Rawls's contribution to political and moral philosophy
Rawls is noted for his contributions to liberal political philosophy. Among the ideas from Rawls's work that have received wide attention are:
- Justice as Fairness, which consists of the liberty principle, fair equality of opportunity, and the difference principle.
- The original position.
- Reflective equilibrium.
- Overlapping consensus.
- Public reason.
Many academic philosophers believe that Rawls made an important and lasting contribution to political philosophy. There is general agreement that the publication of A Theory of Justice in 1971 was important (some would say vital) to a revival, during the 1960s and 1970s, in the academic study of political philosophy. Rawls's work has crossed disciplinary lines, receiving serious attention from economists, legal scholars, political scientists, sociologists, and theologians. Rawls has the unique distinction among contemporary political philosophers of being frequently cited by the courts of law in the United States and referred to by practicing politicians in the United States and United Kingdom.
[edit] A Theory of Justice
In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to reconcile liberty and equality in a principled way, offering an account of "justice as fairness." Central to this effort is his famous approach to the seemingly intractable problem of distributive justice.
Rawls appeals to a familiar device: the social contract. What principles of justice would we agree to if we desire to cooperate with others, but would also prefer more of the benefits, and less of the burdens, associated with cooperation? Justice as fairness is thus offered to people who are neither saintly altruists nor greedy egoists. We are, as Rawls puts it, both rational and reasonable: we have ends we want to achieve, but we are happy to achieve them together if we can, in accord with mutually acceptable regulative principles. But given how different our needs and aspirations often are, how can we find principles that are acceptable to each of us? Rawls gives us a model of a fair situation for making this choice (his argument from the original position and the famous veil of ignorance), and he argues that two principles of justice would be especially attractive.
We would, Rawls argues, affirm a principle of equal basic liberties, thus protecting the familiar liberal freedoms of conscience, association, expression, and the like (notably absent are liberties associated with property ownership and contractual exchange, thus distinguishing Rawls from the classical liberalism of John Locke, and the libertarian stance of Robert Nozick). But we would also want to ensure that, whatever our station in society, liberties represent meaningful options for us. For example, formal guarantees of political voice and freedom of assembly are of little real worth to the desperately poor and marginalized in society. Demanding that everyone have exactly the same effective opportunities in life is a nonstarter: achieving this would almost certainly offend the very liberties that are supposedly being equalized. Nonetheless, we would want to ensure at least the "fair worth" of our liberties: wherever I end up in society, I want my life to be worth living, with enough effective freedom to pursue my plans. Thus we would be moved to affirm a second principle requiring fair equality of opportunity, paired with the famous (and controversial) difference principle. This second principle ensures that those with comparable talents and motivation face roughly similar life chances, and that inequalities in society work to the benefit of the least advantaged.
Political Liberalism
Rawls's later work focused on the question of stability: could a society ordered by the two principles of justice endure? His answer to this question is contained in a collection of lectures titled Political Liberalism. In Political Liberalism, Rawls introduced the idea of an overlapping consensus—or agreement on justice as fairness between citizens who hold different religious and philosophical views (or conceptions of the good). Political Liberalism also introduced the idea of public reason—the common reason of all citizens.
In Political Liberalism Rawls addressed the most common criticism levelled at The Theory of Justice—the criticism that the principles of justice were simply an alternative systematic conception of justice that was superior to utilitarianism or any other comprehensive theory. This meant that justice as fairness turned out to be simply another reasonable comprehensive doctrine that was incompatible with other reasonable doctrines. It failed to distinguish between a comprehensive moral theory which addressed the problem of justice and that of a political conception of justice that was independent of any comprehensive theory.
The political conception of justice that Rawls introduces in Political Liberalism is the view of justice that people with conflicting, but reasonable, metaphysical and/or religious views would agree to regulate the basic structure of society. What distinguishes Rawls' account from previous conceptions of liberalism is that it seeks to arrive at a consensus without appealing to any one metaphysical source of his own. Hence the idea of "political liberalism," contrary to, say, Locke or Mill, who promote a more robust cultural and metaphysical liberal philosophy, Rawls's account is an attempt to secure the possibility of a liberal consensus regardless of the "deep" religious or metaphysical values that the parties endorse (so long as these remain open to compromise, i.e., "reasonable"). The ideal result is therefore conceived as an "overlapping consensus" because different and often conflicting accounts of morality, nature, etc., are intended to "overlap" with each other on the question of governance. Of course, a more traditional Lockean (or early Rawlsian) liberal perspective can still be embraced by those who see it as a deep metaphysical and moral source in their lives. But in the public sphere, the idea is to arrive at rules that all reasonable sides, liberals and non-liberals alike, can come to understand as just.
Rawls also modified the principles of justice to become the following (with the first principle having priority over the second, and the first half of the second having priority over the latter half):
- Each person has an equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of basic rights and liberties, which scheme is compatible with the same scheme for all; and in this scheme the equal political liberties, and only those liberties, are to be guaranteed their fair value.
- Social and economic inequalities are to satisfy two conditions: first they are to be attached to positions and offices open to all under conditions of fair equality of opportunity; and second they are to be to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society.
These principles are subtly modified from the principles in Theory. The first principle now reads 'equal claim' instead of 'equal right', and he also replaces the phrase 'system of basic liberties' with 'a fully adequate scheme of equal basic rights and liberties.'
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Capitalism is good but not all can compete. Solution: a just society or the "Great Society" under President Johnson. The background on this is to redistribute the wealth. Rawls said: "You can't blame the individual".
1. society has a moral obligation or duty to one another as part of citizenship
2. we have a legal obligation to protect, as in mental or physical disability
Under a just society, there should be a social safety net.
We are to work toward the elimination of poverty and racism.
Equal Opportunity Act of 1964
Origins
The bill had been introduced by President John F. Kennedy in his civil rights speech of June 11, 1963,[1] in which he asked for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments," as well as "greater protection for the right to vote."
He then sent a bill to Congress on June 19. Emulating the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Kennedy's civil rights bill included provisions to ban discrimination in public accommodations, and to enable the U.S. Attorney General to sue state governments which operated segregated school systems, among other provisions.
[edit] Passage
[edit] Passage in the House of Representatives
The bill was sent to the House of Representatives, and referred to the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Emmanuel Celler. After a series of hearings on the bill, Celler's committee greatly strengthened the act, adding provisions to ban racial discrimination in employment. The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963, but was then referred to the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard W. Smith, a Democrat from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely.
It was at this point that President Kennedy was assassinated. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, utilized his experience in parliamentary politics and the bully pulpit he wielded as president in support of the bill.
Because of Smith's stalling of the bill in the Rules Committee, Celler filed a petition to discharge the bill from the Committee. Only if a majority of members signed the discharge petition, the bill would move directly to the House floor without consideration by advocates. Initially Johnson had a difficult time acquiring the signatures necessary, as even many congressmen who supported the civil rights bill itself were cautious about violating House procedure with the discharge petition. By the time of the 1963 winter recess, fifty signatures were still wanting.
On the return from the winter recess, however, matters took a significant turn. The President's public advocacy of the Act had made a difference of opinion in congressmen's home districts, and soon it became apparent that the petition would acquire the necessary signatures. To prevent the humiliation of the success of the petition, Chairman Smith allowed the bill to pass through the Rules Committee.
The bill was brought to a vote in the House on February 10, 1964, and passed by a vote of 290 to 130, and sent to the Senate.
[edit] Passage in the Senate
Johnson, who wanted the bill passed as soon as possible, ensured that the bill would be quickly considered by the Senate. Normally, the bill would have been referred to the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Senator James O. Eastland, from Mississippi. Under Eastland's care, it seemed impossible that the bill would reach the Senate floor. Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield took a novel approach to prevent the bill from being relegated to Judiciary Committee limbo. Having initially waived a second reading of the bill, which would have led to it being immediately referred to Judiciary, Mansfield gave the bill a second reading on February 26, 1964, and then proposed, in the absence of precedent for instances when a second reading did not immediately follow the first, that the bill bypass the Judiciary Committee and immediately be sent to the Senate floor for debate. Although this parliamentary move led to a brief filibuster, the senators eventually let it pass, preferring to concentrate their resistance on passage of the bill itself.
The bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964. On the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) completed an address that he had begun 14 hours and 13 minutes earlier opposing the legislation. Until then, the measure had occupied the Senate for 57 working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the bill's manager, concluded he had the 67 votes required at that time to end the debate and end the filibuster. With six wavering senators providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71 to 29. Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the 37 years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.
Shortly thereafter, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 73-27, and quickly passed through the House-Senate conference committee, which adopted the Senate version of the bill. The conference bill was passed by both houses of Congress, and was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964. Legend has it that as he put down his pen Johnson told an aide, "We have lost the South for a generation."[2]
[edit] Vote totals
Totals are in "Yes-No" format:
- The original House version: 290-130 (69%-31%)
- The Senate version: 73-27 (73%-27%)
- The Senate version, as voted on by the House: 289-126 (70%-30%)
[edit] By party
The original House version:
- Democratic Party: 164-96 (63%-37%)
- Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%)
The Senate version:
- Democratic Party: 46-22 (68%-32%)
- Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%)
The Senate version, voted on by the House:
- Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%)
- Republican Party: 186-35 (84%-16%)
[edit] By party and region
Note : "Southern", as used in this section, refers to members of Congress from the eleven states that made up the Confederate States of America in the American Civil War. "Northern" refers to members from the other 39 states, regardless of the geographic location of those states.
The original House version:
- Southern Democrats: 7-87 (7%-93%)
- Southern Republicans: 0-10 (0%-100%)
- Northern Democrats: 145-9 (94%-6%)
- Northern Republicans: 138-24 (85%-15%)
The Senate version:
- Southern Democrats: 1-20 (5%-95%) (only Senator Ralph Yarborough of Texas voted in favor)
- Southern Republicans: 0-1 (0%-100%) (this was Senator John Tower of Texas)
- Northern Democrats: 45-1 (98%-2%) (only Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia opposed the measure)
- Northern Republicans: 27-5 (84%-16%) (Senators Bourke Hickenlooper of Iowa, Barry Goldwater of Arizona, Edwin L. Mechem of New Mexico, Milward L. Simpson of Wyoming, and Norris H. Cotton of New Hampshire opposed the measure)
[edit] Women's rights
The prohibition on sex discrimination was added by Howard W. Smith, a powerful Virginian Democrat who chaired the House Rules Committee and had strongly opposed the Civil Rights Act. The addition of "sex" to title VII is commonly described as a cynical attempt to defeat the bill by inserting objectionable amendments.[3][4] Representative Carl Elliott of Alabama later claimed, "Smith didn't give a damn about women's rights...he was trying to knock off votes either then or down the line because there was always a hard core of men who didn't favor women's rights," [5] and the Congressional Record records that Smith was greeted by laughter when he introduced the amendment.[6]
Smith nevertheless claimed that he sincerely supported the amendment and made serious arguments in its favor. [6] The claim was not entirely ungrounded, as Smith had long been close to Alice Paul, a women's rights activist who urged him to include sex as a protected category. The amendment had been forcefully promoted by the National Woman's Party and its allies in Congress, who had no desire to scuttle the Civil Rights Act.[3] Thus, as William Rehnquist explained in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, “The prohibition against discrimination based on sex was added to Title VII at the last minute on the floor of the House of Representatives…the bill quickly passed as amended, and we are left with little legislative history to guide us in interpreting the Act’s prohibition against discrimination based on ‘sex.’” (477 U.S. 57, 63-64)
[edit] Political repercussions
The bill divided and engendered a long-term change in the demographics of both political parties. President Johnson realized that supporting this bill would mean losing the South's overwhelming support of the Democratic Party. As Vice President Johnson pushed the Kennedy administration to introduce civil rights legislation, telling Kennedy aide Ted Sorensen that "I know the risks are great and we might lose the South, but those sorts of states may be lost anyway."[7] As president, Johnson was warned by Senator Richard Russell, Jr. that his strong support for the civil rights bill "will not only cost you the South, it will cost you the election." [8] The South indeed started to vote increasingly Republican after 1964. However, political scientists Richard Johnston and Byron Schafer have argued that this development was based more on economics than on race. [9]
Although majorities in both parties voted for the bill, there were notable exceptions. Republican senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona voted against the bill, remarking, "You can't legislate morality." Goldwater, however had supported both previous attempts to pass Civil Rights legislation in 1957 and 1960. The reason for the opposition to the 1964 act was Title 2, which he viewed as a violation of individual liberty. Most Democrats from the Southern states opposed the bill, including Senators Albert Gore Sr. (D-TN), J. William Fulbright (D-AR), and Robert Byrd (D-WV). Goldwater went on to secure his party's nomination for the presidency, and in the ensuing election, Goldwater won only Arizona and five of the Deep South states, two of which (Alabama and Mississippi) had not voted Republican since the disputed presidential election of 1876.
[edit] Major features of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
(The full text of the Act is available online.)
[edit] Title I
Barred unequal application of voter registration requirements, but did not abolish literacy tests sometimes used to disqualify African Americans and poor white voters.
"It shall be the duty of the judge designated pursuant to this section to assign the case for hearing at the earliest practicable date and to cause the case to be in every way expedited."'
[edit] Title II
Outlawed discrimination in hotels, motels, restaurants, theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without defining the term "private."
[edit] Title III
Prohibited state and municipal governments from denying access to public facilities on grounds of race, religion, or ethnicity.
[edit] Title IV
Encouraged the desegregation of public schools and authorized the U.S. Attorney General to file suits to enforce said act.
[edit] Title VI
Prevented discrimination by government agencies that receive federal funding. If an agency is found in violation of Title VI, that agency can lose its federal funding.
[edit] Title VII
Title VII of the Act, codified as Subchapter VI of Chapter 21 of [2] et seq., prohibits discrimination by covered employers on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin (see [10]). Same sex harassment is prohibited by Title VII (Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., , 118 S.Ct. 998).
Title VII also prohibits discrimination against an individual because of his or her association with another individual of a particular race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. An employer cannot discriminate against a person because of his interracial association with another, such as by an interracial marriage (Parr v. Woodmen of the World Life Insurance Company, 791 F.2d 888 (11th Cir. 1986)).
Notwithstanding the general prohibition of employment discrimination, covered employers are allowed to discriminate on the basis of religion, sex or national origin (but not based on color or race) where religion, sex, or national origin is a bona fide occupational qualification reasonably necessary to the normal operation of that particular business or enterprise. In order to prove the Bona Fide Occupational Qualifications defense, an employer must prove three elements: a direct relationship between sex and the ability to perform the duties of the job, the BFOQ relates to the "essence" or "central mission of the employer's business," and there is no less-restrictive or reasonable alternative (Automobile Workers v. Johnson Controls, Inc., 111 S.Ct. 1196). The Bona Fide Occupational Qualification exception is an extremely narrow exception to the general prohibition of discrimination based on sex (Dothard v. Rawlinson, 97 S.Ct. 2720). An employer or customer's preference for an individual of a particular religion is not sufficient to establish a Bona Fide Occupational Qualification (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Kamehameha School - Bishop Estate, 990 F.2d 458 (9th Cir. 1993)).
Title VII allows for any employer, labor organization, joint labor-management committee, or employment agency to bypass the "unlawful employment practice" for any person involved with the Communist Party of the United States or of any other organization required to register as a Communist-action or Communist-front organization by final order of the Subversive Activities Control Board pursuant to the Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950.
There are partial and whole exceptions to Title VII for four types of employers:
- Federal government; (Comment: The proscriptions against employment discrimination under Title VII are now applicable to the federal government under 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e-16)
- Indian Tribes
- Religious groups performing work connected to the group's activities, including associated education institutions;
- Bona fide nonprofit private membership organizations.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as well as certain state fair employment practices agencies (FEPAs) enforce Title VII (see [10]). The EEOC and state FEPAs investigate, mediate, and may file lawsuits on behalf of employees. Every state, except Arkansas and Alabama maintains a state FEPA (see EEOC and state FEPA directory ). Title VII also provides that an individual can bring a private lawsuit. An individual must file a complaint of discrimination with the EEOC within 180 days of learning of the discrimination or the individual may lose the right to file a lawsuit. Title VII only applies to employers who employ 15 or more employees for more than 19 weeks in the current or preceding calendar year.
In the late 1970s courts began holding that sexual harassment is also prohibited under the Act. Chrapliwy v. Uniroyal is a notable Title VII case relating to sexual harassment that was decided in favor of the plaintiffs. In 1986 the Supreme Court held in Meritor Savings Bank v. Vinson, , that sexual harassment is sex discrimination and is prohibited by Title VII. Title VII has been supplemented with legislation prohibiting pregnancy, age, and disability discrimination (See Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, Age Discrimination in Employment Act, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990).
[edit] Title X
Established the Community Relations Service, tasked with assisting in community disputes involving claims of discrimination to people of color.
Student Grants
The above created a protected class.
In the 90's, a re-look was made concerning the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Economic Opportunity Act.
Complaints:
1. it didn't provide flexibility
2. it didn't encourage work
3. some said it was responsible for the breakdown of the family
-increased out of wedlock births
4. did little to reduce poverty
Results:
1996 Welfare Reform Act
1. encouraged work and used search and education as part
2. set time limits- five years
3. attempted to prevent dependency; break the cycle
4. broaden the net rather than make it deep
Personal Responsibility: Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act
Results:
-2007, 52% less people received benefits
-AFDC gone
-EMFET? replaces
opposite philosophy of Rawls came from Nozick:
Politics
Nozick's Anarchy, State, and Utopia, which garnered a National Book Award the following year, argues among other things, that a distribution of goods is just, so long as the distribution was brought about by free exchanges by consenting adults and was made from a just starting position, even if large inequalities emerge from the process. Nozick appealed to the Kantian idea that people should be treated as ends (what he termed 'separateness of persons'), not merely as a means. For example, forced redistribution of income treated people as if they were merely sources of money. Nozick here challenges John Rawls's arguments in A Theory of Justice that conclude that just inequalities in distribution must benefit the least well off. Nozick backed away from some of the views he expressed in Anarchy, State, and Utopia in one of his later books, The Examined Life, calling those views "seriously inadequate." In a 2001 interview, however, he clarified his position: "What I was really saying in The Examined Life was that I was no longer as hardcore a libertarian as I had been before. But the rumors of my deviation (or apostasy!) from libertarianism were much exaggerated." [1]
[edit] Epistemology
In Philosophical Explanations (1981), which received the Phi Beta Kappa Society's Waldo Emerson Award, Nozick provides novel accounts of knowledge, free will, personal identity, the nature of value, and the meaning of life. He also put forward an epistemological system which attempted to deal with both Edmund Gettier-style problems and those posed by skepticism. This highly influential argument eschewed justification as a necessary requirement for knowledge.
[edit] The examined life
The Examined Life (1989), pitched to a broader public, explores love, death, faith, reality, and the meaning of life. The Nature of Rationality (1993) presents a theory of practical reason that attempts to embellish notoriously spartan classical decision theory. Socratic Puzzles (1997) is a collection of papers that range in topic from Ayn Rand and Austrian economics to animal rights, while his last production, Invariances (2001) applies insights from physics and biology to questions of objectivity in such areas as the nature of necessity and moral value.
[edit] Criticisms of Utilitarianism
He created the thought experiment of the Utility monster in order to show that average utilitarianism could lead to a situation where the needs of the vast majority were sacrificed for one individual.
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Nozick used Locke's ideas concerning personal property. He stated that government was NOT instituted to redistribute wealth.
People should be responsible for themselves.
Rights in nature are negative rights.
Government is a necessary evil to which we pay taxes for security and infrastructure.
To secure property we:
1. work for it. we sell our work.
2. we receive it as a gift.
-once you have your property or monies, you can do with it what you want. government should not take your money or property to give it to someone else. that is wrong.
Welfare in Minnesota
Welfare services are the largest percent of the budget. About half goes to health and welfare. The next highest is education, and then transportation. The taxes that support MN's budget come from the following:
47% from state income tax
27% from state sales tax
only 5% from corporations
Nozick: No protected class. Is welfare a legitimate function of government?
The administration of welfare is done through the county
MN's current welfare program
1. MFET??? {emphasis on children under 18 enrolled in school}
2. Emergency assistance money (EA) {one-time cash grant for a special need (like fix car to get to work)}
3. Medical Assistance (MA) {this is under Medical Assistance and Minnesota Care}
4. Child care
5. General Assistance (GA) {based around children}
Federal assistance
Food Stamps
Housing Assitance
All of the above have a five-year limit
Two years have to work half-time
Under these provisions, you move into a protective class but you have to do something and then move out
Eligibility has tightened up. If you commit a crime, you lose benefits. One parent and a child can earn up to $626 and keep all of their assistance in Ramsey County.
Fraser Overview:
women as caretakers, emotional and medical
men see themselves as breadwinners
Charles Murray, Conservative Welfare:
Scrap federal welfare system, do away with protective classes
1. no welfare for those over 18
2. unemployment insurance for six weeks only
3. community does charity duty, not the government
Views on welfare:
1. Nozick: individual possession of property, responsibility for self; no reciprocity
2. Rawls: permissive; matter of conscience; moral and legal; society has a duty to provide for those who can't, "the protected class"
3. Puritan View: no free lunch; you make a claim on society, then what are you going to give back? it is wrong to deliberately avoid work and profit from the labors of others
In combination of the two previous views, the Puritan View basically involves the idea that within a society which has the ability to sufficiently support all of it's individuals, all participants in the society should have the legal right to Government supplied welfare benefits. However, the individual's initiative to work is held strongly to this right. Potential welfare recipients are classified as a responsibility of the Government. The resources required to support the needy are taken by means of taxation from the earnings of the working public. This generates an obligation to work. Hence, if an individual does not make the sacrifice of his time and energy to contribute their earnings to this fund, they are not entitled to acquire any part of it when in need unless a justifiable reason such as disability is present for the individual's inability to work. The right to acquire welfare funds is highly conditional on how an individual accounts for his failure in working toward his life's progression by his own efforts. Two strong beliefs of the Puritan Position are; Firstly, those on welfare should definitely not receive a higher income than the working poor, and secondly, incentives for welfare recipients to work must be evident.
The distinction between the "deserving" and "non-deserving" poor is as evident now as it was in the Poor Laws of the 16th and 17th centuries.(1) The former were the elderly, the disabled, the sick, single mothers and dependent children, all of whom were unable to meet their needs by participating in the labour force and, therefore, were considered worthy of receiving assistance. The latter were able-bodied adults who were often forced to do some kind of work as a condition of obtaining relief as a means of subsistence. Those who refused this work requirement were presumably not really in need. Throughout our own history of public assistance, the non-deserving poor always got harsher treatment and fewer benefits than their deserving counterparts.
{April 21}
Race, Gender and Marriage
Strict Deontonologist position:
Universal Moral Law (UML)
Kant
It is wrong to use anyone as a means to an end
If you have consent of another, almost anything is allright
UML: don't treat others as objects of sexual gratification
Deductive A-priori
1. respect others... ???
2. sex and love are not the same
3. true love doesn't need distinction of gender, age, etc.
4. sometimes love and sexual desire overlap
5. sexual love- desire and appetite???
A human being is not merely property to be owned for sexual desire.
Therefore, prostitution is wrong if money is offered for use.
Masturbation is wrong
In marriage, sex and love overlap
Women must consent
Adultery in Minnesota, 1984
Still in the books but supreme court said that it has been so long since the law has been used, it is no longer valid
POLYGAMY — THE ULTIMATE FEMINIST LIFESTYLE
Copyright © May 1997 by Elizabeth Joseph
From a speech given at Creating a Dialogue: Women Talking to Women,
a conference organized by the Utah chapter of the National Organization for Women. Joseph is an attorney, a journalist, and lives in Big Water, Utah.
I've often said that if polygamy didn't exist, the modern American career woman would have invented it. Because, despite its reputation, polygamy is the one lifestyle that offers an independent woman a real chance to have it all.
One of my heroes is Dr. Martha Hughes Cannon, a physician and a plural wife who in 1896 became the first woman legislator in any U.S. state or territory. Dr. Cannon once said, You show me a woman who thinks about something besides cookstoves and washtubs and baby flannels, and I will show you nine times out of ten a successful mother.
With all due respect, Gloria Steinem has nothing on Dr. Cannon.
As a journalist, I work many unpredictable hours in a fast-paced environment. The news determines my schedule. But am I calling home, asking my husband to please pick up the kids and pop something in the microwave and get them to bed on time just in case I'm really late? Because of my plural marriage arrangement, I don't have to worry. I know that when I have to work late my daughter will be at home surrounded by loving adults with whom she is comfortable and who know her schedule without my telling them. My eight-year-old has never seen the inside of a day-care center, and my husband has never eaten a TV dinner. And I know that when I get home from work, if I'm dog-tired and stressed-out, I can be alone and guilt-free. It's a rare day when all eight of my husband's wives are tired and stressed at the same time.
It's helpful to think in terms of a free-market approach to marriage. Why shouldn't you or your daughters have the opportunity to marry the best man available, regardless of his marital status?
I married the best man I ever met. The fact that he already had five wives did not prevent me from doing that. For twenty-three years I have observed how Alex's marriage to Margaret, Bo, Joanna, Diana, Leslie, Dawn, and Delinda has enhanced his marriage to me. The guy has hundreds of years of marital experience; as a result, he is a very skilled husband.
It's no mystery to me why Alex loves his other wives. I'd worry about him if he didn't. I did worry in the case of Delinda, whom I hired as my secretary when I was practicing law in Salt Lake City. Alex was in and out of my office a lot over the course of several months, and he never said a word about her. Finally, late one night on our way home from work, I said, Why haven't you said anything about Delinda?
He said, Why should I?
I said, She's smart, she's beautiful. What, have you gone stupid on me?
They were married a few months later.
Polygamy is an empowering lifestyle for women. It provides me the environment and opportunity to maximize my female potential without all the tradeoffs and compromises that attend monogamy. The women in my family are friends. You don't share two decades of experience, and a man, without those friendships becoming very special.
I imagine that across America there are groups of young women preparing to launch careers. They sit around tables, talking about the ideal lifestyle to them in their aspirations for work, motherhood, and personal fulfillment. A man might be nice,
they might muse. A man on our own terms,
they might add. What they don't realize is that there is an alternative that would allow their dreams to come true. That alternative is polygamy, the ultimate feminist lifestyle.
Joseph says polygamy is good feminism. It is liberating for women. It has been around forever. It frees up moms, creates large extended families that care for each other.
Saint Augustin in 354 stated that polygamy should end because it is no longer needed to produce so many families.
Adultery
Utilitarian view:
Marriage is a social institution; it is worth preserving; that the immorality may be the lying, deceiving, breaking promises...
Marriage is a civil contract, 90 days to annul.
No common law marriage in MN.
MN has no-fault marriage (every state has no-fault marriage).
Pre-nuptual can place certain restrictions on the marriage before it takes place.
Children in a divorced family unit can live jointly with the two parents. There can be primary custody, which is physical custody
Same-sex marriage:
What is marriage? Recently, people argue with respect to the definition of marriage. What happened to marriage? To get married is a very important event for almost everyone. Especially for women, marriage and giving a birth could be the two biggest events of their lives. Many people believe that getting married to the one whom he or she loves is natural. However, what do you think if you cannot get married to him or her because it is socially unacceptable? Andrew Sullivan and William Bennett are authors who are arguing about the homosexual marriage. Sullivan agrees with the same-sex marriage because everyone has a right to marry. On the other hand, Bennett contradicts Sullivan’s opinion. Bennett makes an assertion that marriage is between a man and a woman building up their entire life together. Both authors’ opinions are totally different. Nevertheless, their ideas are well established.
In Sullivan’s essay, he talks about accepting same-sex marriage. If the judge accepted homosexuals as citizens in the Supreme Court, homosexual people would feel free. They do not have to hide and tell a lie anymore. Most people wonder why they desire to get married. The reason is the same as anyone who wants to get married to the one whom he or she loves. It is normal thought. It seems easy to accept these opinions. However, it is very difficult because marriage is between a man and a woman, and this has been a general thought for a long time. Therefore, some religions refuse homosexuality, but it is not a problem any more because of the separation of the church and the state. Homosexuals just want a social right to get married. Some people still argue the definition of marriage. It has been change by homosexuality because human values are equal anyone in the world. Everyone has the same rights. Is marriage to bring up children? No, there are many married couples who do not have children. This is no difference between homosexual marriage and other marriage styles. Nevertheless, if there are people who disagree with the same-sex marriage, they inhibit homosexual people from staying their country (Sullivan 26).
In Bennett’s essay, he writes two points which divide opinions about homosexual marriage. One is whether homosexual marriage strengthens or weakens the institution. The other is what the marriage is. If the definition of marriage were extended too much to include homosexual union, the tradition of marriage would be changed. However, there are many people who want to get married to their children or more than two people. Bennett asks how we can consider these people. It is difficult to say what the moral is. Marriage also means to decide your best partner. Everyone desires a beautiful life with a partner, but most marriage is not as the ideal as we think. He mentions that many supporters of homosexual couple do not share this ideal (Bennett p.30). Another different opinion from proponents to opponents of same-sex marriage is “the very heart of marriage itself” (Bennett p.30). Marriage is that a man and a woman love, respect, and help each other. That is what people learn in this society. The definition cannot be changed easily by anyone. In addition, this thought has been taught for a long time in American history. Therefore, we should respect and keep this thought.
I do not think there is a common ground. Of course, both authors talk about the same-sex marriage. Besides, Sullivan agrees with this, and Bennett is the opponent. However, what Sullivan really wants to say is the right of human being. Everyone has the same right, and there is no difference between men and women and black and white. As he says, this is why homosexuality should have the same right as other people have. Right to marry is just one of the whole problems for homosexuality. In contrast, Bennett focuses on marriage. He talks about what the marriage is, and what the marriage should be. In addition to this, he mentions other types of marriages like polygamy and family marriage. If there were these styles of marriages as a culture in the US, he would accept them. He says we should not change this culture because our ancestors made this.
There are many different types of love such as loving family, friendships, to love your pets, to love the one who you should not, your boyfriend or girlfriend and so on. Nobody will predict to love someone because love comes by chance. Did you change your mind to read this essay? Or do you still have your own opinion? I think both ideas those two authors gave us are correct. Only love can solve everything.
Works cited
Bennett William. “Leave Marriage Alone”. Constructing Others Constructing Ourselves. Ed. Sibylle Gruber et al. Kendall/Hunt, 2002.
Sullivan Andrew. “Let Gays Marry”. Constructing Others Constructing Ourselves.
Ed. Sibylle Gruber et al. Kendall/Hunt, 2002.
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Andrew Sullivan says Bennett is wrong. he believes that religion, history, and religion are against same-sex marriage. He says it is a "slippery slope". It undermines a core social institution.
One-fourth of children are growing up in traditional marriages and 75% are growing up in non-traditional marriages.
Race
Michaels/Preferential treatment
The Ethics of Affirmative Action
The Center for Applied Ethics cosponsored a symposium entitled "The Ethics of Affirmative Action" on April 21, 1992, featuring Richard Wasserstrom, Ph.D., and Shelby Steele, Ph.D. Steele, a scholar known nationally for his articulate opposition to affirmative action, argued against the legitimacy of preferential treatment programs. Wasserstrom has earned a national reputation as an ethicist in suppport of preferential treatment programs. The event was funded by a Santa Clara University Irvine Foundation Grant. Excerpts from the presentation are printed below.
"If one asks what was distinctively unjust about the system of social segregation that was animated by the doctrine of seperate but equal. . .the answer is. . .that this system's ideology of black inferiority. . .was and is incompatible with the rightful claims of all persons. . .to fundamentally equal membership and standing within the society of which they were and are a part.
". . .It's misleading and inaccurate to claim. . .that [preferential treatment programs] care only or exclusively about race or that they embrace quotas which either license or require the selection of persons who are unqualified. They do none of this and they never have. Rather, race is instead simply one of the things that they do care about.
". . .These programs justifiably do care about the race of applicants because such programs can and do play a constructive role in helping to dismantle the stubbornly entrenched system of unjust, black, racial disadvantage that is all too shamefully still operative in the United States today."
--Richard Wasserstrom
". . .'So now when we [whites] come to the top where the real power is decided, we can't play the affirmative action game any more. We need people who can do the job now! And you, you got here on affirmative action!'. . .Well, blacks are very reasonable when they say, 'What's the difference between that and racism?'
". . .[Affirmative action] is cheap. It's inexpensive. Just play with the numbers a little bit. [But] to make good school systems in the inner city costs money! . . .So we have a system perfectly designed to keep the people who were always oppressed still oppressed, still backwards. After 25 years of affirmative action, black Americans have declined on almost every socioeconomic measure. What we need is development! But no, you wait until we're 18 years old, badly educated, and then throw preference at us so we can go to college for about six months before we drop out. . .and think you've. . .done something. Where were you in kindergarten? In pre-school? Affirmative action is a fraud."
--Shelby Steele
Wasserstrom states that in order to reverse past discrimination, you need to accommodate those discriminated against by preferential treatment (affirmative action). Others say that assimilation is the best way; follow the 14th Amendment. Affirmative action only continues to make the protected class stand out, which continues discrimination. Wasserstrom believes that social justice demands creating protective classes.
Gay & Lesbian
In 1973, the American Psychological Association said that being gay was not a mental illness.
The intolerance of the homosexual agenda
Posted: April 16, 2008
1:00 am Eastern
© 2008
In the past, homosexuals have always called for "tolerance" and "privacy," but today they flaunt their perversion in public parades, "gay" television shows and Hollywood movies. Demanding laws for same-sex "marriages" and "hate crimes" legislation, they would require Christians and everyone else to recognize and never question their immoral lifestyle.
Now homosexual advocates are moving to mandate their agenda of calling evil good by court orders and government regulation. Two recent examples bear witness.
Last month in Scottsboro, Ala., two lesbian teenagers decided they wanted to attend the high school junior-senior prom as a couple. When the superintendent, Dr. Judith Berry, informed the students that they could not attend the prom together, the students' parents hired a lawyer to intervene. Jackson County Circuit Court Judge John Graham issued a last-minute order prohibiting the Board from barring the girls from the prom. One girl, a 17-year-old senior, wore a dress while the other, a 16-year-old junior, dressed in a tuxedo.
Their attorney, Parker Edmiston, casually dismissed any concerns that school officials or parents had about the lesbian couple attending the prom by saying, "This is just a dance. Adults need not get involved." Of course, the problem here is that adults – the attorney and judge – did get involved.
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Moore says that gays hurt society: it is immoral, it is a non-conformist lifestyle, it is unnatural, it makes people feel uncomfortable.
Utilitarian view is that it is immoral & aimed at self-indulgence. The accepted way is an orgasm between a man and a woman- a deliberate choice.
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