Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T18:20:32.940Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Case against Different-Sex Marriage in Kant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2020

Martin Sticker
Martin Sticker*
Affiliation:
University of Bristol
*
Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Recently, a number of Kantians have argued that despite Kant’s own disparaging comments about same-sex intercourse and marriage, his ethical and legal philosophy lacks the resources to show that they are impermissible. I go further by arguing that his framework is in fact more open to same-sex than to different-sex marriage. Central is Kant’s claim that marriage requires equality between spouses. Kant himself thought that men and women are not equal, and some of his more insightful remarks on the issue reveal that he was also aware that, as a matter of fact, women were disenfranchised by society, and suffer legal and other forms of discrimination. Kant, according to his own account, cannot approve of heterosexual marriage. Same-sex couples, by contrast, can satisfy the crucial equality condition. I conclude with a suggestion for refocus with respect to the issues at hand, calling for attention to more complex and insidious forms of inequality than deprivation of rights and full civil participation.

Keywords

marriagesexequalitygendernatural endsrightsactive and passive citizenship
Type
Articles
Information
Kantian Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 441 - 464
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Kantian Review

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Altman, Matthew (2010) ‘Kant on Sex and Marriage: The Implications for the Same-Sex Marriage Debate’. Kant-Studien, 101(3), 309–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Altman, Matthew (2011) Kant and Applied Ethics: The Uses and Limits of Kant’s Practical Philosophy. Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beever, Allan (2016) ‘Kant on the Law of Marriage’. Kantian Review, 18(3), 339–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brake, Elizabeth (2005) ‘Justice and Virtue in Kant’s Account of Marriage’. Kantian Review, 9, 58–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brandt, Reinhard (1999) Kritischer Kommentar zu Kants ‘Anthropologie in pragmatischer Hinsicht’ (1798). Hamburg: Felix Meiner.Google Scholar
Brecher, Martin (2018a) ‘Ehelicher Geschlechtsgebrauch und Fortpflanzungszweck in §7 der Tugendlehre’. In Waibel, Violettaetal. (eds), Natur und Freiheit: Akten des XII. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses (Berlin: De Gruyter), 1761–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brecher, Martin (2018b) ‘Ein Zwangsrecht auf Geschlechtsverkehr? Das kantische Vernunftrecht und die eheliche Pflicht’. Aufklärung, 30, 93–118.Google Scholar
Denis, Lara (1999) ‘Kant on the Wrongness of “Unnatural Sex”’. History of Philosophy Quarterly, 16(2), 225–48.Google Scholar
Denis, Lara (2001) ‘From Friendship to Marriage: Revising Kant’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 63(1), 1–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erler, Adalbert, and Kaufmann, Ekkehard (eds) (1964ff.) Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 3. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag.Google Scholar
Guyer, Paul (2006) Kant. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herman, Barbara (1993) ‘Could it be Worth Thinking about Kant on Sex and Marriage?’. In Antony, Louise and Witt, Charlotte (eds), A Mind of One’s Own (Boulder, CO: Westview Press), 53–72.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1996) Practical Philosophy. Trans. and ed. Mary J. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (1997) Lectures on Ethics. Ed. Heath, Peter and Schneewind, J. B., trans. Peter Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kant, Immanuel (2007) Anthropology, History, and Education. Ed. Zöller, Günter and Robert, B. Louden.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kleingeld, Pauline (1993) ‘The Problematic Status of Gender-Neutral Language in the History of Philosophy: The Case of Kant’. Philosophical Forum, 25(2), 134–50.Google Scholar
Kuster, Friederike (2011) ‘Verdinglichung und Menschenwürde. Kants Eherecht und das Recht der häuslichen Gemeinschaft’. Kant-Studien, 102(3), 335–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Löchel, Rolf (2006) ‘Frauen sind ängstlich, Männer sollen mutig sein – Geschlechterdifferenz und Emotionen bei Immanuel Kant. Kant-Studien, 97(1), 50–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marwah, Inder (2012) ‘What Nature Makes of Her: Kant’s Gendered Metaphysics’. Hypatia, 28(3), 551–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mikkola, Mari (2011) ‘Kant on Moral Agency and Women’s Nature’. Kantian Review, 16(1), 98–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morgan, Seiriol (2003) ‘Dark Desires’. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 6(4), 377–410.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mosser, Kurt (1999) ‘Kant and Feminisn’. Kant-Studien, 90(3), 322–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller (1982) ‘Women and the Making of the Sentimental Family’. Philosophy and Public Affairs, 11(1), 65–88.Google Scholar
Papadaki, Lina (2010) ‘Kantian Marriage and Beyond: Why it is Worth Thinking about Kant on Marriage’. Hypatia, 25(2), 276–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pascoe, Jordan (2018) ‘A Universal Estate. Why Kant’s Account of Marriage Speaks to the 21st Century Debate’. In Krasnoff, Larry, Madrid, Nuria Sánchez and Satne, Paula (eds), Kant’s Doctrine of Right in the Twenty-First Century (Cardiff: University of Wales Press), 220–39.Google Scholar
Rinne, Pärttyli (2018) Kant on Love. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaff, Kory (2001) ‘Kant, Political Liberalism, and the Ethics of Same-Sex Relations’. Journal of Social Philosophy, 32(3), 446–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schröder, Hannelore (1997) ‘Kant’s Patriarchal Order’. In Robin May Schott (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press), 275–96.Google Scholar
Sedgwick, Sally (1990) ‘Can Kant’s Ethics Survive the Feminist Critique’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 71(1), 60–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soble, Allan (2003) ‘Kant and Sexual Perversion’. The Monist, 86(1), 55–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stark, Werner (ed.) (2004) Immanuel Kant: Vorlesung zur Moralphilosophie. Berlin: De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Varden, Helga (2007) ‘A Kantian Conception of Rightful Sexual Relations’. Social Philosophy Today, 22, 199–218.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Varden, Helga (2017): ‘Kant and Women’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 98(4), 653–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, Donald (2004) ‘Kant and the Marriage Right’. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85(1), 103–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar