms of Gross Domestic Product and has instead done so under the heading of ‘Gross National Happiness’. As part of the upswing in international interest in well-being as the proper final end of development, it would be apt to critically explore the approach that has been in use for several decades. In this article I expound the central elements of Gross National Happiness and discuss (...) their strengths and weaknesses from a moral-philosophical perspective. I conclude that while Gross National Happiness covers many blind spots missed by influential Western indices with which readers are likely to be more familiar, the latter also have corrections to offer the former, inviting a fascinating cross-cultural exchange about how to understand the nature of well-being for purposes of public policy. (shrink)

This article draws attention to a form of injustice in intimate relationships of care that is largely ignored in discussions about the legal rights and obligations of intimate partners. This form of injustice is connected to a feature of caregiving I call “flexibility,” in virtue of which caregiving requires “skills of flexibility.” I argue that the demands placed by these skills on caregivers create constraints that amount to “vulnerability to oppression.” To lift these constraints, caregivers are entitled to open-ended responses (...) to their work, responses that would enable them to pursue their own projects while providing care. Instead of protecting individual choice of intimate relationships, marriage law should protect these entitlements. (shrink)

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Frage, ob erwachsene Kinder ihren Eltern als deren Kinder etwas schulden. Ich argumentiere, dass sich entsprechende filiale Pflichten nicht begründen lassen, und zwar weder i.) mit Verweis auf Güter, die Kinder im Laufe ihrer Kindheit von ihren Eltern erhalten haben, noch ii.) vor dem Hintergrund der aktuellen Beziehung zwischen Eltern und ihren erwachsenen Kindern, noch iii.) mit Blick auf das positive Potential dieses Verhältnisses für Eltern wie Kinder. Zwar haben Kinder also keine filialen Pflichten, doch sind (...) sie iv.) dennoch in ihrer filialen Freiheit eingeschränkt. Diese Einschränkung ergibt sich aus der speziellen relationalen Vulnerabilität, welche die Eltern-Kind-Beziehung prägt und die Kindern Grund gibt, sich in ihrem Verhalten ihren eigenen Eltern gegenüber von dieser Verletzlichkeit leiten zu lassen und auf sie Rücksicht zu nehmen. (shrink)

Supporters of Justificatory Liberalism (JL)—such as John Rawls and Gerard Gaus—typically maintain that the state may not coerce its citizens on matters of constitutional essentials unless it can provide public justification that the coerced citizens would be irrational in rejecting. The state, in other words, may not coerce citizens whose rejection of the coercion is based on their reasonable comprehensive doctrines (i.e., worldviews). Proponents of the legal recognition of same-sex marriage (SSM) usually offer some version of JL as the most (...) fundmental reason why laws that recognize marriage only if it is a union between one man and one woman are unjust. In this article I argue that the application of JL in support of legal recognition of SSM does not succeed because the issue under scrutiny—the nature of marriage—is deeply embedded in, and in most cases integral to, many (if not most) citizens’ reasonable comprehensive doctrines. Thus, I argue that because of the effects and consequences of the legal recognition of SSM, it results (or will result) in a violation of JL against dissenting citizens. (shrink)

Much is said about the decline of the family, often in connection with the prevalence of certain social problems. In this article I consider two kinds of fear: (i) that the traditional family is disappearing; (ii) that new forms of family emerging are, in some or other respect, not worthy of the title. In themselves, neither fear, I argue, should give rise to pressing ethical concerns as such. On fear (i): if by ?traditional family? we mean one whose adult members (...) are heterosexuals, normally married and bringing up, in a single shared residence, their own offspring to whom they are biologically related, then indeed this is threatened by certain laws, and social and biotechnological relationships that tolerate and make possible new kinds of parental relationships. But as there are clear ethical objections to the disadvantaging of non-traditional families, there is no clear-cut case that the decline of the traditional version is a bad thing. Fear (ii) typically reflects a concern about excessive separation of the social and biological aspects of parenthood?i.e., that the definition and function of the family in social terms has become detached from a strict biological understanding of such factors. I argue that this concern is misplaced, for various reasons. As a result, there is no good reason to worry that the family?in all of its myriad forms?does not have a future. (shrink)

Explains the concept and conceptions of public justification found in the philosophy and political theory literatures.

Whether a liberal state should sanction marriages, and if so, in what form, is a hotly contested topic in liberal political theory. This essay responds to a radical proposal by Clare Chambers to end state sanctioned marriage and replace the institution with a network of practice-based directives aimed at ensuring gender equality and liberty. I argue that this proposed framework suffers from the serious defect of not only failing to ensure liberty but actively undermining it due to the way directives (...) will inevitably either include too many people under their scope to preserve liberty or too few to ensure equality. While the presence of this defect does not settle the debate concerning how liberal states should handle marriage, it makes clearer the tradeoffs involved in selecting new personal relationship law frameworks to replace marriage. (shrink)

In “Confucianism and Same-Sex Marriage,” published recently in Politics and Religion, Professor Tongdong Bai argues for a “moderate Confucian position on same-sex marriage,” one that supports its legalization and yet endeavors “to use public opinion and social and political policies to encourage heterosexual marriages, and to prevent same-sex marriages from becoming the majority form of marriages” (Bai 2021:146). Against the backdrop of downright homophobia prevalent among vocal Confucians in mainland China today, Bai claims that his pro-legalization rendition “show[s] a different (...) version of Confucianism that challenges the received perception of Confucianism that it is deeply conservative, a perception that often lies at the core of the rejection of its contemporary relevance, especially by the so-called ‘liberals’ in China and elsewhere” (Bai 2021:133). Furthermore, Bai claims that his moderate Confucianism is normatively preferrable to “the typical liberal or individualist position” of a marriage equality supporter, because the specter of polygamy – the conservative trope of invoking polygamy as a reductio ad absurdum against same-sex marriage – imposes “a serious challenge” to liberals but not to moderate Confucians (Bai 2021:146, 153). -/- Both of Bai’s claims falter upon scrutiny, however. Granted, it is applaudable that Bai tries to dissuade his more conservative Confucian colleagues from opposing the legalization of same-sex marriage. But as Section 1 of this Response will show, the alternative rendition of Confucianism he presents, along with the way he presents it, is premised on a highly contested conception of what shared Confucian values are; does injustice to Confucians who embrace marriage equality more unreservedly (i.e., without caveats à la Bai); fails to produce new arguments that “enrich the theoretical basis for same-sex marriage” (Bai 2021:133); and, ironically, reinforces – rather than “challenges” – the “received perception” of Confucianism as deeply conservative. Meanwhile, Section 2 will show that Bai’s comparison between liberalism and moderate Confucianism relies both upon an apparent unfamiliarity with the extensive and nuanced liberal discussions on polygamy, and upon fallacious methods of assessing comparative normative valence. -/- Finally, Section 3 will offer some concluding thoughts from the perspective of decolonial theory, examining the dynamic of spectacularized postcoloniality that propels the production and consumption of dubious theoretical projects like Bai’s. As it turns out, this case serves not only as a cautionary tale of how not to conduct comparative normative theorizing, but also as a cautionary tale of how not to let the spectacle of postcoloniality derail the pursuit of academic decolonization. (shrink)

This paper responds to arguments that polyamorous groups or care networks do not qualify for equal treatment with marriages. It refutes the points that polyamory is inherently hierarchical or unstable, that there are too few people in such arrangements to mount an argument for recognition, that polyamory harms children, and that there are insurmountable legal and practical hurdles to network marriage. Finally, it respond to the charge that extending recognition to polyamorists will devalue the recognition of same-sex marriage.

Parties to a temporary marriage agree in advance that their marriage will only last for a fixed period of time unless renewed: that it will automatically expire after two years, for instance, or five, or twenty. This paper defends the claim that temporary marriages deserve state recognition. The main argument for this is an application of a principle of marriage equality. Some other arguments for are also canvassed, including an argument from religious freedom, and a number of arguments against recognition (...) are also discussed. The paper also discusses the question of whether such “temporary marriages” are in fact a kind of marriage, and defends the claim that they are, or would be, genuinely marriages. (shrink)