by Jason Stotts
I am a fan of the blog WoPSR run by “Qwertz.” He generally has good analysis and frequently deals with interesting legal issues. Unfortunately, this time, he strayed too far afield and right into my bailiwick.
In his essay “Rand’s Razor v. Gay Marriage” Qwertz takes the position that for a married homosexual to use the word “husband” or “wife” is inappropriate. Why? Because: “I have always found myself a bit nonplussed [d. surprised and confused] whenever I hear someone mention his husband, or her wife. […] This mental response of ‘there’s something not quite right about that usage’ is subtle, but consistent, which makes me think it is not inconsequential and deserves investigation. There are two possibilities: either I subconsciously do not accept a man in a same-sex marriage as a proper unit of the concept ‘husband’; or such a person is not properly a unit of the concept.” Thus, his reason to think that it is inappropriate for a gay man to use the word “husband” to refer to his spouse is because it makes him feel uncomfortable.
I think he is right that there are two possibilities for this: 1. that he does not accept same-sex marriage or 2. that same-sex marriages should not use “husband” or “wife.” I’m certainly going with 1 here, but just to be fair, let’s look to the concepts of husband and wife and see if there is something about them that prevents their use in same-sex marriages.
Husband and wife are what is considered a “relational concept,” much like friend, brother, daughter, etc. In a relational concept, the essence of the concept is not be found in the people in the relationship, but in the relationship itself. For example, friendship is not to be found in a person, but is how that person acts and behaves to their friend: the “friendship” itself is the relation of two people to each other.
So, we know that “husband” and “wife” are relational concepts, but to what do they relate? Well, clearly they denote a marital relation: that is, that one is in a relationship that we call marriage. To say that a woman is “a wife” is to say that she is married; to say that she is “my wife” is to use the possessive, to say that she is married to me. The concept wife just denotes that a woman is in a marital relationship: but it does not specify with whom. In order to specify with whom, one must add additional information to the concept. This is very important because the concept that Qwertz is using is “wife+heterosexual+married to a man.” He’s attempting to load a concept with information that does not belong in it. Let me draw an analogy with “bachelor,” which everyone who has ever had a philosophy class knows, is “an unmarried man.” Bachelor is a negative relational concept, it denotes that a man is not in a marital relationship. Now, imagine if we “Qwertz” the concept and make Bachelor “male+heterosexual+not married to a heterosexual female.” He’s filling the concepts with information that is unnecessary.
All of this is ironic, as Qwertz asserts that he’s using Rand’s Razor (a coinage by Rand that is a reference to William of Ockham) to mean that: “concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity—the corollary of which is: nor are they to be integrated in disregard of necessity.” (ITOE 72). It’s ironic because his addition of unnecessary information would require that we create a whole host of concepts, like his “gay husbands.”
Thus, I think it’s safe to say that his option 2 falls flat: there is nothing in the nature of the concepts “husband” and “wife” that would prevent them from being applied to a same-sex marriage. This, by process of elimination, leaves us with option 1: Qwertz does not accept same-sex marriage as legitimate. Frankly, that’s a personal problem and, Qwertz, you need to just get over it. Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable does not mean that you should attack same-sex marriage: that is the modus operandi of the christians.
How about this: let’s just all accept that some people are gay and they deserve to be happy. They deserve to have relationships, to be in love, and to have their love recognized by others and the state. There is no danger in this to heterosexual marriage or children or the nature of society. The only danger it has is to our unchallenged beliefs that we will be forced to confront–and that’s the real fear isn’t it? That we’ll all have to look inside ourselves and actually think about homosexuality.
Comments
7 responses to “Same-Sex Marriage and Epistemological Confusion”
Jason,
I think you’re way off the mark here in your criticism of Qwertz. Nearly every paragraph of yours misrepresents what he said in his post.
From the second paragraph:
“Thus, his reason to think that it is inappropriate for a gay man to use the word “husband” to refer to his spouse is because it makes him feel uncomfortable”
This is untrue. He is not saying “I have this emotional response, therefore gay men shouldn’t use the word ‘husband’”. He is saying (I’m extrapolating a bit here, but this is clear from the context of the post) “I have this emotional response, and it is consistent in its occurrence. I know that my emotions are a result of subconsciously held value judgments, so there are two possibilities: either I have inadvertently automatized some error, or there is a legitimate issue here that I should try to put into conscious terms.” In other words, he is using his emotions as a cue to start an intellectual process, not as an argument. Nowhere does he say “X makes me feel bad, therefore X is wrong”, and there’s no way to get that from what he says.
From your third paragraph:
“I think he is right that there are two possibilities for this: 1. that he does not accept same-sex marriage or 2. that same-sex marriages should not use “husband” or “wife.”
This is a complete misrepresentation of what Qwertz is said. Now, you may think that the possibilities are either “he doesn’t accept same-sex marriage” or “same-sex marriage should not use ‘husband’ or ‘wife’”, but the possibilities Qwertz outlines are either, to quote him directly, “either I subconsciously do not accept a man in a same-sex marriage as a proper unit of the concept “husband”; or such a person is not properly a unit of the concept.” Note that “I do not accept a man in a same-sex marriage as a unit of the concept ‘husband’” is not at all the same as “I do not accept same-sex marriage”. Again, you may think that such a position is the only alternative possible given Qwertz’s statements, but it is wrong to say that this was the alternative Qwertz himself accepted.
From the fifth paragraph:
“The concept wife just denotes that a woman is in a marital relationship: but it does not specify with whom”
This is precisely the point that Qwertz questions. In particular, he notes that “spouse” is the purely relational concept (a person who is in a marriage), and that “husband” or “wife” specify at least the fact that the spouse is a man/woman, and maybe more. That “maybe more” is the question up for debate, and I’m not sure I agree with Qwertz, but it’s far from obvious that “husband” ONLY includes the fact that the spouse is male. This is a discussion which must revolve around the cognitive utility of the concepts involved, not just the dictionary definition, as a definition does NOT encompass the totality of the concept. To dismiss Qwertz’s position by simply stating that the concept ‘wife’ “does not specify with whom” the person is married is not an argument, it is an assertion. It may be true, but to answer that question you need to argue on the basis of the principles of concept formation.
From your sixth paragraph:
“All of this is ironic, as Qwertz asserts that he’s using Rand’s Razor… It’s ironic because his addition of unnecessary information would require that we create a whole host of concepts, like his “gay husbands.””
You’ve missed his point here. Qwertz is claiming that having a concept like “husband” which only means “male spouse” would be a violation of Rand’s Razor, because there is not enough information in it to warrant the new concept. Again, you may disagree here, but his whole point is that if husband just meant “male spouse” then it would be multiplying concepts beyond necessity to have a whole new concept there instead of saying “male spouse”. Notice that as men and women have become seen as equals, the terms for the professions have dropped their gender-specific suffixes: steward and stewardess gave way to flight attendant, for example. Male lawyers and female lawyers are both lawyers. Male doctors and female doctors are both doctors. I’m not sure about this, but it might be that Qwertz is saying that if husband and wife don’t encapsulate anything more than “male spouse” and “female spouse”, then maybe they should go the way of steward and stewardess. Regardless of whether you think he’s correct, it’s far from obvious without a real argument that Qwertz is completely erroneous in invoking Rand’s Razor. (As an aside, the concept of a “razor” preceeds Occam: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Razor_(philosophy) ).
From your seventh paragraph:
“1: Qwertz does not accept same-sex marriage as legitimate. Frankly, that’s a personal problem and, Qwertz, you need to just get over it. Just because it makes you feel uncomfortable does not mean that you should attack same-sex marriage: that is the modus operandi of the christians.”
Again, Qwertz has said nothing about the legitimacy of same-sex marriage, he is simply discussing the propriety of using particular terms. He admits in the opening of his discussion that it’s possible he is wrong here, but to dismiss what you see as an error as a “personal problem” that he should “just get over” is insulting to the intelligence of an author you claim to like. The last sentence I quoted is just vile: nowhere did Qwertz attack same-sex marriage, and nowhere did he do anything “just because it makes [him] feel uncomfortable”, and his statements do not even come close to justifying comparison to religious methodology.
Your last paragraph, in full:
“How about this: let’s just all accept that some people are gay and they deserve to be happy. They deserve to have relationships, to be in love, and to have their love recognized by others and the state. There is no danger in this to heterosexual marriage or children or the nature of society. The only danger it has is to our unchallenged beliefs that we will be forced to confront–and that’s the real fear isn’t it? That we’ll all have to look inside ourselves and actually think about homosexuality.”
Out of context, this paragraph is an appropriate attack on some who attack gay marriage. But given the rest of your post, this is clearly directed at Qwertz, and is extremely unjust. Qwertz does not deny that people are gay, nor does he claim that they shouldn’t be. Qwertz does not claim that gay people do not deserve happiness. Qwertz does not claim that they don’t deserve relationships, to be in love, to have their relationships recognized by others. He explicitly defers his views on state recognition of gay relationships to a later post, but you can bet based on his past work that his position will be far more nuanced than “gays can’t marry because it makes me feel bad” (I suspect that, IF he does take issue with gay marriage, the issue stems more from the fact that the state recognizes marriage at all, not from the fact that the people are gay). He does not claim that there is a danger to heterosexuals, to children, or to society. He is not hiding away from “unchallenged beliefs”: indeed, the whole purpose of this post was to make fully explicit the beliefs which underly his emotional response and to determine if the response is valid. He certainly doesn’t fear “looking inside himself”, as that is the whole nature of this post, and he has no problem with “thinking about homosexuality”. This paragraph is an undeserved hash of insults that have absolutely no basis in anything Qwertz has ever said anywhere, let alone in this post.
Overall, I really think you should re-read Qwertz’s post, and not just jump down his throat. Qwertz is making one, and only one, claim: The term “husband” should not apply to men in a gay marriage. He does NOT claim that gay men shouldn’t be allowed to marry, be in love, etc. etc. Moreover, he presents reasons for his position. You may disagree with his reasons, but he does NOT say “I feel weird when they say husband, so they shouldn’t”, and his position is NOT obviously invalid.
You misrepresent what Qwertz says right from the start. His reason for his opinion is not his feeling of discomfort with the terms. That discomfort was just the start of the process, the catalyst for him to consider the issue. He went on to think about the issue and presented the results of his thinking.
I think you owe Qwertz an apology.
(There’s more to say on this post, without even getting to the actual issue, but I don’t have the time for it right now.)
Thank you for weighing in on this. I value your insights on the subject of sexuality.
I think my post was unclear. I will add an addendum to it to clarify the approach I was taking in my post.
It is true that I have a negative emotional reaction to the use of same-sex couples of the words “wife” and “husband.” That was indeed my starting point. But I did not intend to suggest that I had concluded that, because it makes me uncomfortable, same-sex marriage should be outlawed, or is immoral. The post was about exploring why I have that emotional response, and about finding out whether there is any validity to it. As I said, my subconscious response to those words in this context “is not inconsequential and deserves investigation.”
I did not mean to conflate the question of the propriety use of the words “husband” and “wife” by same-sex couples with the question of the propriety of same-sex relationships or same-sex marriage. I apologize if the post gave that impression. The purpose of my post was to explore the scope of the concepts “husband” and “wife”.
The role Rand’s Razor has been playing in my mind with respect to this issue goes something like this: Rearden recognized that there was a difference between Lillian and his mental image of his wife – that the two were not the same and that Lillian lacked something essential to being his wife. In light of Rand’s Razor, does this passage from Atlas Shrugged suggest that Rearden holds there to be attributes essential to the concept “wife” other than that of being the woman to whom he is married? I did not mean to argue that Rand’s Razor prohibits the use of “wife” or “husband” by same-sex couples.
Finally, I should also clarify my position with respect to the morality and legality of homosexuality. I hold that homosexuality is fully moral, despite being based on very early, very complicated errors (see Dr. Peikoff’s numerous early podcasts on the subject.) Same-sex relationships may be moral or immoral, just like heterosexual ones, but the mere fact that they are same-sex relationships does not make them immoral. I agree that they deserve social recognition. But I do not agree that anyone deserves to have their love recognized by the state. All individuals have the right to have the state recognize their mutually-agreed-upon contractual associations with another. The question of whether two people are in love is, I think, none of the state’s business. Please do not come to the conclusion that I am opposed to same-sex relationships, or that I believe homosexuality is immoral. Neither is true, and I apologize for not making that more clear.
~Q
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Trey Peden, Shea levy. Shea levy said: @Qwertz0 See http://bit.ly/dCyEqU and my unmoderated comment on your post. […]
All,
Since everyone seems to think I’ve misunderstood Qwertz’s position, I’ll take a look at his essay again and these comments and post an update tomorrow (Tuesday) night.
I would like to point out that this was never supposed to be an attack on Qwertz, but, if you consider it an attack at all, on his position. I mean really, I did start the piece saying “I am a fan of the blog WoPSR run by ‘Qwertz’.” You don’t usually say you like a guy and then attack him.
~Jason
The response just seemed to be a criticism of Qwetz’ ideas on the matter of homosexuality. This is how ideas should be discussed and debated. I certainly don’t see an attack here. To see what an attack looks like, I direct you to Whittaker Chambers’ review of “Atlas Shrugged”* (in a lettered response to the review, Objectivist philosopher Leonard Peikoff called the review a “distortion and fear-inspired invective”), or to the daily smears and shouting.of the vast array of collectivists and pragmatists who drop context, equivocate, and thereby make rational discourse impossible.
Personally, while I fiercely support the right of consenting adults to marry any adult they choose, I do not understand homosexuality. Even after much thought on the matter, I am ignorant as to whether it is moral or not, as to whether it’s a psychological flaw or error on behalf of homosexuals or biologically pre-programmed from birth. So for the time being, I am amoral on the matter.
*
http://old.nationalreview.com/flashback/flashback200501050715.asp
I’m fairly certain that any modern dictionary will agree that marriage denotes both same-sex and opposite-sex situations. But has it always been so? I don’t suspect so.
I think that the key mistake in your response is that Qwertz was guilty of “loading a concept of information that doesn’t belong to it”. If wife = woman+married, and married includes the opposite-sex-partner as an essential characteristic, then it’s already part of the concept and there was no “loading” on Q’s part (similarly, we differentiate same-sex marriage by adding the words “same-sex”).
And if you consider that marriage is a unity of two persons specifying how the law deals with children, then one might be able to argue that child-rearing is a part of that contract. Regarding the ways that gay couples come by children nowadays, adoption was handled by a separate legal process (and concept), and once upon a time, we didn’t have the technology of artificial insemination. I think that the history of the concept of marriage does include the heterosexual component as an essential characteristic and that it has evolved beyond some of the existing terminology, which may need rethinking.
Moreover, the right word/concept to identify something can be very powerful and spiritual thing. When you can say, I am an Objectivist, and make yourself understood completely with one concept, it is way better than saying that you are an Aristotelian, or a Randian, or a objective-reality-perceiving-rational-egoist-who-advocates-capitalism-and-romantic-art. Same deal.