Among other important elections, on November 4 Californians will be voting on Proposition 8, a measure to amend the state Constitution in order to ban same-sex marriages. The polling has been very close, with a possible late break toward a “Yes” vote; this would effectively overturn a California Supreme Court decision from this May that held that same-sex couples had a right to marry under the equal protection clause of the California Constitution. Eventually, of course, gay marriage will be accepted throughout the country, and we will look back on today as the bad old days of discrimination. But that’s cold comfort to the couples who would like to celebrate their love for each other right now. You can donate and learn more about the measure at No On 8.
We are occasionally asked why a Physics Blog spends time talking about religion and politics and all that nonsense. A perfectly correct answer is that this is not a Physics Blog, it’s a blog by some people who happen to be physicists, and we talk about things that interest us, blah blah blah. But there is another, somewhat deeper, answer. Physics is not just a technical pastime played with numerical simulations and Feynman diagrams; nor is it a purely instrumental technique for unlocking Nature’s secrets so as to build better TV sets. Physics, as it is currently practiced, is a paradigm for a naturalistic way of understanding the world. And that’s a worldview that has consequences stretching far beyond the search for the Higgs boson.
Charles Taylor makes an admirable stab at a very difficult task: understanding the premodern mindset from our modern vantage point. (Via 3 Quarks Daily.) There are many ways in which our perspective differs from that of someone living five hundred years ago in a pre-scientific age, but Taylor emphasizes one important one:
Almost everyone can agree that one of the big differences between us and our ancestors of five hundred years ago is that they lived in an “enchanted” world, and we do not; at the very least, we live in a much less “enchanted” world. We might think of this as our having “lost” a number of beliefs and the practices which they made possible. But more, the enchanted world was one in which these forces could cross a porous boundary and shape our lives, psychic and physical. One of the big differences between us and them is that we live with a much firmer sense of the boundary between self and other. We are “buffered” selves. We have changed.
Our ancestors lived in an enchanted world, where the boundary between the physical and the moral and the spiritual was not very clearly drawn. It made perfect sense, at the time, to attribute to the external world the same kinds of meanings and impulses that one found in the human world — purposes, consciousnesses, moral judgments. One of the great accomplishments of modernity was to construct a new way of understanding the world — one based on understandable, formal rules. These days we understand that the world is not magic.
This change in perspective has led to extraordinary changes in how we live, including the technology on which we are sharing these words. But the consequences go enormously deeper than that, and it is no exaggeration to say that our society has still not come fully to grips with the ramifications of understanding the world around us as fundamentally natural and rules-based. That’s the point at which the worldview suggested by science has had a profound effect on moral reasoning.
For our present purposes, the most important consequence is this: notions of “right” and “wrong” are not located out there in the world, waiting to be discovered, in the same sense that a new kind of elementary particle (or even a new law of physics) is located out there in the world. Right and wrong aren’t parts of the fundamental description of reality. That description has to do with wave functions and Hamiltonian dynamics, not with ethical principles. That is what the world is made of, at a deep level. Everything else — morality, love, aesthetics — is up to us.
Which is not to say that moral concepts don’t exist. It’s just that they are things we construct, not things that we come to understand by examining the world around us. To Plato or Aristotle, as well as their Medieval followers, the kinds of reasoning used to tackle moral questions wasn’t all that different from that used to tackle questions about the natural world. One looked at the world, noticed that certain things seemed to serve certain purposes, and (somewhat presumptuously) elevated those appearances to laws of nature. Some sort of conception of Natural Law has been an important strand of philosophical thinking all the way through to the modern era, even showing up in the Declaration of Independence (“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”).
But it’s wrong. There aren’t Natural Laws that distinguish right from wrong in human behavior. There are only Laws of Nature, which can account for the behavior of the complicated chemical reactions that make up human beings, but stand strictly silent about what those human beings “should” be doing. Things happen in the world, not because of any underlying purpose, but because of the combination of initial conditions and the laws of physics. The fundamental category mistake underlying the idea of Natural Law should have become perfectly obvious and universally accepted in the years after the scientific revolution, but it stubbornly persists, because people want to believe it. If the laws governing right behavior were inherent in Nature, waiting to be discovered, everything would be so much easier than if we have to work them out ourselves.
Just because moral instructions are not located out there in the world, immutable and awaiting discovery, doesn’t mean that “anything goes.” It means that moral guidelines are invented by human beings. Too many people fear that if this sort of moral relativism is true (which it is), then there is no way to denounce Hitler or Charles Manson from a standpoint of ethical absolutes. Well, what of it? I don’t need to live in a world where Hitler was wrong because the universe tells me so — I feel that he was wrong myself, and fortunately many other people agree with me. So I and these other like-minded people sit down to work out among ourselves what rules we want to live by, and we decide that people like Hitler are bad and should be stopped. The codification of moral rules does not come from examining the world or thinking about logical necessities; it comes from individual human beings examining their own desires, and communicating with other human beings to formulate rules of common consent. Some people might prefer that moral rules have a more timeless, universal standing; but personal preference does not affect the working of the actual universe.
Gay marriage is a excellent example of a rule that would be almost universally agreed upon by individual human beings negotiating in good faith, and it is to our culture’s endless embarrassment that at this late stage we are still struggling to get it right. Deep down, there are only two arguments against gay marriage. One, which is the one that actually drives most people’s views on the matter, is that it’s icky. They just don’t like the idea, and therefore don’t want it to exist. There is little point arguing against that, but we can hope that increasing normalization of the idea of homosexuality will cause such attitudes to become increasingly rare.
The other argument is that gay marriage is a violation of Natural Law. That the two human sexes clearly belong together (“Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve”) and the institution of marriage is a sacred covenant between a man and a woman. But once we understand how the universe works, in our post-Enlightenment era, there is no reason to take arguments like this seriously. Nature doesn’t have anything to say about the moral status of two individuals falling in love and formalizing their relationship. It is a matter for us individual human beings to get together and decide how we should structure our legal system. We have long ago decided to recognize the special legal status of two people who love each other and wish to formalize their status as a legal union. Marriage is a wholly invented institution; there is nothing “natural” about it. And there is simply no reason — ickiness aside — to limit that institution to heterosexual couples. There might be, if the existence of gay married couples had directly deleterious effects on other members of society; but it doesn’t, crazy exhortations about the looming threat to traditional families notwithstanding.
Opponents of gay marriage are either squeamish and prejudiced, or philosophically confused. Eliminating prejudice takes time, but the situation is gradually improving. But there is even less excuse for the philosophical confusion surrounding issues like this. And if it takes a Physics Blog to sort things out, we’re happy to take up the challenge.
As the daughter of two women who were just finally able to legally marry this past June here in California, and a lesbian myself, I just wanted to say thank you for this.
Very much.
applmak, ok, but then one can still say that that the brain consists of atoms.
@applmak: Yes, there’s a distinction to be made between the two positions, and the distinction is between reason and faith. Something like this:
We, the scientists, think reason is superior to faith, and that reason dictates a particular set of morals, which, by virtue of reason’s privileged position in our ontology of the world, are a superior set of morals. Therefore we think gay marriage should be legal.
Scientists that try to argue that “morals are relative, therefore you should do X” are trying to hide the fact that science is the religion of reason by resorting to a logical fallacy. (Which is ironic, no?) Everything Sean and all of his supporters in 1-50 are saying is true only by virtue of reason’s privileged place in their world view. But none of them are willing to acknowledge it. Shedding light on the assumptions that underlie any line of reasoning is the job of a philosopher, not a scientist, I guess.
It is not a distinction between one side which is absolutist, and the other side which is relativist. Both sides are absolutist.
Thanks for this, Sean.
Means a thing.
masonk: I don’t believe that reason and faith are in as much of competition as your statements would indicate. Faith could be considered to be belief in the assumptions underlying a particular worldview, which reason extends to everyday life. I rather like the image of these two powerful tools working together to make life possible, rather than a constant friction between them. Don’t you?
Count Iblis: Again, “atoms” only exist as much as we have defined the relationships between them and other things. Science does not actually tackle the real substance of an object, merely its interconnections with other objects. An atheist believe that these relationship are all there are. A theist accepts that the objects have more substance to them than can be explained by their relationships (aka “intrinsic value”). So something things like brains and things like atoms might have purely scientific properties to one person, but further significance to another.
incognegro, et al: I don’t quite accept the general assumption underlying several of the arguments in these comments. Their reasoning concludes like this: People who are gay should set up their own institutions independent of the existing ones. I think that misses the desire of all people to be accepted by their greater community and have a place therein. A parallel system might make their issues easier for YOU to deal with, but I don’t think it would satisfy those looking for acceptance.
“For our present purposes, the most important consequence is this: notions of “right” and “wrong” are not located out there in the world, waiting to be discovered, in the same sense that a new kind of elementary particle (or even a new law of physics) is located out there in the world. Right and wrong aren’t parts of the fundamental description of reality. That description has to do with wave functions and Hamiltonian dynamics, not with ethical principles. That is what the world is made of, at a deep level. Everything else — morality, love, aesthetics — is up to us.”
Only a hypocrite holds one responsible for whom or what they love – any love what so ever that is in ones nature is natural and beautiful.
That being said let whom ever will marry – marry – Matrimony -Patrimony – Lawsuits.
A government stamp on a relationship is, in itself, worth nothing. A relationship is no more loving or good if it is recognized by the state.
The real reasons for people wanting to extend marriage to homosexual couples are twofold:
First, marriage is a socially endorsed sexual relationship between people. Same sex couples want to achieve the cause (social endorsement, acceptance) by achieving the effect (marriage). But, non-acceptance of same sex marriage is caused by the strong evolved ickiness factor, and this won’t go away if the effect is achieved.
Second, marriage is associated with certain benefits and privileges, which may be different in different societies. It is thus up to the proponents of same sex marriage to convince the decision makers (i.e. everybody in a democracy) that they should enjoy these privileges. Moreover, it is naive to think that achievement of these benefits is an issue of “fairness”. For example, if marriage has tax advantages, then extending them to same sex couples will benefit them at the expense of non-married people.
Word. I’ve always been afraid of moral relativism, but when you look at it the right way, as Sean did, I think it’s a powerful and liberating proposal that does not mean that we have to think that everyone is on equal moral footing…
Wow. Now you’ve done it. Turn over a stone, and look at that wild squiggling going on under there.
I love your a priori take on morality tied to notions of natural law. It’s fascinating hearing it coming from a particle physicist’s perspective. It’s a very strong argument.
The difference between morality and ethics is subtle. I tend to use ethics in discourse since it’s more reason-friendly. Maybe ethics would be analogous to Einstein’s classical universe. Or perhaps that would be giving ethics too much sway with a sense of natural-ness. It’s hard to say. Physical laws are, or are not, something. They allow some sort of broader functioning. If not boundaries, that at least, possibly signposts, of a sort.
I wish scientists were more willing to look at the a priori within their disciplines, despite the trepidation #44 Gabriel Perdue seem to experience from such thoughts.
Usually when we look at the foundations we have, we learn a lot. I feel it is important that we look at our foundations from time to time. In fact, I would argue that we must, if we can proceed ethically.
There are some very smart people here. Intelligence is many things. Personally, I’m very fond of simple answers. It is peculiar how the aesthetic of simplicity rings of truth.
One of the great truths that I think we can agree upon, is that we all exist, in our own crazy awareness, whatever that might be. There is something profoundly phenomenal about that. I think we often forget to appreciate just how varied and incredible the universe can be.
We’re not talking just about gays, lesbians and straight people. Or the wild degrees of bisexuality in each. We’re talking about people. Real people, with their own uniquely challenging and eventful lives. Any time we start segregating, laying down walls, some things will get cut. And that makes all of us, a little less human.
If my collection of particles zipping about as my will can be called human, that is.
Fear is a strange and powerful force. Especially when it hits us at home.
Cultural relativism doesn’t quite hold. (Don’t take this as an argument against homosexuality even though I know that’s what the discussion has been about but the basis that it’s not wrong has been under the assumption there is no moral truth)
Breaking promises is constitutively wrong. By making an obligation you have agreed to someone else that you will fulfill it.
Consider this, could society function if people were not required to fulfill the obligations that they created (ie. promises)? We couldn’t rightly say that murder is wrong and so on, I know you can think of many problems this would entail. From this, a basis for society to function together is that we hold to our word and that is what a promise is. By definition a promise is to uphold an obligation and by breaking that promise we are going against the constitutive quality of promise-making. Thus breaking promises is constitutively wrong.
The question of morality being what is right and wrong we now have breaking promises is wrong. Now before you jump the gun, are there times you can reason your way into a lie? Maybe to save a persons life? Well, saving someones life is a good thing but lying to do so is still wrong but you’re just reasoning why you have to do something wrong to attain a good result, this is really just dependent on whether you believe the consequence or the action is what makes an act moral and you can get into some utilitarian ideals there if you’d like.
Cultural relativism being based on the principle that there are no moral truths, I find through constitutive rules that there is a minimal morality by definition of the meanings of certain words. Another would be stealing is wrong (we agree we have our own personal-property and to take someone elses personal-property is stealing so by definition stealing is wrong as it is against the constitutive rule of owning property)
I might have forgotten to say that (basis of the whole theory):
You have a duty to abide by the constitutive rules of the institutions of which you participate in. This is in line with promise-making as by participating in an institution (US. citizen, playing a game) you agree to follow the rules given.
Nice post, Sean. This is a good start on the atheistic/scientistic “sacred” book you were looking for a while back. You just need to make it longer, and with more parables. 🙂
Neato, I think Sean was going way more foundational than concepts on the scale of theories of justice can deal with. It’s like trying to thread a needle with a backhoe.
The leviathan is too big, or rather bizarrely and abstractly arbitrary, when you’re constrained to thinking about the connection of morality to the fundamental nature of existence as we currently know it through science’s goggles.
He has a strong point, if we want to let the scientists out of their cages. Honestly, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea, unless they’re willing to devote similar obsessions to more proper philosophical issues.
Utility, as I’m sure you’re aware, is not the only measure of ethics. And we have this whole messiness of “promises” that are inherent to the fact we are born somewhere, at some time.
Messy, messy. It’s all very messy. But if we really look at it, I think that the rightness of allowing people to be, is correct. You can bring in extreme arguments into just about anything, and cause more mess. When there is no harm, people should be allowed to be. Regardless of social contracts. In fact, this is a bit of a re-negotiation of the social contract, if we go back up to the scale of the abstract leviathan, instead of physics.
Sometimes the leviathan needs to learn a little bit more about the humanity that comprises it.
Computer science has long studied belief, choice and commitment when contemplating rational agency. See http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=77757
I have always viewed my marriage as a choice and commitment. Thus I have and intentional relationship with another person. We hold each others wants and needs above any others, accept for our children to whom we have made another choice and commitment.
I want that intention publicly acknowledged because I want to be sure that no other has made the same kind of choice and commitment to my wife as I have. It would be irrational for me to hold that intention if another has already a competing intention. By publicly announcing my intentions, it would be irrational for another man to have the same exclusionary intentions toward my wife.
Thus, my marriage represents mutual beliefs, and mutual goals that I and my wife hold. It also represents mutual beliefs between our married unit and the society we live in. I do not believe that our marriage is sanctioned by other entity. I do not believe that there is a need for such.
If two men can hold the same intention toward each other, I see no reason that it should not be publicly acknowledged. A civil union confers the tax benefits of such a union, but does not really represent the commitment meant by marriage.
There is a third reason. A union that does not by design produce children, should not be given the same tax and property treatment as one that produces them. There is also a revenue stream to think about. A more affluent segment of the population would suddenly have to pay a lot less taxes, without bearing the children that the conventional marriages provide to America.
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Well, at least thanks for being honest. The thing is that it is known that homosexuality doesn’t hinder the species. There are many examples in other species, notably in bonobos, and those species have been doing quite well (and getting to the brink of extinction. And while it may not be conclusively known how it helps, there are hypotheses on how that could happen. May help with social bonding, for instance. There are also hypotheses that say how it could just be a byproduct something else, but that’s not detrimental either.
The thing is that even if it were detrimental, if we took that very simplistic view, then what would you say about people from other detrimental genetic conditions, that would far worse have hindered our evolution? Would you be willing to vote on “YES” for an amendment barring people with Huntington’s from getting married by the state? Even if homosexuality was a genetic “defect” (which most if not all evidence says it isn’t), what exactly makes sexual acts “perverse” in your opinion, that they need careful scrutiny and discrimination as opposed to other genetic “defects”?
The point is that (at least if you are a California voter) you can’t be just claiming ignorance, because this issue is just too important not to be informed about it. You’d be denying basic rights to a group of people based on what you don’t know. Ignorance is not bliss when it affects others.
Not letting gays marry is not the solution. That’s not a real problem anyway. Heterosexual couples can choose not to have children just as much as homosexuals can choose to have them. People who have children also get tax breaks, even if you’re married and not have children, you don’t get those. If there’s something wrong with that system, then let’s fix the system, not discriminate blatantly against a group of people.
Geez, for such a supposed enlightened crowd, some of you really go off on invented tangents and convoluted excuses (excepting the rather refreshing honesty of RationalZen above) for such a simple issue. You think homosexuality is wrong.
Sean, If I take an excerpt from this blog and play a little mad-lib with it I get,
I am religious and I do oppose same-sex marriage, but I also see that it is hard to argue against same-sex marriage in our ever increasing ‘liberal, free thinking and scientific’ culture from a religious stand point. But there are plenty of arguments against same-sex marriage besides the religious ones.
Maybe, the ‘liberal, free thinking, scientists’ of our day are a bit off track on certain issues only because they don’t get along with the ‘religious right’. What do you think would happen if religion didn’t exist, …. would same-sex marriage already be accepted? What else would be different? Or perhaps maybe it wouldn’t be accepted and maybe Hitler would be a hero.
Oh andyo you just don’t get it do you? For those among us with room temperature IQ’s like “Bobbeh” here, your observation of gross irrationality in his argument is utterly irrelevant. You see for him, it doesn’t matter that the heterosexual couple can’t or won’t have children. Unlike teh evil Gheys, they still deserve marriage rights in spite of failing to meet his criteria of requisite procreation because they posses what Christians refer to as “the magical wonderful peen-‘gina coupling matrix” that Jesus blessed them with. You see, every time a vadge gets impregnated, Jesus gives one more false vacua stable physical constant parameters AND an angel gets its wings! And this is why marriage should be allowed for straight people who can’t have children, but should always be banned for gay people….or at least that is what essentially the Christian’s arguments on this issue that I have seen so far basically amount to. nutters.
Andyo,
Hmmmm, I don’t know how bonobos could be said to be doing very well while being on the brink of extinction at the same time. Maybe bonobos expend too much energy on sexual activity, homosexual and otherwise.
I think its obvious homosexuality would harm a species if it was a dominant trait, because there would be no reproduction. But that isn’t really relevant, the fact is gay people do exist regardless of whether it harms a species from a Darwinian perspective or what the cause is. And I don’t have any problem with them getting married.
I think you misunderstand Bobby’s comment. A union that doesn’t produce children definitely should not be given the same tax breaks. Do you have children? Do you know how expensive they are?
That being said, a gay couple could of course adopt children or have children through other means (surrogate, or maybe one partner has kids from a previous heterosexual relationship). In that case it would only be fair to give them the same tax breaks.
Actually the one idea the republicans have had that I find appealing is a flat tax. Everyone just pays 17% income tax on whatever they make and that’s the end of it. No tax breaks for anything, children, mortgage, or whatever.
Whoops, as you can see in my other post, I was starting to make a parenthetical comment on that bonobos aren’t exactly the staple of evolutionary success, but that is probably because of us, not evolution of their species per se.
Dang, there’s got to be a preview system here. My aforementioned comment was cut off by the next sentence, I meant.
David,
I don’t think I misunderstood Bobby’s comment. The “by design” bit pretty much gave it away. In any case, as I said, not letting gays marry is not a solution to such a problem, if it even exists. As it is, couples and even single people with children do get tax breaks. If you don’t have children, you don’t get that. If it is enough or not, doesn’t have to do anything with anyone being homosexual. If it needs to be fixed, then let the tax system be fixed on that account.
There’s many reasons to support gay marriages, and only ONE reason to oppose it: lawyers.
The `refined divorce rate’ between heterosexual couples is ~ 20 per 1,000 women, ca. 2002. One could dig into the demographics to scale this by the number of marriages, but assuming the gay divorce rate would be on par, then clearly lawyers will be licking their chops for this bill to pass, and more incoming law students will no doubt want to specialize in it.
Divorce litigation may explode several years after it becomes law, and one can only speculate about the additional burdens it will place on an already inefficient court system.
Do we really want more lawyers ?