A short time ago I observed that what currently passes as conservatism in America is rooted in modern revolutionary thought. Whether libertarian or socialist, capitalist or collectivist, virtually all contemporary Western political thought rejects a social order determined by tradition and institutions rather than the individual whether individually or collectively. One can rightly imagine that there are very few conservatives today if conservative is understood to include only those who seek to repristinate a pre-modern past.
That such is the case is consistent with an article by Patrick McKinley Brennan "The Pursuit of Happiness” Comes Home to Roost? Same-Sex Union, the Summum Bonum, and Equality (download here). To make a lengthy and well-argued piece short, Brennan concludes that the Constitution requires recognition of same-sex marriage on Lockean grounds. That John Locke's political views were part and parcel of the civil-political mindscape of America's Founders can hardly be denied. And that Locke would--if he'd gotten around to it--have supported recognition of same-sex marriage is the burden of Brennan's article.
I'll let the interested reader peruse the balance of Brennan's article in which he argues that only a polity committed to a substantive notion of the Good, and the entailments of such a commitment for civil life including marriage, can avoid the slippery slope of "uneasiness" as the criterion constitutional legitimacy. For my part I'll send the same readers to my piece Looking for Bedrock: Accounting for Human Rights in Classical Liberalism, Modern Secularism, and the Christian Tradition. There almost in passing I point to the (perhaps deliberate) ambiguity of Jefferson's choice of "the pursuit of happiness" along with protection of life and liberty as the goals of civil government. Jefferson could certainly have intended the Lockean notion of individual autonomy but just as well a substantive notion of flourishing consistent with the Classical and Christian traditions. At the very least he could have been understood in either sense by the readers of his day.
Of course, this ambiguity is at best a thin barricade to the thoroughly Lockean understanding of the purpose of civil government held by a majority of the Supreme Court. And this, as if I needed more, is another reason why I am not a libertarian. Opportunity to instantiate the Good and not subjective uneasiness should animate constitutional thinking.
That such is the case is consistent with an article by Patrick McKinley Brennan "The Pursuit of Happiness” Comes Home to Roost? Same-Sex Union, the Summum Bonum, and Equality (download here). To make a lengthy and well-argued piece short, Brennan concludes that the Constitution requires recognition of same-sex marriage on Lockean grounds. That John Locke's political views were part and parcel of the civil-political mindscape of America's Founders can hardly be denied. And that Locke would--if he'd gotten around to it--have supported recognition of same-sex marriage is the burden of Brennan's article.
For Lockeans, the pursuit of happiness boils down to neither more nor less than the removal of “uneasiness.” Period. “Lockean man is as easily troubled as he is easily contented.” To the achievement of this latter, modest end, civil society seeks to “procur[e], preserv[e], and advanc[e] . . . civil interests,” such as “life, liberty, health, and indolency of body; and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like,” and nothing more than that, certainly not the care of souls. [Quotes from Locke's, "Essay on Human Understanding."]If failure to recognize same-sex marriage makes some "uneasy," then it should, on Lockean grounds, be recognized forthwith as a normative matter. And given the first line of the Declaration of Independence, it should be recognized politically as well. Brennan goes on to demonstrate that such a conclusion is not far from where Locke was already led when it came to "conjugal society," Locke's peculiar phrasing of what most would more simply have called marriage. After all, already for Locke marriage was only a temporary bond that could be dissolved when its natural product--children--could provide for themselves.
I'll let the interested reader peruse the balance of Brennan's article in which he argues that only a polity committed to a substantive notion of the Good, and the entailments of such a commitment for civil life including marriage, can avoid the slippery slope of "uneasiness" as the criterion constitutional legitimacy. For my part I'll send the same readers to my piece Looking for Bedrock: Accounting for Human Rights in Classical Liberalism, Modern Secularism, and the Christian Tradition. There almost in passing I point to the (perhaps deliberate) ambiguity of Jefferson's choice of "the pursuit of happiness" along with protection of life and liberty as the goals of civil government. Jefferson could certainly have intended the Lockean notion of individual autonomy but just as well a substantive notion of flourishing consistent with the Classical and Christian traditions. At the very least he could have been understood in either sense by the readers of his day.
Of course, this ambiguity is at best a thin barricade to the thoroughly Lockean understanding of the purpose of civil government held by a majority of the Supreme Court. And this, as if I needed more, is another reason why I am not a libertarian. Opportunity to instantiate the Good and not subjective uneasiness should animate constitutional thinking.
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