International Youth Summit for Peace and Justice

Module 12 Lecture Summary 

Module 12A: Debating Same-Sex Marriage

Review

We ended last time talking about the narrative conception of the self. We were testing the narrative conception of the self and the idea of obligations of solidarity or membership that did not flow from consent. These are obligations that claimed us for reasons unrelated to a contract, or an agreement, or a choice we may have made. We have been debating among ourselves whether there are any obligations of this kind, or whether all apparent obligations of solidarity and membership can be translated into consent, or reciprocity, or to a universal duty that we owe to people as people.

And then there were the those people who defended the idea of loyalty and patriotism. So the idea of loyalty, and of solidarity, and of membership gathered a certain kind of intuitive moral force in our discussion.

And then, as we concluded, we considered what seems to be a pretty powerful counter example to that idea: the film of those southern segregationists in the 1950s. They talked all about their traditions, their history, the way in which their identities were bound up with their life history. Do you remember that? What flowed from the narrative sense of identity for those southern segregationists? And they said, we have to defend our way of life.

Is this a fair, or decisive objection to the idea of the narrative conception of the self? That is the question we are left with.

Two ways of linking Justice to the Good

What I would like to do today is to advance an argument and see what you make of it. Let me tell you what that argument is. I would like to defend the narrative conception of the person as against the voluntarist conception. I would like to defend the idea that there are obligations of solidarity or membership. Then, I want to suggest that having such obligations lends force to the idea, when we turn to justice, the arguments of justice cannot be detached from questions of the good. But I want to dismiss two different ways in which justice might be tied to the good. And argue for one of them.

Now the voluntarist conception of the person (of Kant and Rawls) we saw was powerful and liberating. A further appeal is its universal aspiration. The idea of treating people as people without prejudice and without discrimination. I think that's what led some among us to argue that “maybe there are obligations of membership, but they must always be subordinate to the universal duties that we have to human beings as such. But is that right?

If power in compassing loyalties should always take precedence over more particular ones, then the distinction between friends and strangers should ideally be overcome. Our special concern for the welfare of friends would be a kind of prejudice. It would be a measure of our distance from universal human concern. But if you look closely at that idea, what kind of a moral universe would that lead you to? The the Enlightenment philosopher Montesquieu gives the most powerful and honest account of where this relentless universalizing tendency leads the moral imagination. Here is how Montesquieu puts it:

“A truly virtuous man would come to the aid of the most distant stranger as quickly as to his own friend. If men were perfectly virtuous, they wouldn't have friends.”

But it is difficult to imagine a world in which persons were so virtuous that they had no friends, only a universal disposition to friendliness. The problem isn't simply that such a world would be difficult to bring about, or that it's unrealistic, the deeper problem is that such a world would be difficult to recognize as a human world. The love of humanity is a noble sentiment but most of the time we live our lives by smaller solidarities.

This may reflect certain limits to the bounds of moral sympathy, but more importantly, it reflects the fact that we learn to love humanity, not in general, but through its particular expressions. So these are some considerations. They are not “knockdown arguments”. But moral philosophy cannot offer “knockdown arguments”, but it can only offer considerations of the kind that we have been discussing and arguing about all along.

Well suppose that's right. One way of assessing whether this picture of the person and of obligations is right is to see what are its consequences for justice. And here's where it confronts a serious problem. And here is where we go back to her Southern segregationist. They felt the weight of history. We admire their character because they wanted to preserve their way of life? Are we committed to saying, if we accept the idea of solidarity and membership, are we committed to say that justice is tied to the good in the sense that justice means whatever a particular community or tradition says it means, including the southern segregationists?

Here it is important to distinguish two different ways in which justice to be tied to the good. One is a relative way. That is the way that says, “to think about rights and to think about justice, you should look to the values that happen to prevail in any given community at any given time. Don't judge them by some outside standard. Instead, conceive of justice as a matter of being faithful to the shared understandings of a particular tradition. But there is a problem with this way of tying justice to the good. The problem is that it makes justice wholly conventional. Justice becomes a product of circumstance. This robs justice of its critical character.

But there is a second way in which Justice can be tied with, or bound up with the good. On the second, non-relativist way of linking justice with conceptions of the good, principles of justice depend for their justification not on the values that happened to prevail at any given moment in a certain place, but instead on the moral worth or basic good of the ends that rights served. On this non-relativistic view, the case for recognizing a right depends on showing that it honors or advances some important human good.

The second way of tying justice to the good is not, strictly speaking, communitarian. If by communitarian you mean just giving the definition of justice over to a particular community.

Now what I would like to suggest is that of these two ways of linking justice to the good, the first is insufficient. This is because the first way leaves justice as a creature of convention. It does not give us enough moral resources to respond to the southern segregationists who invoke their way of life, their traditions and their way of doing things.

But if justice is bound up with the good in a non-relativist way, there is a big challenge and a big question to answer. How can we reason about the good? What about the fact that people hold different conceptions of the good and different ideas about the purposes of key social institutions, and in different ideas about what social goods and human goods are worthy of honor and recognition? We live in a pluralist Society. People disagree about the good. That is one of the incentives to try and find principles of justice and rights that do not depend on any particular ends or purposes or goods.

So is there a way to reason about the good? Before addressing that question, I want to address a slightly easier question. Is it necessary, is it unavoidable, when arguing about justice, to argue about the good? My answer to that question is yes. It is unavoidable. It is a necessary. So for the remainder of today, I want to take up and advance that claim: reasoning about the good, purposes, and ends is an unavoidable feature of arguing about justice. It is necessary. Let me see if I can establish that. For that, I would like to begin a discussion of same-sex marriage.

Same-Sex Marriage

Now same-sex marriage draws on and implicates deeply contested and controversial moral and religious ideas. So there is a powerful incentive to embrace a conception of justice or of rights that doesn't require the society as a whole to pass judgment one way or another on those hotly contested moral and religious questions (for example, about the moral permissibility of homosexuality, and about the proper ends of marriage as a social institution). So clearly if there is an incentive to resolve this question, to define peoples rights in a way that doesn't require the society as a whole to sort out those moral and religious disputes, that would be very attractive.

So what I would like to do now is to see, using the same-sex marriage case, whether it is possible to detach one's views about the permissibility of homosexuality and about the purpose of marriage from the question of whether the state should recognize same-sex marriage or not. So let's begin. I would like to begin by hearing the argument of those who believe that there should be no same-sex marriage and the state should only recognize marriage between a man and woman.

Mark: I have a teleological understanding of the purpose of sex and the purpose of marriage. I think that for people like myself who are Christian and Catholic, the purpose for sex is 1) for procreation and 2) for a unifying purpose between a man and a woman within the institution of marriage.

You have a certain conception of the purpose or telos of human sexuality which is bound up with procreation as well as union. And the purpose of her essence of marriage as a social institution is to give expression to that T. let us and to honor that purpose, namely the procreative purpose of marriage. Is that a fair summary of your view? What do you think, Ryan?

Ryan: I agree with Mark. I think that the ideal of marriage is involved with procreation. It is fine that homosexuals would go off and cohabitate with each other, but the government does not have a responsibility to encourage that.

So the government should not encourage homosexual behavior by conferring the recognition of marriage?

Ryan: yes. It would be wrong to outlaw homosexuality, but it is not necessary to encourage it.

Who has a reply?

Hanna: I would just like to ask a question to Mark. Let's say you got married to a woman and you did not have sex before marriage. Then after you are married it became evident that you were an infertile couple. Do you think that it should be illegal for you to engage in sex if children will not result in that act?

Mark: Yeah, I think that it is moral. That is why I gave the twofold purpose of sex and marriage. For example, there are older couples with a woman who has gone through menopause. I think that sex has purposes beyond procreation.

Hanna: I hate to be uncouth, but have you ever engaged in masturbation?

You don't have to answer that. We have done pretty well over a whole semester dealing with questions that most people think cannot even be discussed in a university setting. And you've got a powerful point. Make that point as a general argument, rather than as an interrogative. Make the point. What is the principle that you are appealing to?

Hanna: Biblically, masturbation is not permissible because it is spilling your seed on the earth when it is not going to result in the birth of a child. But that you say that there is something wrong with sex when it does not produce children or reinforce the marriage bond. The then you say that masturbation is permissible even though it obviously is not going to create a child.

Mark: I think marriage is society's way to create a separate institution where they say, “this is what we hold as a virtue. Every day we fall short and people fall short in so many different ways.” But I think that if you personally fall short in some moral sphere, that doesn't take the right to argue away from you.

Steve: I think that the response to the masturbation issue is that it is permissible. I don't think anyone will argue that homosexual sex isn't permissible. It is just the society has no place in letting you marry yourself if masturbation is something that you do.

All right Hannah, Steve has drawn our attention to the fact that there are two issues here. One of them is the moral permissibility of various practices. The other is the fit between certain practices, whatever their moral permissibility, with the honor or recognition that the state should accord in allowing marriage. Since it has a pretty good counter argument. What do you say to Steve?

Hanna: well I think that it is clear that human sexuality is something that is inherent in most people. It is not something that you can avoid. Then you can't marry yourself, but I don't think that takes away from the fact that homosexuals are people too. I can't understand why they wouldn't be able to marry each other. If you want to marry yourself, I don't know if you can legally do that, that is fine.

Wait. Wait. Now here we are deliberating like legislators. We are talking about what the law should be. Steve said that is fine. Does that mean that as a legislator you would vote for a law of marriage that would be so broad that it would let people marry themselves?

Hanna: I really don't think that that would ever happen. But in principle, yeah, if Steve wants to marry himself, I'm not going to stop him.

And you would confirm state recognition on that solo marriage?

Hanna: sure.

And while we are at it, what about consensual polygamous marriages?

Hanna: I actually think that if the wives and the husband, or the husbands and the wife are consenting, it should be permissible.

Who else?

Victoria: so we are talking about the theological reasoning for marriage. But I think that the problem is that we are talking about it within the Catholic viewpoint. Whereas the teleological point to marriage in another religion or for an atheist may be different. The government does not have a right to impose the theological reasoning from Catholicism on everyone in the state. That is my problem with not allowing same-sex marriage. Your beliefs are your beliefs, and that is fine, but civil union is not marriage within the Catholic Church. And the state has a right to recognize a civil union between whoever it wants. It does not have a right to impose the beliefs of a certain minority, or majority, or whoever it is based on a religion.

Very good. A question: do you think the state should recognize same-sex marriage or just same-sex civil unions as something short of marriage?

Victoria: well, I think that the state doesn't have rights to recognize it as marriage within the church, because it is not their place. Whereas civil unions are essentially the same thing except not under a religion. And the state has the right to recognize a civil union.

All right. So Victoria's argument is that the state should not try to decide the question of what the telos of marriage is. That is something that only religious communities can decide. Who else?

Cezan: I don't see why states should recognize marriages at all. I am one of the few people who voted that states should not recognize any marriages. I believe it is a union between two individuals, but there is no reason to ask the state to give permission to me to unite myself with another person. If the state recognizes these marriages, it will help children, it will have binding effect, but in reality, I don't think it actually has a binding effect.

So Victoria and Cezan's comments differ from earlier parts of the conversation. They say that the state shouldn't be in the business of honoring, or recognizing, or affirming any particular T. let us or purpose of marriage (or of sex). And Cezan says that maybe the government should get out of the business of recognizing marriage at all.

Here's the question: unless you adop Cezan's position (no state recognition of any marriage of any kind) is it possible to decide the question of same-sex marriage without taking a stand on the moral and religious controversies over the property let us of marriage? Thank you very much to everyone who participated. We will pick this up next time.


Module 12B: The Good Life

We have two remaining questions to answer. First, is it necessary, is it unavoidable, to take up questions of the good life in thinking about justice? Yes. And the second question: is it possible to reason about justice? Yes, I think so.

Let me try to develop those answers to those two questions. Now, as a way of addressing those questions, we began discussing the question of same-sex marriage. And, we heard from those people who argued against same-sex on the grounds that the purpose, or telos, of marriage is (at least in part) procreative. Its purpose is the bearing and raising of children. And then there were those people who defended same-sex marriage and a contested that account of the purpose, or telos, of marriage. They argued that we don't require as a condition of heterosexual marriage that couples be able, or willing to procreate. We allowed in for tile couples to marry (this was Hannah's point in the discussion last time). Then there was another position expressed at the end of our discussion by Victoria. She argued that we shouldn't try to decide this question. We shouldn't (at least at the level of the state or the level of law) tried to come to any agreement on those questions about the good. This is because we live in a pluralistic society where people have different moral and religious convictions. So we should try to make law, and the framework of rights, neutral with respect to these competing moral and religious views.

Now it is interesting that some others who favor the idea of neutrality argued not in favor of restricting marriage to a man and a woman, nor in favor of permitting same-sex marriage, they argued in the name of neutrality for a third possibility. They argued that the government get out of the business of recognizing any kind of marriage. That was the third possibility.

Now, Andrea Mae Rose had an interesting contribution to this debate. She had a rejoinder to people who argue for neutrality. Where is Andrea? Andrea, would you be willing to share with us your view why you think that it is a mistake for the state to try to be neutral on moral and even religious questions like same-sex marriage?

Andrea: I don't know that it is possible because people's lives are completely embedded in how they view the world and I agree with Aristotle that the role of the government is helping people live within a collective understanding of what is right and what is wrong.

One could ask the same question of abortion that we have been asking of same-sex marriage: do you think it is possible to decide whether abortion should be permitted or prohibited without taking a stand or making a judgment about the moral permissibility of abortion?

Andrea: no, I don't think it is. And that is why it is such a controversy because people are so deeply committed to their fundamental beliefs about whether a fetus is a life or if it isn't. If I believe that a fetus is a living being and has rights, including the right to live, it is hard for me to say, “I will put my beliefs aside and let you do what you want.” That is because it is like me saying that despite my beliefs, I will let you commit what I believe to be murder.

And the analogy in the same-sex marriage case is: you said that you are a defender of same-sex marriage, but you only came to that opinion once you were persuaded on the underlying moral questions.

Andrea: correct. I think that particularly in the US, so many peoples' beliefs are driven by their religious beliefs. It is like Mark in the discussion last time. He said that he was a Christian and a Catholic. I have to decide for myself through a lot of thought and prayer and conversations with other people. I disagreed with the Catholic standpoint that homosexuality was a sin. I came to that conclusion within my personal relationship with God. It may sound silly, but many people draw their views from their religious beliefs. I could only support same-sex marriage after I came to terms with the within the context of my religious beliefs.

Thank you. Now who would like to reply to Andrea's idea that in order to decide the question of same-sex marriage, it is necessary to sort out the question about the moral status of homosexuality and figure out the telos, or purpose of marriage. Who disagrees with Andrea on that point?

Daniel: I think you absolutely can separate your opinion from what you think the law should be. For example, I think abortion is unequivocably morally wrong. But I do not believe that criminalizing abortion makes it go away. I don't believe that criminalizing abortion stops it. Therefore I am pro-choice. I do believe that a woman should have the choice because it gives them more safety. Just as, maybe morally I don't want to get married to another man, but I am not going to try to impede someone else's freedom to do what they wish to do in terms of the law.

Andrea: whether the law makes something legal or illegal is implicitly approving or disapproving something. By making abortion legal, we as a society are saying that it is okay with us in our society to abort a fetus. If we make it illegal, we are collectively saying as a society that it is not okay.

Daniel: are we saying collectively that abortion is okay, or are we saying that we don't want women are going to get abortions anyway to have to get them in back alleys under unsafe conditions?

Okay, now bring this to the same-sex marriage case. What is your stance on the same-sex marriage debate, Daniel?

Daniel: I think that it absolutely should be legally permitted because it is not telling me that I have to marry another man. If two men are consenting adults want to get married, I don't see how I could even object to it. It causes no harm. Even if it is morally wrong in my opinion, it causes no harm.

All right, let me turn to the way that the Massachusetts court (who made this landmark ruling legalizing same-sex marriage) grappled with the very issue that Andrea and Daniel have been discussing here. Thanks very much to both of you.

What did the court say? This was in the Goodridge case. This case required the state of Massachusetts to extend marriage to same-sex couples. The court started out being very conflicted. It was conflicted between the two positions we've just been hearing defended by Andrea and Daniel. The court begins with an account of liberal neutrality:

“Many people hold deep-seated religious, moral, and ethical convictions that marriage should be limited to the union of one man and one woman, and that homosexual conduct is immoral. Many hold equally strong religious, moral, and ethical convictions that same-sex couples are entitled to be married, that homosexual persons should be treated no differently than their heterosexual neighbors. Neither view answers the question before us. What is at stake is respect for individual autonomy and equality under law. At stake is an individual freely choosing the person with whom to share an exclusive commitment.”

In other words, what is at issue is not the moral worth of the choice, but the right of the individual to make that choice. So this is the liberal neutral strand in the court opinion. This is the strand that emphasizes autonomy, choice, and consent. But the court seemed to realize that the liberal case, the neutral case for recognizing same-sex marriage doesn't succeed. It doesn't get you all the way to that position. If it were only a matter of respect for individual autonomy, if government were truly neutral on the moral worth of voluntary intimate relationships, then it should about a different policy. That policy is remove government and the state altogether from according recognition to certain kinds of unions and associations rather than others.

If government must be neutral, then the consistent position is what we here have been describing as the third position. Position and defend it in the article by Michael Kinsley. Kinsley argues for the abolition of marriage as a state function. Perhaps a better term for this is the disestablishment of religion. This is Kingsley's proposal. He points out that the reason for the opposition to same-sex marriage is that it would go beyond neutral toleration and give same-sex marriage a government stamp of approval. That is at the heart of the dispute. In Aristotle's terms, at issue here is the proper distribution of offices and honors. It is a matter of social recognition. Same-sex marriage cannot be justified on the basis of liberal neutrality, non-discrimination, or autonomy rights alone. This is because the question at stake in the public debate is whether same-sex unions have moral worth, and are worthy of honor and recognition, and whether they fit the purpose of the social institution of marriage.

So Kingsley says that if you want to be neutral, you should:

“Let churches and other religious institutions offer marriage ceremonies. Let department stores and casinos get into the act if they want to. Let couples celebrate their union in any way they choose and consider themselves married whenever they want. And if three people want to get married, or if one person wants to marry himself or herself, and someone else wants to conduct a ceremony for them and declare them married, let them. If you and your government aren't implicated, what do you care?”

This is Kingsley. But this is not the position that the supreme judicial Court in Massachusetts wanted. They did not call for the abolition, or the disestablishment of marriage. The court did not question the government's role in conferring social recognition on some intimate associations rather than others. To the contrary, the court speaks very highly about marriage as “one of our community's most rewarding and cherished institutions.” And then it goes on to expand the definition of marriage to include partners of the same sex. And in doing so, it acknowledges that marriage is more than a matter of tolerating choices that individuals make. It is also a matter of social recognition and honor. As Justice Marshall wrote:

“In a real sense they are our three partners to every civil marriage: two willing spouses and an approving State. Civil marriage is at once a deeply personal commitment, and also a highly public celebration of the ideals of mutuality, companionship, intimacy, fidelity, and family.”

This is the court. Now, this is reaching far beyond liberal neutrality. This is celebrating and affirming marriage as an honorific form of public recognition. And therefore, the court found that it could not avoid the debate of the telos of marriage. Justice Marshall's opinion considers and rejects the notion that the primary purpose of marriage is procreation. She points out that there is no requirement that applicants for a marriage license who are heterosexual attest to their ability or intention to conceive children. Fertility is not a condition of marriage. People who cannot get up out of their deathbed can get married. She advances all kinds of arguments along the lines that we began last time about what the proper end, or telos, of marriage is. She concludes that the purpose, or telos of marriage is:

“Not procreation, but the exclusive and permanent commitment of the partners to one another is the essential point and purpose of marriage.”

Now nothing that I have said about this court opinion is an argument for or against same-sex marriage. But it is an argument against the claim that you can favor or oppose same-sex marriage while remaining neutral on the underlying moral and religious questions. So all of this is to suggest that (at least in some of the hotly contested debates about justice and rights that we have in our society) the attempt to be neutral, the attempt to say that it is just a matter of consent, choice, and autonomy does not succeed. Even the court, which wants to be neutral on the moral and religious disputes, finds that it cannot be neutral.

What then, about our second question. If reasoning about the good is unavoidable in debates about justice and rights, is it possible? If reasoning about the good means that you must have a single principle, or rule, or maxim, or criterion for the good life that you simply plug in every time you have a disagreement about morality, then the answer is no. But having a single principle or rule is not the only way. It is not the best way of reasoning either about the good life or about justice.

Think back to the arguments that we have been having here about justice and about rights, and sometimes about the good life. How have those arguments proceeded? They have proceeded very much in the way that Aristotle suggests. They were moving back and forth between our judgments about particulars (particular cases, events, stories, and questions) and more general principles that make sense of our reasons for the positions that we take in the particular cases.

This dialectical way of doing moral reasoning goes back to the ancients, to Plato and Aristotle, but it does not stop with them. Because there is a version of Socratic or dialectical moral reasoning that is defended with great clarity and force by John Rawls in giving an account of his method of justifying a theory of Justice.

You remember, it is not only the veil of ignorance and the principles that Rawls argues for. It is also a method of moral reasoning (reasoning about justice) that he calls “reflective equilibrium”. What is the method of reflective equilibrium? It is moving back and forth between our considered judgments of particular cases and the general principles we would articulate to make sense of those judgments. And not just stopping there, because we might be wrong in our initial intuitions. So we are not stopping there, but sometimes revising our particular judgments in the light of the principles once we work them out. So sometimes we revise the principles, and sometimes we revise our judgments and intuitions in particular cases.

The general point is this. And here, I quote Rawls:

"A conception of justice cannot be deduced from self evident premises. Its justification is a matter of the mutual support of many considerations, of everything fitting together into one coherent view.”

And later, in “A Theory of Justice,” Rawls writes:

“Moral philosophy is Socratic. We may want to change our present considered judgments once they are regulative principles are brought to light.”

Well, if Rawls accepts that idea, and advances the notion of reflective equilibrium, then the question we are left with is, he applies not to questions of justice, not to questions of morality and the good life. And that is why he remains committed to the priority of the right over the good. He thinks that the method of reflective equilibrium can generate shared judgments about justice and the right, but he does not think they can generate shared judgments about the good life (what he calls the moral and religious questions). The reason he thinks that is that he says that in modern societies there is the fact of reasonable pluralism about the good. Even conscientious people who resell will find that they disagree about questions of the good life, about morality, and religion. And Rawls is likely right about that. He is not talking about the fact of disagreement in pluralist societies. He is also suggesting that there may be persisting disagreements about the good life and about moral and religious questions.

But if that is true, then is he warranted in his further claim that the same cannot be said about justice? Isn't it also true not only as a matter of fact that we disagree about justice in pluralist societies, but at least that some of those disagreements are reasonable disagreements in the same way that some people favor a Libertarian theory of justice, others favor a more egalitarian theory of justice. And they argue. And there is pluralism in our society is between free-market, laissez-faire, or Libertarian theories of justice and more egalitarian ones. Is there any difference in principle between the kind of moral reasoning and the kind of disagreements that are rise when we debate about justice and the meaning of free speech and the nature of religious liberty? Look at the debates we have over appointees to the Supreme Court these are all disagreements about justice and rights.

Is there any difference between the fact of reasonable pluralism in the case of justice and rights and in the case of morality and religion? In principle, I don't think there is. In both cases, we do when we disagree is we engage with our interlocutor, as we have been doing here for an entire semester, we consider the arguments that are provoked by particular cases, we try to develop the reasons that lead us to go one way rather than another, and then we listened to the reasons of other people. And sometimes we are persuaded to revise our view, other times we are challenged at least to shore up and strengthen our view.

But this is how moral argument proceeds with justice. And so it seems to me that it also proceeds with questions of the good life. Now, there remains a further worry. And it is a liberal worry. What about if we are going to think about our disagreements about morality and religion as bound up with our disagreements about justice, how are we ever going to find our way to a society that the courts respect to fellow citizens with whom we disagree?

It depends, I think, on which conception of respect one accepts. On the liberal conception, to respect our fellow citizens moral and religious convictions is, so to speak, to ignore them for political purposes: to rise above, or to extract from, or to set aside those moral and religious convictions.  It is to leave them undisturbed and to carry on our political discussions without them. But that isn't the only way. Or even the most plausible way of understanding and mutual respect on which democratic life depends.

There is a different conception of respect. According to which, we respect our fellow citizens' moral and religious convictions not by ignoring, but by engaging that. By attending to them. Sometimes by challenging and testing them. Sometimes by listening and learning from them. Now, there is no guarantee that the politics of moral and religious attention and engagement will lead in any given case to agreement. There is no guarantee that it will lead even to appreciation for the moral and religious convictions of others. It is always possible, after all, that learning more about a religious or moral doctrine would lead us to like it less.

But the respect of deliberation and engagement seems to me a more adequate, more suitable ideal for a pluralist society. And to the extent that our moral and religious disagreements reflect some ultimate plurality of human goods, a politics of moral engagement will better enable us, so it seems to me, to appreciate the distinctive goods our different lives express.

When we first came together some 13 weeks ago, I spoke of the exhilaration of political philosophy and also of its dangers. He spoke of how philosophy works, and has always worked, by estranging us from the familiar by unsettling our settled assumptions. I tried to warn you that once the familiar turns strange, once we begin to reflect on our circumstance, it is never quite the same again. I hope you have, by now, experienced at least a little of this unease. Because this is the tension that animates critical reflection and political improvement, and maybe even the moral life as well.

And so our argument comes to an end in one sense, but in another sense it goes on. Why, we asked at the beginning, why do these arguments keep going? Even if they raise questions that are impossible to ever finally resolve, the reason is that we live some answer to these questions all the time. We live them in our public life, and in our personal lives. Philosophy is  inescapable even if it sometimes seems impossible.

We began with the thought of Kant: that skepticism is a resting place for human reason, where it can reflect upon its dogmatic wanderings, but it is no dwelling place for permanent settlement. To allow ourselves simply to acquiesce in skepticism or in complaisance, Kant wrote, can never suffice to overcome the restlessness of reason.

The aim of this course was to awaken the restlessness of reason and to see where it might lead. And if we have done at least that, and if the restlessness continues to afflict you in the days and years to come, then we together have achieved no small thing.  Thank you.