There can be bad arguments for a morally defensible position. The case that readily occurs to me is that of gay marriages. Some argue that gay marriages should be permitted because anything that takes place between consenting adults should be permitted. We might add the proviso that the consenting adults are not deranged so as to avoid the case in Germany where a person answers an advertisement for sex where in the end he is literally to be eaten a live. The argument that follows is adopted from my introductory essay, “Virtuous Disagreements in Social Philosophy,” Contemporary Debates in Social Philosophy (Blackwell, 2007)
If we restrict ourselves to persons who are not deranged (which I shall assume throughout) does it then hold that anything that takes place between consenting adults should be permitted? Well, consider the following example. Susan had a son when she was 16 years old. At the age of 18, the son went into military service for three years. He returns home after a three year absence. He is 21 yeas of age and his mother is 39 year old. He, as it turns out, is absolutely gorgeous. It is also the case that his mother is stunningly beautiful.
Upon seeing one another again for the first time in three years, they find themselves unbelievably attracted to one another sexually. They cannot keep their hands off of one another. In the words of one of those love-songs: “How can it be wrong when it feels so right?”
We certainly have consenting adults here: a 39-year old mother and a 21-year old who has served in the military. That notwithstanding, what I have described unequivocally constitutes incest. If anything between consenting adults goes, assuming that the adults are not deranged, then incest between consenting adults is just fine.
But if you draw the line at incest, for example, then you are opposed to the argument for gay marriages that turns simply upon the premise that anything between consenting adults is permissible.
But why should the case of incest give us pause? Why isn’t that, too, just a carry over from some antiquated religious view? Adults are adults.
Why on earth should it matter that they are biologically related? Besides, no one thinks that being biologically related, plain and simple, should exclude sexual interaction between two people, but only a certain degree of biological relatedness. Most people accept sexual liasons between folks after the 3rd cousin. So, if sex between 4th cousins is just fine, then why not sex between mother and son, where they are both adults? Sex is sex; adults are adutls. Who can argue with that?
To the best of my knowledge, no one defending gay marriage solely on the grounds that it is between consenting adults has ever considered this argument.
I do not intend to argue that gay marriage is wrong. My point is the limited one that a certain line of argument for gay marriage is most indefensible.
What exactly is wrong with sex between a mother and her son or a father and his daughter or a mother and her daughter or a father and his son given that everyone involved is unquestionably a consenting adult?
This brings us to the issue of foresight in a most dramatic way. Even if one holds that in and of itself there is nothing wrong with consensual sex between a parent and an adult child, surely it is wrong in a most egregious way for children as children to be the object of the sexual desires of their parents. It is not possible for a parent to raise a child in a wholesome way and, at the very same time, treat that child as an object of sexual desire. By the way, this point holds true whether we are talking about parents who are biologically related to their children or parents who have adopted their children. For it is the role as parent, and not the genes, that is relevant here.
If we look at parent-child sex a temporally, where both are adults, then it might very well be true that sex between parent and child is not morally objectionable. If a parent and child met for the first time as adults: well, there would not be much to say against their having sex if that is what they wanted to do, whatever uneasiness they or we might have about the matter. I mean they would in fact be strangers to one another. And if the parent and the child are of the same gender, then the problem of producing offspring with defective genes does not even get off the ground. But, of course, this sort of encounter is relatively rare.
Typically, parents raise their children. And we must never lose sight of this truth.
A culture in which there sexual relations between parents and children where all parties are consenting adults sets itself upon a most fulsome trajectory, given proviso there is public approval of this or, in any case, no strong public disapproval of it. 13-year old teenagers need to know unequivocally that the hug from their mother or father is not sexual; and they will not be able to know that if it is commonplace for there to be sexual relations between adults and their children. The moral backdrop of strong disapproval of sex between parents and child constitutes the social environment in which the child entertains ideas.
The last point of the preceding paragraph is not defeated by the proviso that it is only between consenting adults that the sex is occurring. For there would be the issue of whether mom’s hug or dad’s hug today is taking place with a sexual longing with regard to tomorrow.
What we want, then, is a world in which no child has to wonder, on account of prevailing social practices, whether a parental hug today bespeaks a sexual longing to be fulfilled tomorrow. This, then, is why the argument for gay marriage is untenable if it rests solely upon the premise that whatever takes place between consenting adults is morally permissible, provided that neither party is deranged.
By definition, it is only over time that we have moral stability. And sometimes we have to consider not merely whether doing something would make us happy now, but what would be the long term effects if the thing we now want to do were a widespread practice, and so a practice that at the very least did not meet with social disapproval.
There are lots of instances in life where a single occurrence of something does not impact upon us negatively or positively, but where the occurrence of that thing over time does, indeed, have either a positive or negative impact upon. Parental praise and criticism are both cases in point. No child will ever flourish on the strength of a single “I love you”. But those three words uttered with sincerity and depth over time constitute a tidal wave of parental wave of affirmation that has no equal in a child’s life. From the other direction, a constantly berated child will suffer mightily.
These remarks have been a classic example of philosophical disputation. I have not at all argued against gay marriages. I have merely examined a particular line of argument for gay marriages and found it wanting. There is merit to this precisely because we do not want bad arguments to hold sway in society.
A final remark: You will note also that the argument given counts against the privacy argument as well. It is public knowledge that there are certain things that people do in private: go to the bathroom; have sex. Even if parents and adult children are having sex in private, the argument of this essay goes through if it were public knowledge that this sort of thing went on and, moreover, there was public approval of it (or least not strong public disapproval of it). The issue is about a practice that would have untoward effects upon children. This issue does not become a non-issue because parents and their adult children have sex in private.
