Love drugs and the perils of human enhancement, part II | Machines ...

Let?s resume our discussion of Brian Earp?s on ?Love and other drugs,? part of a special collection on human enhancement recently published by Philosophy Now (you?ll find part I of this essay here). As you might recall, the author maintains that one reason why marriages don?t last is cheating, and ascribes our (allegedly) recently increased tendency to engage in that sort of behavior to the confluence of three factors: human nature, values, and cultural environment. He then wonders whether tinkering with any of these factors might help with our predicament.

Earp tackles first the area you would expect a philosopher to consider to be the place of most promising intervention: changing our values. But he is skeptical that this can be done. He says that ?some couples do elect to enter into ?open marriages,? although this is relatively rare. While it isn?t ethically problematic on the surface, and while it may in fact work for some, research shows that such an arrangement is usually at the behest of the husband mid-way through the marriage, not agreed to by both parties from the start.? And moreover: ?What if ?open marriages? were the norm rather than the exception? My guess is that it simply wouldn?t work on a wide scale ... [because of] jealousy ? an adultery-detesting rush of emotions that evolved in both sexes, presumably to protect against cuckoldry in the case of males and against the diversion of male resources away from childcare in the case of females.? [Notice the nonchalant appeal to evopsych ?explanations? to reinforce the point.]

But wait a minute, surely if there is anything that human cultural history shows it is precisely that we have been able to change our values, sometimes dramatically and in a relatively short period of time. Slavery was accepted in the West until a couple of centuries ago, and it is abhorred now. Women were not allowed to vote in the United States until the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was passed as late as 1920. And even though fundamentalist religionists haven?t grasped this yet, gay marriages are here to stay, a change that has happened in the span of mere years.

So why wouldn?t open marriages offer at least a viable alternative for those couples for whom they may work? The fact that currently this arrangement is relatively rare, and often entered into after the fact, so to speak, does not preclude that it may soon become a live option for both men and women to propose when they begin a new relationship. Moreover, there are other alternatives that Earp doesn?t even consider. For instance, institutionalized serial monogamy could be yet another entry in the menu of available choices: people could marry for a period of time (say, five years), and at the end of that period decide whether they wish to renew their vows or move on because of whatever serious emotional or behavioral mismatch had emerged between the parties. (Yes, there would be legal and logistical issues for couples with children, but we have experience in those matters.) And of course Earp ignores that the trend ? at least in major cities in the West ? has actually been for no marriage at all: millions of people have stable (perhaps more stable?) relationships under an arrangement known in social psychology as ?living apart together,? where the couple is committed to a long-term relationship while physically living in separate apartments and managing finances independently (incidentally, these two issues ? personal space and finances ? likely represent a far greater source of friction among couples than cheating).

Earp then moves to the second possibility: changing the social environment. But, he says, there are plenty of things we like about modern society, including the availability of effective contraception, ease of travel, and the existence of extended social networks (all factors, he claims, which are likely to increase the frequency of cheating, though I?d like to see the data on that one). He then examines some type of social interventions that may be considered, but one gets the distinct impression of a straw man hovering above that part of the article: these options include passing laws that make divorce much harder, stiff penalties for adulterers, or even the death penalty for cheating (as has, indeed, been the case in Pakistan since 1979) ? all of which are clearly unacceptable in Western societies.

Well, no, obviously we don?t want to get draconian about it, but that doesn?t mean that we couldn?t agree on social changes that would ameliorate the problem (assuming, again, that we really do have a ?problem?). I, for one, would actually be in favor of financial penalties for cheaters. After all, a marriage is a legal contract (not the culmination of a fairy tale), and nobody is forced to enter into it. These contracts can stipulate all sorts of things in the guise of prenuptial agreements. There is no reason, then, why a prenuptial could not spell out that in case of cheating ? on either side ? the offending partner would be subjected to this or that penalty, including financial ones and/or the immediate termination of the agreement. If you don?t like the idea, negotiate a different prenuptial with your prospective spouse (or see the ?Living Apart Together? option mentioned above). And by the way, if electronic platforms make it easier to cheat, they also make it easier to detect cheaters, since pretty much everything we do online leaves a traceable trail.

Source: http://machineslikeus.com/news/love-drugs-and-perils-human-enhancement-part-ii

university of louisville louisville ky final four lotto winners mega ball winning numbers baltimore county current tv