Gay Marriage and the Paradox of Existence

Helping students or workshop participants radically expand their critical-thinking horizons beyond conventional dualistic bounds on the subject of gay marriage is difficult. The paradoxical logic of Nagarjuna's tetralemma is one means to do so. They learn not only this new investigative tool and deepen their understanding of the perspectives surrounding gay marriage, but have to examine the degree to which they limit their own capacity to think.     

Marriage and the Public Good

In this article I seek to address some misunderstandings inarguments about same sex-marriage. I do this by evaluating severalviews on homosexuality and marriage. My central aim is to showthat a rejection of same-sex marriage does not depend upon theview that homosexual acts are immoral or disordered. Rather,one must examine sexual acts in light of public goods that areat stake. I also argue that the Christian understanding of marriageand sexuality offers more than a set of prohibitions againstcertain sexual acts. Rather, it offers reasonable principlesby which to evaluate the relationship between sexual acts andthe public good.     

The Sexual and Theological Ethics of Gay Marriage in France: A Dialectic between Autonomy and Universalism

Abstract

The debate on gay marriage has gathered pace globally and particularly in France. Here, the secularization of marriage as an ‘acte laïque’ has furthered progress towards a political and juridic recognition of gay marriage. The Catholic church (Vatican) has opposed this development in its re-enforcement of Catholic sexual ethics and the distinction it draws between secular and religious definitions of marriage. Complicating this distinction is the perception of a trend towards post-secularism in France where religion is making a return to democratic debates on citizenship and gender, and raising concerns over the status of the civility of the marriage act. The focus of this article is to look at gay marriage from the perspective of contemporary ethical and theological thinking. Specifically, I aim to examine alternative discourses that open up new ways of configuring gay marriage through an examination of concepts of integrity, responsibility and asceticism, and critically the ethical relationship between autonomy and norms.     

Marital Therapy Caught Between Person and Public: Christian Traditions on Marriage

This article addresses a crisis in marital therapy caught between concern for individual well-being and marriage as a social institution. Marital therapy would be enriched by conversation with three models of marriage: Roman Catholic subsidiarity theory, Protestant covenant view, and liberation theology and corresponding languages of social goods, covenant, and mutual responsibility. The authors urge therapists to see marriage as private and social at the same time and to help couples explore the meaning of marital commitment, the connection between personal well-being and marriage's wider social goods, and the dynamics of shared power and radical mutuality in marriage.     

Contra Tooley: divine foreknowledge is possible

International Journal for Philosophy of Religion - Michael Tooley’s latest argument against the possibility of divine foreknowledge trades on the idea that, whichever theory of time is true,...     

Marriage and Family Therapists' Comfort Level Working With Gay and Lesbian Individuals,Couples, and Families

As professionals, therapists should be prepared to work with a diverse population. The purpose of this study was to explore predictors of American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy Clinical Members' comfort level in working with gay and lesbian individuals, couples, and families. Results indicated that therapists' scores on the Support for Lesbian and Gay Human Rights Scale predicted their comfort level in working with gay and lesbian individuals, couples, and families. The challenge for training programs is to assist therapists-in-training and supervisors with self-exploration and to increase opportunities for interactions with gays and lesbians.     

Expanding Our Reach: Marriage and Family Therapists in the Public School System

As states change their legislation to include Marriage and Family Therapists (MFTs) as approved mental health providers in schools, it is important to understand the experiences of MFTs in this context to improve training and increase our effectiveness. MFTs with experience working in public schools (N = 21) discuss the advantages and rewards of working in schools, challenges they have experienced, how they have dealt with those challenges, and training they recommend for MFTs seeking to work in schools. Qualitative results have implications for practitioners, training, and supervision. The possibility of a specialization in School-Based Family Therapy is discussed.     

Glowing Praise and the Envious Gaze: Social Dilemmas Surrounding the Public Recognition of Achievement

To determine whether well-intentioned attempts to recognize superior achievement might backfire, these studies drew on recent advances to social comparison theory that emphasize interpersonal costs of outperformance (e.g., Exline & Lobel, 1999b). Undergraduates (N = 122) were asked how top performance on exams should be recognized (Study 1). Students strongly preferred private, anonymous forms of recognition to more public forms of recognition. Study 2 suggested that preferences for recognition reflect sensitivity to both positive and negative peer responses. Study 2 also revealed individual differences in preferences for recognition. Narcissism was positively associated with desire for public recognition and negatively associated with concern about being the target of peer hostility. Competitiveness was associated with beliefs that being recognized for superior achievement would bring hostile reactions from peers. Sociotropy was associated with high levels of concern about both negative and positive peer reactions to public recognition. These findings complement prior research suggesting that public recognition, although self-enhancing, may create social dilemmas. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Contra Fraser on Feminism and Neoliberalism

This article is a critical examination of Nancy Fraser's contrast of early second‐wave feminism and contemporary global feminism in “Feminism, Capitalism and the Cunning of History,” (Fraser 2009 ). Fraser contrasts emancipatory early second‐wave feminism, strongly critical of capitalism, with feminism in the age of neoliberalism as being in a “dangerous liaison” with neoliberalism. I argue that Fraser's historical account of 1970s mainstream second‐wave feminism is inaccurate, that it was not generally anti‐capitalist, critical of the welfare system, or challenging the priority of paid labor. I claim Fraser mistakenly takes a minority feminist position as mainstream. I further argue that Fraser's account of feminism today echoes arguments from James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer (2001) to Hester Eisenstein ( 2009 ), but such arguments ignore contemporary feminist minority positions. I challenge Fraser's arguments that feminism legitimates neoliberalism to women, that women's NGOs are simply service‐providers enabling the state to withdraw services, and that criticisms of microcredit lending programs can be generalized into criticisms of women's feminism and women's NGOs today. I argue that these claims are vast over‐generalizations and ignore countertrends. I give empirical evidence to support my objections by considering women's activities in post‐communist European countries, which Fraser discusses.     

Inventing a Gay Agenda: Students' Perceptions of Lesbian and Gay Professors1

Students' perceptions of lesbian and gay professors were examined in 2 studies (Ns = 622 and 545). An ethnically diverse sample of undergraduates read and responded to a syllabus for a proposed Psychology of Human Sexuality course. Syllabuses varied according to the political ideology, carefulness, sexual orientation, and gender of the professor. Students rated professors on dimensions such as political bias, professional competence, and warmth. Lesbian and gay professors were rated as having a political agenda, compared to heterosexual professors with the same syllabus. Student responses differed according to their homonegativity and modern homonegativity scores. The findings from these studies suggest that students may use different criteria to evaluate lesbian, gay, and heterosexual professors' ability to approach courses objectively.     

What Lies Beyond Same‐Sex Marriage? Marriage,Reproductive Freedom and Future Persons in Liberal Public Justification

In this article I consider whether the legalization of sex-same marriage implies a right to incestuous marriage. I begin by suggesting that the liberal state get out of the 'marriage' business by leveling down to a universal civil union status. The question is then whether incestuous unions should be both legal and eligible for this status. I argue that the arguments compatible with public reason for prohibiting them outright, or even for excluding them from the permissible types of legally registered partnerships, are quite weak. The objections to allowing such relations are those from (1) child abuse; (2) unfair burdening of society; and (3) the creation of bad lives. I argue that while rape and other forms of child abuse would be no more legal or tolerated than they are now, the concern about any form of weakening a society's legal and political resources to combat such abuses does indeed register on the justificatory scale, but does not prove that such first-degree incestuous sexual relations are inherently bad enough to warrant intervention in their own right. I then argue that the concern about unfairly burdening society with unhealthy persons is not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, but nor is it strong enough to justify an outright prohibition. Finally, I argue that a concern to dissuade persons from creating certain kinds of lives (children with extreme birth defects) is also not as dangerously totalitarian as we might initially fear, and in fact goes further towards explaining why we might have a legitimate interest in intervening. Nonetheless, I argue that the criminalization of such acts only make sense when they are indicators of other offenses, namely negligence or abuse, and it thus seems that the act of consanguineous reproduction is itself insufficient.     

Contra Cartwright: Structural Realism, Ontological Pluralism and Fundamentalism About Laws

In this paper I argue against Nancy Cartwright’s claim that we ought to abandon what she calls “fundamentalism” about the laws of nature and adopt instead her “dappled world” hypothesis. According to Cartwright we ought to abandon the notion that fundamental laws (even potentially) apply universally, instead we should consider the law-like statements of science to apply in highly qualified ways within narrow, non-overlapping and ontologically diverse domains, including the laws of fundamental physics. For Cartwright, “laws” are just locally applicable refinements of a more open-ended concept of capacities. By providing a critique of the dappled world approach’s central notion of open ended capacities and substituting this concept with an account of properties drawn from recent writing on the subject of structural realism I show that a form of fundamentalism is viable. I proceed from this conclusion to show that this form of fundamentalism provides a superior reading of case studies, such as the effective field theory program (EFT) in quantum field theory, than the “dappled world” view. The case study of the EFT program demonstrates that ontological variability between theoretical domains can be accounted for without altogether abandoning fundamentalism or adopting Cartwright’s more implausible theses.     

The Noncustodial Parent: Dilemmas and Interventions

This article focuses on the often overlooked group of people, usually men, who are noncustodial parents. The authors discuss 10 common dilemmas of parents in this position and delineate what can be done by individual and family counselors to enhance the ability of these parents to maintain parenting relationships with their children.     

惩罚和社会价值取向对公共物品两难中人际信任与合作行为的影响

通过两个计算机情境模拟实验, 采用“取消惩罚”范式, 引入社会价值取向变量, 发现惩罚对人际信任和合作行为具有消极影响, 具体表现为当惩罚取消后, 经历过惩罚的被试的人际信任水平显著低于无惩罚条件被试的水平。惩罚对博弈者合作行为的影响在社会价值取向不同的博弈者之间存在显著差异：经历过惩罚的亲社会型被试在惩罚取消阶段的合作程度显著低于惩罚存在阶段的合作程度, 并且显著低于无惩罚条件被试的相应水平。惩罚通过亲社会型博弈者的人际信任水平对合作程度产生间接负效应, 即惩罚程度越强, 亲社会型博弈者的人际信任水平越低, 进而使其合作程度也下降。     

Marriage Guidance Training and the Trainee's Own Marriage: A Prospective Study

Twenty trainees and 18 partners took part in a study of the effects of a marriage guidance training programme on their own marriage. Changes were assessed in two ways: retrospectively ('perceived' changes as assessed following training) and prospectively (changes calculated by comparing scores obtained before training and those obtained after training). For most dimensions there was little correspondence between 'perceived' change and 'calculated' change. This has important methodological implications, which are discussed. The 'calculated' change indicated poorer marital adjustment following training. The trainees' scores suggested that they had become less 'abasing' and less 'nurturant' towards their partners; also that they had more disagreements about 'philosophy of life' and 'dealing with in-laws'. Their comments suggested that a number of the trainees had become more analytical of their own marriages, and that training had heightened their awareness of their own needs and individuality.