Marriage, sex, and the family

Sex, marriage, and family merit the attention of political philosophy since they must be governed by laws and regulations, because their constitutive relations must be appreciated against a background of inequality and may also have possible inequitable social effects, and since they realize associative or relationship goods that should be fairly distributed. The meanings of “private” and “public” are explained. The conservative and liberal moral evaluations of sexual conduct are outlined, as well as the problems for the orthodox liberal account that privileges consent. The key questions concerning marriage are what counts as a marriage, and what are the arguments for and against it, the alternatives being essentially a state with or without its legal recognition. Arguments for both take account of the values of personal liberty, fairness, and the liberal requirement of neutrality on the question of the good. The diversity of modern familial forms provokes the question, answered positively, of whether the concept of “the family” should be retained. The liberal state is permitted to protect vulnerable children and to that extent intervene in the family. The family is also a site of gender inequality, and a problematic source of social injustice insofar as unequal life prospects may be attributed to one’s family background.