by Timothy Hsiao
In an earlier piece, I argued that the family is best thought of as having an essential nature that is ordered toward the realization of certain ends and that is grounded in human proper functioning. This establishes an objective standard which enables us to make normative judgments about certain familial arrangements being good, bad, better, or worse.[1]
Now while one might object to such an analysis on the grounds that it is just frivolous, abstract theorizing, establishing what a family is allows us to discern what it is not. And this insight can in turn be practically applied to the ethical controversies of our time.
Take for instance the controversy over same-sex parenting and adoption. If the nature of the family is indeed rooted in human nature, then it follows that two individuals of the same-sex cannot be parents in principle, for they are incapable in principle of reproduction. If same-sex couples cannot be parents, then it follows that they are not entitled to the same adoption rights which opposite-sex couples enjoy, for only those capable of being parents have the right to adopt. The notion that we ought to recognize a right to adoption for same-sex couples thus makes as much sense as saying that we ought to give a father the right to be a mother. If a father cannot be a mother in principle, then there is no injustice taking place when he is “denied” a corresponding right, for he doesn’t actually have this right to begin with.
Two objections are usually levied against this point. First, the existence of assisted reproductive techniques allow same-sex couples to become parents. Second, the existence of infertile couples of the opposite-sex are said to undermine the teleological conception of parenthood.
While it is true that procedures such as in vitro fertilization allow same-sex couples to be parents, they are still not parents in the relevant sense — that is, in regard to each other. Such procedures still at their core rely on heterosexual union and thus must involve donated sperm or egg from a third party. Hence this third party is a biological parent of the child produced; moreover, the child produced through such means is not literally the child of both members of the same-sex couple. The first objection thus fails to distinguish between a same-sex couple having children with each other and having children through another individual.
In addressing the second objection, it is useful to distinguish between acts that are reproductive in type and acts that are reproductive in effect. The family is ordered around human nature, from which certain types of capacities intrinsically flow, even if they are not fully realized. In philosophical terms, the family is grounded in the having of certain essential properties, regardless of whether or not they are contingently realized. So while infertile opposite-sex couples cannot have children of their own, they are still capable of conjugal acts and thus retain the right to adoption.
So far, none of what has been said implies that same-sex couples shouldn’t be allowed to adopt, only that they do not have a right to adopt. While same-sex couples cannot be parents, they can certainly function like them (although in a less-than-ideal sense). If there existed an exceptional circumstance in which adoption by a same-sex couple were the only and best means to prevent the welfare of a child from being endangered, then such an action would be justified. But these cases are extremely rare, and as such, same-sex adoption should only be the last resort. Thus, while same-sex adoption is at the very most permissible, it is permissible only in extraordinary circumstances. An analogy can be drawn to capital punishment — many hold to the view that it is permissible in principle but that it is no longer needed in our society. One may adopt the same rationale in regards to same-sex adoption, and hold that same-sex couples should not be allowed adopt because our society has no need for it, among other reasons.
Let me emphasize in closing that I am not endorsing same-sex adoption, only that it is legitimate, in principle, as a means of last resort. Adoption by opposite-sex parents is the norm, and the norm should be adhered to whenever possible. For all practical purposes, then, same-sex couples should not be allowed to adopt.
Timothy Hsiao is a philosophy student at Florida State University. His interests are in the areas of applied ethics and jurisprudence. He is a regular contributor to Ethika Politika.
[1] . A critic of mine has pointed out that one can avoid this by treating the family as a social construct akin to basketball, where one can make evaluative judgments in the framework of the agreed upon conventions. Yet this seems inadequate, for the analogy holds weight only if we agree in advance to play within the framework of a certain governing body. But what if we don’t? Suppose that half of the teams in the NBA were to split and form a new league with their own rules. Would this be breaking the rules of basketball? Arguably not, for they are not subject to any higher standard. One only need to look at the different variations of which many sports are played. At any rate, this only pushes the problem back a step. Even if we adopt cultural relativism about the family as opposed to individual relativism, the same problem remains. Suppose culture A thinks that a good family is one in which the children and parents are sexually with each other, while culture B thinks the exact opposite. On the cultural relativist analysis, both conceptions are morally equivalent.
14 Responses to Parental Metaphysics (Part 2): Same-Sex Adoption
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“If the nature of the family is indeed rooted in human nature, then it follows that two individuals of the same-sex cannot be parents in principle, for they are incapable in principle of reproduction.”
Obviously, this is full of missing premises, in particular about *what* human nature is, and *which* principle your conclusion is “in”. A rather obvious fact about human nature is that we are capable of going beyond merely instinctual drives and behavior and, by reflexively evaluating our own values and intentions, discover the fact that the principle of universalization (embodied in the golden rule) provides an objective standard of evaluation of these, colloquially called “morality.” If you want to call this “rooted in human nature,” be my guest, but it is an objective standard rather than one rooted in contingencies of human nature (the only contingency is in the fact that we have the reflexive brain capacity to apply this objective standard to ourselves). That’s a pretty good principle–but one which you have made no attempt to show is violated by same-sex adoption. And of course principles of using science and technology, also *very* deeply grounded in human nature, do make all these couples capable of reproducing in very principled ways.
I’d certainly be interested in hearing Eli’s response to your final point (BTW Eli, thanks for posting here–I’ve bookmarked your blog and look forward to perusing it, as your thought on these matters looks quite cogent). But I would not that if all you can give is the tired argument that accepting that we choose our standards for human practices must lapse into relativism, try considering the idea that *ethical* standards–again, ultimately based on the golden rule/universalization principle–might allow us to distinguish between good and bad instances of practice-selection. If you addressed real arguments that people give for SS marriage, and not straw-man cultural relativist arguments, this would be more relevant to the actual debate.
Scott,
I think you’re right that this argument fails as a convincing one, at least for those more philosophically minded. The connection between nature and a basis for values isn’t really drawn out too fully.
I’m sort of confused about what you mean when you say that morality is an “objective standard” as opposed to one rooted in “contingencies of human nature.” So far as I know (and I think this is what Hsiao would purport, also), human nature doesn’t have contingencies, even if individual human persons do have contingent traits (e.g., whiteness in Socrates, etc.) The nature, as essential, seems to be objective in a pretty real way. Maybe you could clarify how you were using those terms.
If you’re able to articulate this distinction with regard to your main point, I think you might be onto something. But I’ve never heard it put like that; I’d be curious to know what you mean.
Contingencies: we reproduce sexually, are between 3-8 feet tall, with two arms, live on the earth, have skin, and are rational.
Non-contingencies: 2+2=4, something which is entirely red in every respect cannot also be entirely green in every respect, not all sets are members of themselves, and the consistent valuation of the satisfaction of your rational ends excludes the privileged valuation of your ends over the rational end of other agents merely on the grounds of the distinction between agents.
It is a contingent fact that we are entities capable of knowledge of non-contingent facts (and of contingent facts, for that matter), but that doesn’t affect the distinction between contingency and non-contingency in the facts so known.
This shouldn’t be controversial. Obviously Hsiao was ascribing some contingent facts to “essential” human nature, and ascribing them moral significance. But I suspect that’s not what you meant, and may be confusing “non-contingent” with “objective.”
The use of the latter term requires more careful disambiguation, for obviously contingent facts are also objectively true. But if they are taken to have moral significance, there is danger of doing so in a non-objective way. If I decide to kill all brown-eyed people, I have a fairly objective standard to govern my behavior at the first-order level. But my prior, higher-order choice to take eye color as a reason for this kind of action was itself very non-objective and arbitrary. Likewise if I decide to privilege the sex my ancestors had over all other forms, or the morality of the Qu’ran over that of other texts, and have nothing further to say about why, I can claim objectivity for my moral choices following this one…but not for the first, initial choice from which all the others cascade.
A considerable amount of fallacious argumentation in morality trades on this sort of ambiguity regarding “objectivity.” I have often read argument that morality based on divine commands, the Bible, natural impulses and historical/evolutionary tendencies, and so forth, are “objective” because there are objective facts about what those sources say or do which we don’t control. Even the latter claim is in doubt, but even if it weren’t it avoids the main point. The *choice* to adopt one of these supposedly “objective” sources instead of others as one’s strategy for determining moral norms is not make objective just because the chosen source exists as an objective fact. Objectivity in the facts about the source does not carry over into your choice to make that particular source your moral authority, a choice which might actually be quite idiosyncratic and arbitrary. Pretending otherwise disguises subjective or relativistic ethics in the guise of objectivity, and quite dangerously so.
OTOH there is nothing arbitrary in the choice to base morality on non-contradiction in consistent higher-order approval of one’s lower-order norms as norms (as embodied by the Golden Rule, moral supervenience, and–less accurately, but that’s another discussion–by Kant’s categorical imperative). If you try to reject such a principle, you’re ultimately contradicting yourself, and don’t really have a serious valuational principle to propose; at best, merely a strategy for disguising the contradiction.
Thanks, Scott.
Pardon my relative unfamiliarity with the topic, but that seems like an awfully strange way to define the words “contingent” and “non-contingent” (or I would presume “necessary”). First of all, I’m not sure that all of your contingent properties are a like: is rationality really like “between 3-8 feet tall”? I would suppose not.
More importantly, I don’t see how rationality as a property of human nature is anything less than the property of “2″ in 2+2=4, that is to say that they’re both definitional features of their ‘set,’ right? We wouldn’t call something human if it weren’t rational (although it’s conceivable that we could have applied the same word “human” to something else, but that’s not really a material concern, here.) It seems like rationality as a species defining feature isn’t contingent at all, but rather quite necessary.
Maybe you have a counter to that. I don’t see how it fits. (And if it doesn’t fit, then I’m not sure I understand the rest of your argument that’s based upon this distinction.)
Lorenzo, speaking of necessities & contingencies is often ambiguous, for these are essentially /relational/ properties. I apologize for not making this clearer in my discussion. It is of course contingent that any particular entities exist at all (as far as I know), but often necessary that if an entity with one property exists, it also has some other property. Square/rectangular, and (morally) human/rational indeed are two examples of these. Facts like 2+2=4, and the other stuff I said about sets and abstract moral principles, can be said to be non-relational necessities, or perhaps simply ones that have the necessity relationship trivially with respect to all other possible facts.
I certainly wouldn’t challenge the claim that rationality of some sort is essential to (morally) human nature, aka personhood (though, notably, some biologically human entities lack this feature, giving us strong reasons to think that they lack the relevant sense of humanity and hence moral rights, but that’s another discussion!) Indeed, that’s pretty much my point; /this/ feature is necessary to us, but the kinds of properties Hsaio would need to appeal to (in his missing premises, which no one has yet provided) to reach his conclusions would /not/ be ones necessary to the existence of human life, either in the moral or biological sense. Furthermore, I was claiming that the moral properties which are necessary to full human existence positively militate *against* any argument which would limit human nature, and humanly-defined social categories, only to those that worked for our biological ancestors.
Hsiao: http://rustbeltphilosophy.blogspot.com/2011/09/outclassed.html
Lorenzo:
“We wouldn’t call something human if it weren’t rational”
Sure we would – and, in fact, we do. Anencephalic human infants have “no chance of…ever achieving a conscious existence,” yet they’re still humans (at least, for their short lives): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anencephaly#Prognosis. What makes you think that they aren’t human?
Or, perhaps you think that they *are* human because, despite reality, they are (in a broad sense) rational. This, I think, is a mistake and a very imprecise way of thinking; at best you’re making the statistical claim that anencephalic human infants belong to a species that is *usually* rational, and at worst you’d be inventing a whole categorization schema that has no basis in reality and is ideologically untenable. But I guess you can tell me which one you meant.
Thanks both of you.
Scott: the clarification is helpful. I’m not convinced that “non-relational necessary properties” are required to get the strong moral conclusions alluded to, here. But I suspect that’s a debate for another day.
Eli: interesting distinctions. I’d certainly move in favor of the latter option, but without the inclusion of the qualifier “usually” (although I can appreciate that being the warranted result if we’re looking at things merely in terms of “statistical claims.”) Rather, I’d come down as saying that anencephalic infants do indeed possess a rational nature, but one that’s not fully developed—insofar as they are not fully developed. (I’m sure we disagree; I just wanted to respond to your worthwhile comment.)
Well, if you base morality on non-necessary properties, as Hsaio and other opponents of same-sex marriage do, you get some version of relativism or subjectivism, even if you didn’t realize it. But these moral systems are irrational to endorse, even implicitly, for it is tantamount to endorsing anyone else who might do you great harm while following such ethical theories. So I think basing morality on necessary rather contingent facts is indeed very much required to have a consistent moral system, and the travesty of trying to base it on the latter while denying that one is doing so needs to be called out.
Eli: very good post in your own blog on this. Posting there is certainly wiser than trying to repeat the same here at length, since the editors in the past have gotten very huffy when respondents point out when the bloggers are making obviously false statements. I agree that Hsaio’s arguments are so obviously bad here, resting on missing premises and equivocations about the meaning of “parent,” while ignoring the need for objective moral standards for deciding how to classify things, that we must sadly conclude that his philosophical training is distorted in some way. I suspect that what’s going on in blogs like these is similar to what happened years ago with the Sokal hoax in _Social Text_; writings are accepted, not on the basis of philosophical acumen, but on whether or not their conclusions and phrasing line up with that of some ideological presumptions.
I wouldn’t be surprised if these comments of mine were classified as “non-respectful” even though they are obviously true, and supported by Eli’s very cogent and extended reasoning on his own blog. The editor’s deletion of this message without any cogent explanation of why my claims are in error, would of course support my claims.
Ah – so you’re going for the invented-categorization-schema option, then, Lorenzo? Because I don’t know of any consistent, nonarbitrary way to draw a line so that the “nature” of an anencephalic infant is rational. Of course, you could just draw the line arbitrarily in order to suit your pre-formed conclusion, but then I’m not sure why that would be a “nature” so much as a thing you invented way after the fact.