“Touchstone: Why Fight Same-Sex Marriage?”

Why fight same-sex marriage? Even in America, where the outcome is not yet decided, there appear to be good reasons not to. The optics are poor and the mandate seems uncertain. Prospects for victory appear slim. Resources that might be reserved for more important fronts—abortion, for example—are squandered in defense of an institution to which our modern urban society is no longer committed. Industrial economies, reprogenetic technologies, and new ideas of autonomy—not to speak of new moralities—have called into question many of the assumptions on which that institution has always been based.

[From Touchstone Archives: Why Fight Same-Sex Marriage?]

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39 Responses

  1. BillT says:

    “…in defense of an institution to which our modern urban society is no longer committed.”

    SSM has been defeated in every state where it has appeared on the ballot including California. How does that square with the “society is no longer committed”.

  2. Tom Gilson says:

    I think it depends on who you’re talking about. The elites in education, media, entertainment, and so on—those who are often taken to be the spokespersons of society—are no longer committed. From that angle “society” is no longer committed.

  3. BillT says:

    “The elites….are no longer committed.”

    And which elites? Those in “in education, media, entertainment…” Has there ever been a group respected as little as the above. Extreme left-wing professors, a media who have all but abandoned their journalistic integrity and entertainers in La-La land. Wow, color me impressed.

  4. d says:

    BillT:

    Here in NC on amendment one, the margin wasn’t that high, considering it was a republican primary and not a general election (well played NC GOP). Of course, I’m sure it would have passed even in a general election, but the margins might have been closer. And most sources I have seen, seem to say that support for SSM is on the rise nationwide (in large part because of the youth are more enlightened than their parents on this issue).

    I don’t know if playing fields have been similarly uneven in other states, but even despite the losses, there is an heir of inevitability about the whole thing. Maybe a decade, maybe less, maybe a little more – but ONE day – SSM is going to be a reality.

  5. Holopupenko says:

    Drunkenness and drug abuse are realities. Genocide continues to be a reality. Atheism and its body counts are a reality. Rape is a reality. Child abuse is a reality. Homosexuality–a biological and moral degeneracy–is a reality. Stealing is a reality. Dishonoring one’s parents is a reality. Covetousness is a reality.

    The question is, why “choose” dangerous and morally reprehensible realities? Oops, sorry, I forgot: free will is NOT a reality. There is no objective moral good or evil, so what’s the difference what one chooses… oops, there I go again with choice as free will.

    I guess the only reality we’re left with is sheer power over truth… which reflects the manifest realities enumerated in the first paragraph.

    Sigh…

    And so, the reality manipulators continue to walk among us–bald-face lying as if they’re introducing something new into the human condition of sin by… wait for it… by asserting sin is not a reality, except, of course, when it fits their ideology.

    That’s a reality indicative of pinheadedness.

  6. d says:

    Holo,

    To honor homosexuality along with heterosexuality is to conform to the truth, not to reject it.

    Manipulators… liars… what a conspiratorial, paranoid and miserable place it must be inside your mind.

  7. Holopupenko says:

    Like the word “honor” objectively means something inside your, ehem, “mind,” d?

    Oops, darn it! There I go again: one doesn’t need to agree objective honor exists or even what it means to employ it when convenient in your deadly worldview, does one?

  8. SteveK says:

    d,
    You may not like the way Holo expresses his views, but he is speaking the truth about the problems associated with a worldview that denies objective purpose, objective morality, etc.

    In the absence of those objective realities – i.e. they don’t exist as we understand them to exist – then what really exists is power acting against power and the various emotional outbursts in response to this power struggle. There is no objective ‘ought’ in the way that power struggle is carried out.

    Of course, Christian’s don’t hold that view of reality, but the fact that Christian’s are exercising their power over those that see only power – what’s the problem? From their perspective we’re just playing by their rules of engagement and dismissing their emotional outbursts as subjective irrationalities that have nothing to do with anyone else.

  9. d says:

    Which worldview would that be? Naturalism? As has been pointed out ad nauseum, naturalists exist all over the spectrum on those various issues. So as it stands, with these kinds of statements, all you are doing is shoving words into many people’s mouths without their consent.

    At least ACKNOWLEDGE that many people don’t accept the claims you (et al.) continually attribute to them. Or maybe I just happened to miss the part where Scholastics won philosophy, I guess?

    Then of course, we have Holo, who seems to see it as his virtuous duty to demonize (perhaps all too literally) naturalists, atheists, SSM proponents, or whoever as mere pretenders and malicious deceivers rather than fellow honest truth seekers. And of course, he can’t leave out the body-count comments (oblivious to the fact that the Holocaust, for one, more rightly belongs on Christianity’s ledger, at least in part).

    And of course – not all SSM proponents argue from a position of naturalism. Many are theists themselves, again rendering Holo’s vitriol even *more* misguided.

  10. SteveK says:

    From the Touchstone article:

    The same-sex marriage issue and the abortion issue are joined hip and groin by contraception, and cannot be separated.
    …..

    Without a recovery of nerve, and a new willingness to deal with the problem at its root, there is indeed little point in fighting the same-sex marriage battle, and almost no hope of victory. The fabric of marriage cannot withstand the acid of contraception.

    This point has always lingered in my mind. I tend to agree, but cannot really explain why. I am sure many books have been written on the subject, so the problem is mine.

  11. SteveK says:

    d,

    So as it stands, with these kinds of statements, all you are doing is shoving words into many people’s mouths without their consent.

    I’ve heard the claim that naturalism has objective ‘oughts’ in the worldview, but nothing written on that subject (including the links you’ve provided) makes any logical sense. The claim is without merit.

    How does naturalism explain real, objective prescriptive ‘oughts’ when “nature” at it’s core essence lacks any such thing? You can point to emergence all you want, but nothing emergent necessitates a prescriptive rule. Nothing *must* exist in a certain way or in a certain state. Nothing.

    What’s missing from naturalism is an essence such that prescriptive rules are part of the fabric of naturalism – and you don’t have that.

  12. SteveK says:

    d,

    Or maybe I just happened to miss the part where Scholastics won philosophy, I guess?

    Perhaps. You do seem to have missed the part where naturalism lacks the capacity to include prescriptive rules of any kind. Does that mean that the Scholastics have won? No, but it means you have a failed worldview IF you think nature ought to exist a certain way. Time for you to reconsider.

    At least ACKNOWLEDGE that many people don’t accept the claims you (et al.) continually attribute to them.

    I do acknowledge these people, and then I attempt to correct their flawed thinking. At least acknowledge that your thinking is flawed because you have no basis for thinking that nature ought to exist, or move about, in a particular way.

  13. JB Chappell says:

    I have no idea whether or not “d” is actually a naturalist, but I’d have to agree that naturalism does not account for moral “oughts”. Theists can account for objective “oughts”, but do not do such a great job in ascertaining or comprehending these imperatives. One can assert that homosexuality is “biologically and morally degenerate” all you want, but demonstrating it objectively is something altogether different.

    I have yet to see a compelling argument against homosexuality or same-sex marriage (although that certainly doesn’t mean one doesn’t exist), but that makes me neither a relativist or a naturalist. I think d’s point should be well-taken, which seems to me that one does not need to conform to only one philosophical persuasion in order to accept homosexuality or same-sex marriage as legimitate, nor do you have to accept Scholasticism to think it is wrong.

  14. SteveK says:

    JB,

    …but I’d have to agree that naturalism does not account for moral “oughts”.

    You’re off to a good start…but then this.

    One can assert that homosexuality is “biologically and morally degenerate” all you want, but demonstrating it objectively is something altogether different.

    I’m not suggesting you can demonstrate morality in a strict empirical / scientific sense. What would that data look like anyway? I don’t need a demonstration to know that torturing innocent people is morally wrong. Do you?

    I think d’s point should be well-taken, which seems to me that one does not need to conform to only one philosophical persuasion in order to accept homosexuality or same-sex marriage as legimitate, nor do you have to accept Scholasticism to think it is wrong.

    Per your comment at the beginning, there are no moral oughts under naturalism so there is no basis for naturalists to conclude something is wrong or right – that anything ought to be this way or a different way than it already is. Homosexuality just is and d’s point is not well-taken.

  15. SteveK says:

    because d is a naturalist.

  16. BillT says:

    “Which worldview would that be? Naturalism? As has been pointed out ad nauseum, naturalists exist all over the spectrum on those various issues.”

    No, actually they don’t. They try quite vainly to “exist all over the spectrum on those various issues” but the reality is their worldview doesn’t support their being all over any spectrum. As has been pointd out, their worldview constrains them to a view that “…lacks the capacity to include prescriptive rules of any kind.”

  17. JB Chappell says:

    @SteveK

    I don’t need a demonstration to know that torturing innocent people is morally wrong. Do you?

    That depends on what you mean by “know”. Intuitively, I “know” that it is wrong, but can I say with any certainty that I would still think so had i been raised to think otherwise? No. If I am to make a claim about reality regardless of how someone else feels about it, I am obligated to justify it. It’s too easy to try to demonstrate “objective” morality by using examples everyone agrees on. Appealing to consensus is not a justification for objective morality. Perhaps it can be considered evidence, but not proof, because there is simply too much that we don’t agree on.

    And I do agree that it does not need to be demonstrated in a scientific sense. Objective morality needs to have some rational basis, however. And I think there is a rational basis for it. However, I think theism generally lacks a reliable mechanism for perceiving moral truths.

    Homosexuality just is and d’s point is not well-taken.

    “d” argued that not all proponents of SSM are naturalists. I think it is obvious he is correct. He also argued that not all naturalists would support SSM, or take the same position on such hot-button issues. Again, I think it is obvious he is correct. He then goes on to say that because of these things, it only seems fair to not demonize all SSM proponents as naturalistic relativists. I don’t see what’s wrong with this, either.

    Perhaps, I’m misunderstanding what has been written, but it seems to me that merely stating that with naturalism there are no “oughts” is not actually addressing what “d” was writing to say.

  18. SteveK says:

    JB,

    Perhaps, I’m misunderstanding what has been written, but it seems to me that merely stating that with naturalism there are no “oughts” is not actually addressing what “d” was writing to say.

    I was addressing the part of d’s comments that applied to naturalism. You are right that d also mentioned other worldviews, and I now see that you were commenting on that part.

  19. AgeOfReasonXXI says:

    SteeveK

    What’s missing from naturalism is an essence such that prescriptive rules are part of the fabric of naturalism – and you don’t have that.

    Naturalism has no more problem accounting for moral “oughts” than it has accounting for “oughts” in engineering or medicine. Give what we refer to by “moral” behavior (broadly, when one acts in a way that has the well-being of others in mind, which is why traditionally, even on theism, moral actions have been largely associated with selflessness), then IF you want to be a moral person, you OUGHT to act morally, obviously. Of course if you don’t care about being a moral person, you can’t get to an “ought”, but this’s true on theism as well: if you don’t care about what God wants, or what he commands, or even that he might send you to a very unpleasant place if you disobey him, you can’t get from an “is” (like ‘God IS the basis for morality’ or ‘God’s commands ARE a reflection of his morally perfect nature’, etc) to an “ought” (like ‘You OUGHT to act morally’, or ‘You OUGHT to do what God commands’), either.
    So, there is no such thing as an unconditional “ought” and therefore, naturally, you can’t get to it from an “is”. When it comes to conditional “oughts” the issue becomes trivial (‘IF I want my car to keep running, I OUGHT to do X, Y, Z’)

    The only question needs to be settled here is which view makes sense: the view that moral concerns are those that revolve around the well-being of sentient creatures, or the view that moral concerns depend on a certain person’s nature (e.g. God), which to my mind is just gibberish. To see the problem, all one has to do is ask a 10-year old kid why she thinks punching her friend is wrong. The answer one invariably gets is that it’s wrong because it will harm her friend. And if you then go on to suggest that that’s not why it’s wrong to punch a person, but because such action is contrary to the nature of a third person (like this God fellow), the look on that kid’s face is almost always one of incomprehension, as if to ask “how does that even makes sense?”. Ironically, theists who insist that without their God there’s no morality are confused about an issue, that is clear to essentially any child. That says a lot, doesn’t it?

    As for those naturalists who would agree with theists on this issue, it’s clear they simply haven’t thought about it very much, or they take the term “objective” (morality) to mean something different than simply “independent of what anyone thinks”. Those who *have* though about it, however, hold that there’s no problem with objective morality on naturalism, including the vast majority of naturalist philosophers, and would even go on to suggest even if God existed, he still wouldn’t be the basis of morality.

  20. Tom Gilson says:

    AORXXI: As soon as you smuggle in the “oughts” relating to well-being you can derive other oughts from them. But you can’t get those well-being “oughts” from naturalism. They come from somewhere else.

  21. Tom Gilson says:

    By the way, if you’re going to echo Sam Harris on this you’ll have to at least take notice that it’s not only theists who think he’s quite wrong, and that it’s not only naturalists who haven’t thought about it much, either. That’s just impossible to think if you have any awareness of the empirical evidence on the matter.

  22. BillT says:

    “Give what we refer to by “moral” behavior (broadly, when one acts in a way that has the well-being of others in mind,…”

    And just why, by naturalism’s standards, should acting for the “the well-being of others” be considered moral. That’s a theistic position unsupported by naturalism.

  23. SteveK says:

    AOR,

    Give what we refer to by “moral” behavior (broadly, when one acts in a way that has the well-being of others in mind, which is why traditionally, even on theism, moral actions have been largely associated with selflessness), then IF you want to be a moral person, you OUGHT to act morally, obviously.

    This given is something you don’t have with naturalism. Here is the way it looks.

    Given that nature itself (all that the term encompasses) ought not exist in any particular state or behave in any particular way. And given that humans emerged through a series of naturally occurring states. We can therefore conclude that humans, being part of nature itself, ought not exist in any particular state or behave in any particular way.

    It is incoherent to say that humans ought to behave in a particular way. That would be like saying space dust, or planets or solar winds ought to behave in a particular way. There are no oughts.

  24. SteveK says:

    AOR,

    …if you don’t care about what God wants, or what he commands, or even that he might send you to a very unpleasant place if you disobey him, you can’t get from an “is” (like ‘God IS the basis for morality’ or ‘God’s commands ARE a reflection of his morally perfect nature’, etc) to an “ought” (like ‘You OUGHT to act morally’, or ‘You OUGHT to do what God commands’), either.

    You are wrong here too – at least according to Christian theism. You CAN get to the conclusion because the conclusion cannot cease to exist. In other words, the conclusion is an IS that could not be otherwise, and it is this: The creation OUGHT to do what God wills.

  25. d says:

    My description of morality isn’t *all* that different from the Scholastics here. Our moral imperatives are both types of hypothetical imperatives, contingent upon facts about the moral agents. They rely on (ATN) AT-Natures, I rely on (NF) natural and necessary facts about sentient beings.

    On an abstract level, the logic is identical. Either argument *can* work, provided the premises on which they rely are true. The resident scholastics aren’t impressed by the case for those premises, but I’m not really impressed with theirs either. Tough cookies.

    If you/they can’t actually appeal to *some* value I hold in arguments on high level issues like SSM, then I am unreachable from where you/they sit, and vice versa. Pro-tip – you aren’t going to do that by heading straight to the barest fundamentals.

    Take it from me… assertions like, “But naturalists can’t do morality!”, are about as effective on me as “But the Bible is false!” is on you.

    So I’ll point out again that it’s a vein exercise to jump down the objective/subjective morality rat-hole in any conversation where a non-theist takes a principled stand on something. We’ve been ’round this maze before.

  26. JB Chappell says:

    BillT wrote:

    And just why, by naturalism’s standards, should acting for the “the well-being of others” be considered moral.

    Exactly. And, of course, a great many atheists of the Ayn Rand variety would argue the exact opposite: that only self-interest is moral. An arbitrary definition, even if agreed upon, does not constitute objective morality – except in the mind of Sam Harris and his ilk.

  27. JB Chappell says:

    AOR wrote:

    … you can’t get from an “is” (like ‘God IS the basis for morality’ or ‘God’s commands ARE a reflection of his morally perfect nature’, etc) to an “ought” (like ‘You OUGHT to act morally’, or ‘You OUGHT to do what God commands’), either.

    SteveK responded:

    You CAN get to the conclusion because the conclusion cannot cease to exist. In other words, the conclusion is an IS that could not be otherwise, and it is this: The creation OUGHT to do what God wills.

    Perhaps I don’t understand exactly what you’re saying, SteveK, but this strikes me as an unsatisfactory response. Stating that “creation ought to do X” is not an “is” statement, and it isn’t clear (at least from what you write here) that it could not be otherwise.

    Furthermore, I do think AOR at least touches on an important point. Theistic morality may be objective in the sense that moral truths can be considered true regardless of an individual’s perspective, but that does not mean we have access to these truths. It certainly seems like we cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”, even if the “is” = God’s nature. In fact, one could say that this would especially be the case if we are referring to God’s nature, because we cannot understand it. One cannot derive an “ought” from a “?”.

    We would then have to rely on such a Being to communicate such “oughts” to us. This is another can of worms, but while such communications may still be “objective”, that doesn’t make them clear. And demonstrating that any such communication is, in fact, divine in origin is extremely problematic. So much so, that it would seem that for a theistic morality to have any practical value, assumptions about holy books have to be made.

  28. G. Rodrigues says:

    @d:

    My description of morality isn’t *all* that different from the Scholastics here. Our moral imperatives are both types of hypothetical imperatives, contingent upon facts about the moral agents. They rely on (ATN) AT-Natures, I rely on (NF) natural and necessary facts about sentient beings.

    As I wrote in my first reply, which I then deleted, this is The Funny Moment of The Day. “Natural and necessary facts about sentient beings”? The existence of “natural and necessary facts about sentient beings” amounts to sentient beings having an essence, which is precisely one of the things that metaphysical naturalism *denies*. There are *no* such facts under metaphysical naturalism except in your imagination. Either that, or you are not a metaphysical naturalist to which I say, good for you.

    On an abstract level, the logic is identical. Either argument *can* work, provided the premises on which they rely are true.

    You do have a flair for stating the obvious. But the problems diagnosed go beyond the invalidity of the premises but of *unargued* or *circular* premises. When confronting a metaphysical naturalist espousing some form of moral realism the job consists mostly in finding how well he has managed to hide the fallacy.

    If you/they can’t actually appeal to *some* value I hold in arguments on high level issues like SSM, then I am unreachable from where you/they sit, and vice versa. Pro-tip – you aren’t going to do that by heading straight to the barest fundamentals.

    So you finally come out of the closet and admit that to you, the issue is beyond rational dialectics, since according to your “pro-tip” rationality and self-evident principles cannot decide the matter. What shall we recourse to? Power? That is a language you seem to be particularly cognizant of. But go on “being unreachable” from the rationality-proof cocoon you built for yourself; of course there is the minor detail that this candid admittance flatly contradicts your talk about rational arguments, but consistency be damned and let us instead sharpen our knives.

  29. G. Rodrigues says:

    @J. B. Chappell:

    It certainly seems like we cannot derive an “ought” from an “is”, even if the “is” = God’s nature. In fact, one could say that this would especially be the case if we are referring to God’s nature, because we cannot understand it.

    You are asking an *epistemological* question, how we can ever get to know what is Good for human beings. Under classical theism, humans, like all substances, have an essential nature that dictates what is Good for human beings qua human beings, and what these goods are can be discovered by reason like pretty much everything else, at least in part, and this without prejudice of God himself revealing to us certain moral truths. Insofar as God is the creator of human nature, of all natures, He is also the source of morality, and our nature as rational animals, as well as the ends and finalities that flow from it, will reflect Him — after all, we were made in His image.

  30. JB Chappell says:

    @G. Rodrigues

    You are asking an *epistemological* question…

    Yes. Hopefully it is clear from what I wrote that I do not deny that theistic morality is “objective”, in that it is ontologically “real”.

    Under classical theism, humans, like all substances, have an essential nature…

    I have a feeling this conversation will result in the determination I need to read more scholastic philosophy 😉 Fair enough, if so. I am curious, however, if these “natures” are the conclusion of an argument, or a fundamental assumption? It seems to me like it’s treated as the latter, but it certainly may be that I’m simply ignorant of the former.

    …what these goods are can be discovered by reason like pretty much everything else, at least in part, and this without prejudice of God himself revealing to us certain moral truths.

    That’s a fair point. Rather than saying God would need to “communicate” to us these truths, I should have said “reveal” or “made accessible”, as no doubt some truths are perceptible via other means other than scripture. Nevertheless, the actual accessibility of these truths and reliability of our rational inquiry is still an open question.

    I point all this out because it seems to me that many* times it is a shallow point to atheists/skeptics/naturalists that they have no “objective” grounding for their morality. The obvious retort, to me, seems to be along the lines of what AOR said, which is that obviously theists don’t exactly have a reliable mechanism for working from the “is” of God to the “oughts” of morality, so it’s questionable to emphasize the “objective” nature of this morality when there are valid epistemological concerns. If the comeback, as you seem to indicate, is that we can “discover” moral truths via reason, then it seems to me that the discussion will boil down to logical arguments and reasonable assumptions, which seems to be in part what “d” was (reasonably) saying.

    *it’s definitely not ALWAYS a shallow point, because obviously people want their beliefs to conform to a reality. See here: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unequallyyoked/2012/06/this-is-my-last-post-for-the-patheos-atheist-portal.html

  31. d says:

    As I wrote in my first reply, which I then deleted, this is The Funny Moment of The Day. “Natural and necessary facts about sentient beings”? The existence of “natural and necessary facts about sentient beings” amounts to sentient beings having an essence, which is precisely one of the things that metaphysical naturalism *denies*. There are *no* such facts under metaphysical naturalism except in your imagination. Either that, or you are not a metaphysical naturalist to which I say, good for you.

    Naturalists can happily accept the possibility of natural and necessary facts about sentient beings and many other things (via kinds of physical necessity). Sooooo… either naturalism and essnetialism aren’t such enemies after all, or your characterization of essentialism is off.

    You do have a flair for stating the obvious. But the problems diagnosed go beyond the invalidity of the premises but of *unargued* or *circular* premises. When confronting a metaphysical naturalist espousing some form of moral realism the job consists mostly in finding how well he has managed to hide the fallacy.

    I’m sure if you’re that determined to find a fallacy, you will – whether it has to be invented or not.

    So you finally come out of the closet and admit that to you, the issue is beyond rational dialectics, since according to your “pro-tip” rationality and self-evident principles cannot decide the matter. What shall we recourse to? Power? That is a language you seem to be particularly cognizant of. But go on “being unreachable” from the rationality-proof cocoon you built for yourself; of course there is the minor detail that this candid admittance flatly contradicts your talk about rational arguments, but consistency be damned and let us instead sharpen our knives.

    Ugh, see? Determined to take the most uncharitable view… No, you don’t quite get the point here.

    SteveK, Holo are like the impassioned fresh GNU atheist, blessing every conversation about any and every hot button issue with empty, toothless canards on fundamentals that are ostensibly irrelevant. (eg. “Oh yea? Well the Bible is false, therefore your position on socio-economic issue X is wrong!”).

    BEST case for that sort of haranguing is that I convert to theism. But to bring agreement about the issue at hand, I still have to be converted to Chrisitanity. Then I have to be convinced that mainstream Christian thought on morality is true. Then I also have to agree with their conclusions about the morality SSM. I then have to be convinced that secular law should reflect this moral belief, and so on. There’s quite a bit to overturn at every step of the way there…

    So let’s say SteveK and Holo do, through a particularly forceful utterance of “But objective morality is IMPOSSIBLE on naturalism”, cause me see the light of theism. Great. I still think gay marriage is moral and honorable, you’ve done nothing to change that.

  32. SteveK says:

    d,

    So let’s say SteveK and Holo do, through a particularly forceful utterance of “But objective morality is IMPOSSIBLE on naturalism”, cause me see the light of theism.

    These arguments against naturalism are not my arguments, or Holo’s or G. Rodrigues’. They’ve been around for centuries.

    What you see as haranguing and empty, toothless canards I see as time-tested, thoughtful and sound arguments.

  33. d says:

    Well, that’s all well and good SteveK, but the point remains that convincing me of such will almost certainly NOT impact my beliefs on SSM. I can argue for SSM from the perspective of theism, I can argue for it from the perspective of natural law, etc.

  34. G. Rodrigues says:

    @d:

    Naturalists can happily accept the possibility of natural and necessary facts about sentient beings and many other things (via kinds of physical necessity). Sooooo… either naturalism and essnetialism aren’t such enemies after all, or your characterization of essentialism is off.

    Whether naturalists “can happily accept the possibility of natural and necessary facts” (something of an incongruity, by the way) is besides the point. The point is that there are no such necessary facts that can base an objective morality under metaphysical naturalism, because showing that there are such facts boils down to show that *something* like essentialism is true (more about this below). So some of the these must be true:

    1. You do not know what “necessary” is.

    2. You do not know what essentialism is.

    3. You do not know what metaphysical naturalism.

    Metaphysical naturalism denies the existence of essences. If you want to expand it to include them you will be defending something different than metaphysical naturalism; you somehow seem to think that the latter is infinitely elastic, that it can comport basically any metaphysical addition to suit the tenant. Guess what, you are wrong.

    BEST case for that sort of haranguing is that I convert to theism. But to bring agreement about the issue at hand, I still have to be converted to Chrisitanity. Then I have to be convinced that mainstream Christian thought on morality is true. Then I also have to agree with their conclusions about the morality SSM. I then have to be convinced that secular law should reflect this moral belief, and so on. There’s quite a bit to overturn at every step of the way there…

    I would enjoy your conversion to Christianity as I have firm, rational grounds, to believe that it is true, but that has not been my take here. I am simply trying to show that metaphysical naturalism is false, and more particularly that all “arguments” for SSM fail while there are powerful arguments against it. Accepting this, does not entail conversion to Christianity, not even conversion to theism. Accepting that SSM is morally wrong does not entail conversion to Christianity (just read Plato’s words about it) or even theism. I spoke above about *something* like the AT essentialist picture; many recent philosophers, with no theological axe to grind have adopted such a a stance. George Molnar and his talk of “dispositions” and “powers”; Nancy Cartwright defending a roughly essentialist Aristotelian picture via a consideration of the “laws of nature”; scientific essentialism a la Brian Ellis, etc. You can even find a thoroughly de-Christianized defense of Aristotelian theism in David Conway’s The Rediscovery of Wisdom.

    note: while I cannot speak for SteveK or Holopupenko, I would guess their take is the same.

    So let’s say SteveK and Holo do, through a particularly forceful utterance of “But objective morality is IMPOSSIBLE on naturalism”, cause me see the light of theism. Great. I still think gay marriage is moral and honorable, you’ve done nothing to change that.

    First you admit for the sake of argument, that objective morality is “impossible” then you go on to say that you *still* find SSM “moral and honorable”. Are you pulling my leg?

    You WANT SSM to be moral and honorable, damn reality and all rational arguments. Fine, so you WANT reality to fit your emotional needs and wants. Just spare me any and all “arguments” for it (not that you have given any cogent ones) or even the possibility of rational talk about this matter. All the language you have available is the language of power.

    I can argue for SSM from the perspective of theism, I can argue for it from the perspective of natural law, etc.

    You can even argue it from the perspective of astrology. The point is whether you can do it successfully.

  35. SteveK says:

    Metaphysical naturalism denies the existence of essences. If you want to expand it to include them you will be defending something different than metaphysical naturalism; you somehow seem to think that the latter is infinitely elastic, that it can comport basically any metaphysical addition to suit the tenant. Guess what, you are wrong.

    This is my conclusion as well. d is attempting to expand what naturalism means but it doesn’t work.

    The traditional version of naturalism says “in the beginning was matter and energy”, which makes sense. d wants it to say “in the beginning was the impersonal moral law”, which makes no sense considering that moral law requires personal beings.

  36. SteveK says:

    JB,

    Perhaps I don’t understand exactly what you’re saying, SteveK, but this strikes me as an unsatisfactory response. Stating that “creation ought to do X” is not an “is” statement, and it isn’t clear (at least from what you write here) that it could not be otherwise.

    It’s likely that I’m butchering things, but I’m attempting to describe – or perhaps restate – what Christianity teaches. That morality is grounded in the reality of the Christian God. And if that is the case then the “is” and the “ought” coincide with eternity and are inseparable from God.

  37. JB Chappell says:

    SteveK wrote:

    …morality is grounded in the reality of the Christian God. And if that is the case then the “is” and the “ought” coincide with eternity and are inseparable from God.

    Well, I certainly don’t deny that Christianity teaches that morality is grounded in God in some fashion. Exactly how, I think, is a matter of some debate. I do not think that “oughts”, if we think of them as divine commands, “coincide with eternity” (as you put it), because we know that they can be conditional/temporary. But I guess I’m not entirely sure what you are referring to here as “oughts”. Obviously there are some general moral truths that we would consider to be eternal.

    In any case, I think it remains the case that whatever Christianity teaches, we only ground our morality in the “the reality of the Christian God” in the loosest sense, if at all. Whatever moral concepts we have are derived from scripture and/or reason. Reason can tell us “God exists” and “God is Good”, but not “Good” in any practical way that gives us moral guidance, so we can hardly say that knowing God is Good grounds our morality. Rather it is the other assumptions/premises that “ground” the argument. Alternatively, if it is scripture that we are basing our morality, certainly the reality of God is a ground (it makes no sense to claim “thus saith the Lord” if “the Lord” doesn’t exist), but that “reality” – again – provides us with an “is”, but no “oughts”. The more immediate and pertinent “ground”/assumption for Christian morality is that scripture is, in fact, said by/inspired by God Himself.

  38. G. Rodrigues says:

    @J. B. Chapell:

    In any case, I think it remains the case that whatever Christianity teaches, we only ground our morality in the “the reality of the Christian God” in the loosest sense, if at all.

    Your questions are puzzling, because I am at a loss at what exactly is your aim here.

    You say “whatever Christianity teaches”, implying that Christianity teaches you know not what, and then you insert a comma and say “we”. But who is “we”? Christians? You count yourself among them but you know not what Christianity teaches?

    I could essay an answer to your questions (though I think they are ill-posed and betray some deep misunderstandings), but since I am at a loss at what exactly you want to know and where exactly do you stand, I do not know how to approach the would-be answers.

  39. JB Chappell says:

    You count yourself among them but you know not what Christianity teaches?

    “Whatever” does not necessarily imply unfamiliarity or uncertainty.

    … I am at a loss at what exactly you want to know and where exactly do you stand…

    What I want to know is this: *in what way* is morality grounded in God? So far what I have seen here is that morality in general is grounded in God in the same way that the laws of physics or 2+2=4 is grounded in God… in other words, it’s grounded in God because everything is ultimately grounded in God. But that assumes “morality” exists in the first place.

    “Where I stand” is simply in a place where I am thinking through objective morality. It seems to me that in order for a statement like “morality is grounded in God” to be meaningful, we would need to either be able to demonstrate that moral truths exist using God as a starting point of inquiry, or demonstrate that a moral imperative (“ought”) actually comes from God. The former would seem to be subject to the “is-ought” fallacy, whereas the latter is problematic in that it is really difficult to prove, but also suffers from the fact that we wouldn’t necessarily have justification to follow the imperative.

    Christians, of course, believe because God is Good that this settles the matter, that therefore His edicts are Good and should be followed. But this ignores the fact that when God is simple, His “Good”ness is hardly defined, hardly what we think of as “good”. He just “is”. God being who He is certainly allows Him to create an objective morality, and He might even be holding us accountable to it. But that does not mean that we know what that morality is. Also, being who He is does not entail that He did, in fact, create an objective morality.

    All these possibilities seem silly in the light of common Christian practice, because we take them all for granted. This, I believe, is simply because most Christians make the dangerous association of scripture=God. We assume that using rational faculties and/or scripture will result in an approximation of objective morality. Your own justification for this earlier was because we are created in the image of God. But of course such an idea comes from scripture, not from God – unless we assume they are one and the same.