George on SSM and body-self dualism

Robert George responds to our conversation on same-sex marriage as follows:

I profoundly agree that [the SSM question] is not so simple or, at least, it is not simple in the way that people on the two sides seem to think it is simple.  I say this for a particular reason.  The debate is "simple" in this sense:  If one, whether formally or merely implicitly, believes that persons are (whatever else we are) our bodies, and that we are not non-bodily persons (minds, consciousnesses, spirits) who inhabit and use nonpersonal bodies as extrinsic instruments, then one is likely to agree that the sexual intercourse of man and woman, inasmuch as it fulfills the behavioral conditions of procreation (whether or not the non-behavioral conditions happen to obtain), is capable of uniting them interpersonally and that bodily union, qua personal, is the indispensable foundation and matrix of the comprehensive (bioloogical, emotional, dispositional, rational, spiritual) union that marriage is.  In other words, one will affirm marriage as a one-flesh union.  (And the Biblical teaching that in marriage a man and woman become one flesh will make sense to you.  And the law's historic concern with consummation as an essential element of marriage will also make sense to you.)   If, by contrast, one embraces self-body dualism and regards the "person" as the conscious and desiring "self" that inhabits and uses the body as an instrument for achieving its satisfactions and realizing its other goals (which might be quite noble and even selfless -- body self dualism has no necessary connection with hedonism, as that word is typically used, or egoism), then you will reject the idea of marriage as a truly conjugal (i.e., one flesh) union, or treat it as a sort of myth or metaphor (e.g., a metpahor for intense emotional closeness).  In that case, one will view truly interpersonal union as emotional or spiritual, not bodily.  (And the Biblical teaching and the law's traditional requirement of consummation for a perfected and non-annulable marriage will make no real sense to you.)  Of course, marriage, then will be a union of people at the emotional and spiritual levels, and there is no reason why two people of the same sex cannot unite emotionally (or spiritually) and find (or think they find) that mutually agreeable sexual acts enhance their experience of unity and enable them to express their feelings for each other.  Of course, by the same token, there is no reason why more than two people cannot unite emotionally (or spiritually) and find (or think they find) that mutually agreeable sexual acts enhance their experience of unity and enable them to express their feelings for each other.  That's exactly the point polyamorists make, and I'm sure they are right --- assuming that they are right about what persons are, and the relationship of persons to their bodies.  (Of course, I think they are wrong about what persons are.  Self-body dualism strikes me as deeply mistaken.)

If you look at the writings of the most sophisticated thinkers on the competing sides of the same-sex marriage issue (Koppelman, Macedo, Rauch, for example, on the pro-ssm side; Anscombe, Finnis, Mary Geach, for example, on the anti-ssm side), I think you will see that the debate hinges on whether in fact one-flesh communion is possible (or, to put the same point differently, whether bodily union--the type of union made possible by the sexual complementarity of male and female--is truly personal union).  That in turn depends on whether the body is part of the personal reality of the human being, or whether human beings are non-bodily persons who inhabit nonpersonal bodies.

The same turns out to be true, by the way, in the debates over abortion and embryo-destructive research, and over assisted suicide and euthanasia.  If one assumes the truth of  body-self dualism and therefore identifies the person with "consciousness" (or some other such thing), then one has put into place the basis for judging that human embryos and fetuses are not yet persons and that individuals who are suffering from severe dementias or are in minimally conscious states are no longer persons.  So I think it is no accident that most people who hold liberal views about sexual ethics and the nature of marriage also hold liberal views on abortion and other life issues.  Indeed, it is hard to think of major theoretical writers who are "liberal" on sex and marriage but "conservative" on abortion, embryo-destructive research, and assisted suicide.

Prof. George and Patrick Lee have published a book developing this line of thought, Body-Self Dualism in Contemporary Ethics and Politics (Cambridge 2008).