Two From Ethika Politica

Conjugal Love as a Public Good by Aaron Taylor

It is a familiar argument against same-sex marriage, and why the "state" has an interest in promoting or legislating with regards to marriage, because children are the fruit of the conjugal union and become members of a political community. But when I read this I related it to what I had been thinking about our understanding of human goods - what is desired as an end and how. Good as a [quasi-]habitus versus good as an activity. Good can be used analogously, but does there need to be some clarification as to how it is used within moral and political discourse?

Children are beneficial to the community in so far as they will be come "productive" members one day. But they are also goods in themselves, not only because they are given to us by God but also because they are the community's perpetuating of itself. It has been argued that the community has an interest (that extends to the power of legislating) in marriage (and family-formation) because children do not "belong" wholly to the family, but are members of the community as well. But what is the scope of the authority? Can it not only legislate the provision of adequate nutrition, but define "adequate nutrition"? Can parents be punished for giving their children too much soda? Is that child abuse or neglect? Do we start with an understanding of authority that starts with the community, or do we go from bottom up? Another example: "adequate education" - it is possible for a statist to make an argument that "homeschooling" is insufficient because it fails to meet the goals of education pertaining to communal life) and that all children must attend a public school.

This sort of approach would differ from that which seeks not to micromanage families but to protect the conditions of political and economic freedom which would allow families to exercise responsibility well. (See Thomas Storck, "Capitalism, Famlies, and Fathers" on the need for the government to protect families from those wielding economic power.)

How does one balance the interests of the community (or the "state") with the freedom and authority of parents and families? Is the concept of "subsidiarity" in Catholic Social Teaching enough to provide the theoretical basis for reconciling these claims?


The community should promote fecundity (or at least recognize it as a good) and moral preparation of parents-to-be and children is necessary for them to live well, to fulfill their responsibilities as parents and members of the community. But there is a difference between a tolerance for human frailty in order to respect human freedom and initiative and approving license.

Is this too simplistic: the primary purpose of the government is to maintain peace between families? One should avoid giving too much weight to the moral reality of the family - it is not an enclosed, distinct "sphere" of relations, but a part of the community. Still, it is not like the part of a physical or substantial whole. Family does encompass the "natural" duties one has to one's parents and ancestors, relatives, and children. And there is the [limited] authority of the husband and father over the wife and children. But the relations between men not of the same family, and so on? That is under the purview of the community.

The problem is that we are familiar with the modern nation-state as that which governs, rather than with an authentic republican government of men who actively desire to live together and grow in virtue.

The second piece: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of What? Individualism? by Michelle Bridge

"While philosophers from Aristotle to Machiavelli understood the importance of the common good over the importance of the individual, they erred by too far demeaning the individual. Aristotle thought that for the good of the polis, those who could not lead virtuous lives on their own should be slaves (Politics, 1.5); Machiavelli thought that a monarch must not be afraid to do wrong, sacrificing even his own conscience and soul to the common good (The Prince, Chicago, 1998, 15)."

This sounds like the contemporary liberal/Christian apologetic. What should those who can not lead virtuous lives on their own be left to do? Fend for themselves, without any external direction? Or should they be subject to the rule of another? It is that simple. This is not about human dignity, whether those who rule over others can treat them as property or less than human or unjustly.

Does the essay make of the Declaration of Independence a foundational document? Liberals may do so, but did the Founding Fathers view the document in the same way, as a statement of American political and moral philosophy? Or did they instead give the pride of place to tradition and social mores?

"America makes the opposite mistake, holding the good of the individual and his rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as supreme, and since the state must not assert itself over the individual in any way that may compromise these rights, the personal lifestyle preference of any may trump the common good of all, as it does in such issues as the legalization of abortion and gay marriage."

Maybe she is referring instead to what she takes to be majority opinion, which is tied to core liberal beliefs and proposition nation nonsense.

She refers to an essay by Michael Waldstein, "The Person and the Common Good," which is apparently unpublished.

The consequences of liberal notions of property and citizenship.

Oz Conservative: Hawke Sells Off the Farm to China

I am reminded of Will Hoyt's piece at FPR, The Flaw in Jefferson's Idea of Ward Republics. While these notions of property (the right to property, buying and selling, being "absolute, with no other considerations limiting it) may be defended by [academic] liberals at present, did they originate with liberals? Or with those seeking to despoil property from the powerless and needing a rationale to justify it?

Steve Sailer, Absolute Nuclear Families

I'll post articles from Yes! Magazine from time to time, but let us be clear about where its sympathies lie when it comes to morality concerning sexuality, the family, and community:

What Happy Families Know

It was never easy for families to make it on their own. As the economy becomes more turbulent and America diversifies, many people are embracing new family values. We are learning to care for, love, and bring into our families people who come from different cultures or ethnicities, are gay or straight, are blood relatives or relatives by choice.

Love must be grounded upon truth about the human person and what the authentic human goods are.

Damien Perrotin, Family Values

Family values
Damien Perrotin, The View from Brittany
Every debate has its blind spots and the one about community in peak oil circles is no exception. It is fascinating to see how little discussion there is about what is, after all, the most basic community in all human society : family. There are, of course, good reasons for that. Few among us have any sympathy for the family values crowd, a species unfortunately every bit as widespread and nefarious on this side of the Atlantic as on the other one and we certainly don't want to be put in the same basket as they. This is however unfortunate, for, no matter how polluted it is by religious non-issues, the family question and its evolution is of the foremost importance if we want to make sense of the post-peak world.

(original)

As I said in this post, liberals who promote relocalization and defend the family as the basic unit of society will do so in their moral framework and sanction all sort of organizations, citing various examples taken from all over the world to back up their stance. Here we see Mr. Perrotin using the example of the Mosuo -- he does claim that it is an example of a functional matriarchal society, but he's wrong. But don't let facts get in the way of promoting radical egalitarianism. Still, since he is in France I don't have to worry about forming a sort of alliance with him -- the French agrarian traddies do. He is just one spokesman; how much influence would he have in a deindustrialized society?

If resources are limited and one part of a community perceives that it is sharing an unjust burden in order to placate the other part's demands for just treatment how long can such a community last? (I am thinking of claims by "alternate" families for government support and so on.) Even if decentralization does take place, liberals may still demand the complete suppression of Christianity and traditional Western morality. Will Christians remain the passive sheep that they've become? Or will they resist?