Marriage as a human good, not marriage law, has an objective core whose norms the state has an interest in tracking and supporting—in a way that respects everyone’s freedom.
Everyone has blind spots. It is philosophy’s ambition to cure these by canceling them out, through dialogue and scrutiny of assumptions. But even academic philosophy has its dogmas. One current example is support for same-sex marriage: To question it is to be anathematized by those occupationally averse to anathemas.
So I was both pleased that Alex Worsnip reviewed my co-authored book What Is Marriage? Man and Woman: A Defense, and unsurprised that he misunderstood it. My former classmate in Oxford’s philosophy master’s (B.Phil.) program, Worsnip is sharp and serious about arguments, and consistently blind to arguments of certain sorts.
Though talented and well-trained, he makes claims clearly contradicted by a quick read of our short book. His objections are almost offhand. And he is mute on the most serious—we think decisive—challenges we pose to those who favor redefining marriage. From another pen on another topic, I doubt such a treatment would survive scrutiny by other philosophers—or even, perhaps, by Worsnip.
Read more at Public Discourse.
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