THE MORALITY OF DIVORCE

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THE MORALITY OF DIVORCE
Edvard Munch, Girls on a Bridge, c. 1904
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The Good Divorce
Constance Ahrons (1937-)
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WHAT IS A GOOD DIVORCE?

• Ahrons defines a good divorce as one in which all
  the parties directly involved in the divorce -
  parents and children - are as emotionally healthy
  as they were before the divorce.
• Divorce in our culture has a negative connotation
  - much less today than prior to, say,1960, but it
  is still there, especially where children are
  involved.
• However, although there is a negative view of
  divorce, Ahrons says that the truth is that most
  people are better off after a divorce than
  before.

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CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD DIVORCE

• Ahrons In a good divorce, a family with
  children remains a family.
• Ahrons The family undergoes dramatic and
  unsettling changes in structure and size, but its
  function remains the same.
• This function is the responsibility that each
  parent has to continue to care for the emotional,
  economic, and physical needs of their child or
  children.
• Thus the divorced parents form a cooperative
  partnership for caring for their child or
  children.

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A PRAGMATIC OUTLOOK

• Ahrons says that, since it is a fact of life that
  people are going to marry and divorce - and
  perhaps several times - we should change our
  attitudes towards it and see it in a positive
  light.
• That is, we should not see divorce as an evil,
  but as fitting into a conception of the good life
  when divorce is properly handled.

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THE LANGUAGE OF DIVORCE

• The first thing which we need to do is change the
  way we talk about it. The implication is then
  that, by changing our talk, we change our way of
  thinking.
• Instead of speaking of a broken home as my
  parents always did we should talk about
  binuclear families.
• If a nuclear family is a healthy family that
  lives together under one roof, a binuclear family
  is a healthy one which involves more than a
  single house where each parent has a domicile
  and joint custody of their child or children.
• Ahrons chooses the term binuclear because she
  wants it to parallel nuclear family.

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A HEALTHY PERCEPTION OF DIVORCE

• For Ahrons, we have to see divorce as a
  legitimate part of a healthy society, and to do
  that we need to get over the idea that only in a
  nuclear family can we raise healthy children.
• Ahrons says that we still tend to think that the
  only healthy families are ones composed of two
  heterosexual parents living under the same roof,
  and the common perception is that every other
  kind of family - including gay and lesbian
  couples - are thought to be abnormal.
• The problem according to Ahrons is that, if we
  only see one kind of family as normal, then
  children of divorce will see themselves as
  abnormal - they will feel stigmatized, deviant,
  and ashamed.

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STICKS AND STONES . . .

• We need to change our attitudes towards divorce
  through, in part, changing the language of
  divorce since, as Noam Chomsky says, language
  can enlighten or imprison.
• If a child thinks of himself as from a broken
  home then this language will make him feel
  unacceptable.
• Ahrons By changing our language to more neutral
  language we will help raise the self-esteem of
  children and adults in these families.

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KINDS OF DIVORCE

• Ahrons recognizes that there are bad divorces,
  but says that there are also good ones.
• While some divorces make problems for families
  many do not.
• Not all good divorces are the same, but those
  which involve children all have in common the
  parents treating one another kindly and
  respectfully and with a mutual regard for the
  welfare of the children.
• The parents of a good divorce want to move ahead
  with their separate lives at the same time that
  they are cordial to one another and have the
  common goal of providing for the children in the
  best possible way.

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CHANGING SOCIETY, CHANGING ATTITUDES

• We have to face the fact that our society has
  changed, and that people both marry and divorce,
  and that divorce is common.
• Because it is so common we have to adjust our
  attitudes towards it.
• For Ahrons, we ought not to revere the nuclear
  family, and we ought not to blame all the ills of
  society on divorce.
• Binuclear families can function very well, and
  can have the same goals of providing for the
  needs of the children as nuclear families do.

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THE FUTURE OF DIVORCE

• Because divorce occurs so frequently, Ahrons says
  that we have to look forward to the binuclear
  family as being the norm in the 21st century.
• And she says that people of divorce, children and
  parents, ought not to feel negative about it, but
  they should see it as normal.
• Society is becoming more complex - less Leave It
  to Beaver - and binuclear families are a normal
  part of that new complex society.
• In order for society to develop in ways which are
  healthy, we have to eliminate negative thinking
  about divorce and understand that solutions in a
  complex world are apt themselves to be complex.

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Mary Cassatt, Mother and Child, 1888
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Is Divorce Immoral?
Lawrence Houlgate
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RUSSELL ON PARENTAL DIVORCE

• Bertrand Russell objected to the idea of the easy
  divorce which turns a two parent family into a
  maternal one.
• He thought that a child expects to have a father
  as well as a mother in the home, and the child
  will usually be emotionally attached to the
  father.
• For Russell, parents who divorce fail in their
  duty to their children unless there is a
  substantial reason for the parents not to stay
  together.

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NO-FAULT DIVORCE

• Most states in the U. S. have no-fault divorce,
  which means that couples do not need to provide a
  substantial reason for their divorce - citing
  irreconcilable differences is enough.
• Further, mutual consent is not even necessary - a
  divorce can occur even if only one member wants
  it.

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WHY IS DIVORCE OF PHILOSOPHICAL INTEREST?

• For Houlgate, philosophers ought to consider the
  morality of divorce since it can have
  devastating personal and social consequences for
  millions of adults and children, and it is a
  purpose of ethics to consider conduct that
  affects the interests of others.
• Accordingly, the moral philosopher ought to
  consider divorce as much as capital punishment,
  euthanasia, or abortion.

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WEST ON PARENTAL DIVORCE I

• Rebecca West is also someone who thinks that
  divorce has devastating consequences - especially
  where children are involved, and especially when
  the children are young.
• West thinks that psychological studies support
  the idea that a child needs both parents in the
  home in order to develop in a natural and healthy
  way.
• Divorce can cause resentment in the child, which
  can obscure his view of life, and warp his
  character.

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WEST ON PARENTAL DIVORCE II

• A child of divorce can feel cheated of the right
  to have two parents together, and reasoning with
  the child here is not of much help since
  children are illogical - even more than adults
  can be, and especially where emotion is
  concerned.
• A child of divorce may even have be permanently
  discontented, and may make it difficult for him
  or her to love.

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THE PSYCHOLOGY OF DIVORCE

• Houlgate says that recent psychological research
  tends to confirm what West says about the baleful
  effects of divorce.
• In one study almost half of the children entered
  adulthood as worried, underachieving,
  self-deprecating, and sometimes angry young men
  and women.
• If the empirical research is accurate, and
  Houlgate will assume that it is, then he says we
  can argue for the immorality of divorce according
  to what he calls The Divorce Child-Harm
  Argument.

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THE DIVORCE CHILD-HARM ARGUMENT (DCH)

• Premise 1 Parents have a duty to act in the
  best interests of their children.
• Premise 2 Divorce harms some many? most?
  young children.
• Conclusion It is morally wrong for parents of
  some young children to divorce.
• Houlgate calls the preceding argument the Divorce
  Child-Harm Argument (DCH). The idea is that
  divorce is harmful to a child parents ought not
  to do anything to harm any of their children and
  so parents ought not to divorce.

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THE PRINCIPLE HARM AND MORAL DUTY

• The main harm here is psychological - other
  threats to the welfare of a child can be dealt
  with through means appropriate to the threat.
  For instance, the threat of economic insecurity
  can be dealt with through child support.
• Houlgate says that causing psychological harm to
  their children is something which parents have a
  duty not to do. And if divorce causes
  psychological harm, then parents have a duty not
  to divorce.
• For Houlgate, the emotional trauma to a child
  caused by divorce is not unlike child abandonment
  and child abuse. Both of these are clearly
  immoral, and if there is an analogy between child
  abuse and divorce, then divorce with young
  children is immoral.

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FIRST OBJECTION TO THE DCH

• The analogy between divorce and child abuse does
  not hold.
• This objection says that, while there may be
  emotional suffering for the child of divorce, it
  never rises to the lowest level of the emotional
  trauma of child abuse - physical, mental, or
  both.
• Thus, child abuse is much worse than emotional
  suffering from divorce and the two are not the
  same.

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HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE FIRST OBJECTION I

• Houlgates answer to the first objection is that
  he is not maintaining that divorce and child
  abuse are the same.
• Rather, he is only saying that some divorces are
  wrong for the same kind of reason that child
  abuse is wrong, namely because of the adverse
  emotional effect on the child. His italics.

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HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE FIRST OBJECTION II

• Houlgate is only considering the morality of
  divorce, whether it is acceptable or not, not
  whether it is a greater or less evil than child
  abuse.
• That divorce is not as emotionally harmful as
  child abuse does not show that divorce is not
  morally wrong.
• And if it is wrong for children to suffer
  emotionally, and divorce causes emotional
  suffering, then divorce is morally wrong.

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SECOND OBJECTION TO THE DCH

• Divorce is okay if the parents treat whatever
  emotional problems are caused in the children by
  divorce.
• The objector here says that the only thing which
  would be immoral is not to treat the disorders
  caused by divorce, not that the cause of them due
  to divorce is immoral.

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HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE SECOND OBJECTION

• Houlgates answer to the second objection is to
  consider a counter-example It is okay for me to
  engage in behavior that results in my childs leg
  being broken as long as I medically treat the
  leg. Or, I can knowingly put my child at risk as
  long as I treat anything which results from
  taking that risk.
• But Houlgate thinks that it is immoral to
  knowingly put a child at risk, even if we
  acknowledge an obligation to treat any injury or
  suffering which results from that risk
• Houlgate It is not enough to be prepared to
  treat a childs injuries if they occur, parents
  must take steps to prevent an injury before it
  occurs.

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CONSIDERATION OF HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE
SECOND OBJECTION I

• This argument will work for the immorality of
  certain kinds of risk, like smoking in the home,
  and not making sure seat belts are fastened.
  However, there are many risks, such as teaching a
  child to ski that would seem to be immoral on
  Houlgates reasoning.
• However, he recognizes that a child may be put at
  risk when there is a probable benefit to the
  child which results from the risky behavior, such
  as skiing - a probable benefit which is
  sufficiently beneficial to make the risk
  acceptable.

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CONSIDERATION OF HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE
SECOND OBJECTION II

• For Houlgates response to the second objection
  to work here it would have to be established that
  divorce is the kind of risk which is
  unacceptable, that, unlike learning to ski, the
  child has nothing positive to gain from divorce.
• And this is what he says When parents divorce
  for no good reason, there is no predictable
  benefit to the child that will balance the risk
  that he or she will suffer emotional harm.

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THIRD OBJECTION TO THE DCH I

• It is morally acceptable for parents to divorce
  when it is done for a grave cause, or when the
  children will suffer more if the parents stay
  married, because the parents cannot control
  whatever it is that causes the suffering.
• This is the so-called Russell loophole, a moral
  principle which says that if marriage is more
  harmful than divorce, then divorce is okay.

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THIRD OBJECTION TO THE DCH II

• Thus it may be more harmful for children of an
  alcoholic to stay in the home with the alcoholic,
  and it may be more harmful for children to stay
  in a home in which one or both parents is
  habitually abusive in any way or ways.
• Parents who seek to justify their divorce on
  moral grounds will often use the grave cause
  excuse, the argument that it is worse to stay
  together than to divorce.
• And studies have shown that the emotional effect
  of divorce on children in dysfunctional homes is
  not as great, and so the grave cause argument
  has some legitimacy here.

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HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE THIRD OBJECTION I

• Houlgates response to the third objection to the
  DCH recognizes the legitimacy of the Russell
  loophole, but he says that the Russell loophole
  only follows if divorce is the only option.
• And, for Houlgate, divorce is the only option
  only if the parents cannot adjust their behavior
  - stop drinking, stop fighting, etc.
• Houlgate follows Russell here, who says that
  parents concerned for their children will
  regulate their conduct, and parents can learn to
  cooperate in raising their children even if they
  no longer love one another.

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HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE THIRD OBJECTION II

• For Russell, parents simply have a duty to do
  everything possible to save the marriage for the
  sake of the children, and parents who divorce to
  save their children from, for instance, seeing
  their fighting are admitting that they cannot
  control their own behavior.
• But parents have an obligation to control their
  behavior in the interests of their children.
• Thus it is not moral for smoking parents to
  abandon their children rather than to refrain
  from smoking in the home - this is something
  which they can control. And as parents can
  control their fighting, perhaps with help from
  counseling, so it is immoral for them to abandon
  their children by divorcing with the excuse that
  they cannot control their fighting.

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A CONSIDERATION FOR HOULGATE

• A possible objection to Houlgate here might be
  that smoking and such things as marital fighting,
  abuse, or alcoholism are very different kinds of
  thing, and some are easier to control than
  others.
• In addition, it may take a naive view of
  self-control.

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FOURTH OBJECTION TO THE DCH

• The argument that divorce is harmful to children
  puts too much stress on the rights and interests
  of children, and ignores the rights and
  interests of the parents.
• Do not parents, as humans, have rights to pursue
  their own needs and interests? What about the
  emotional well-being of the adult? Does that not
  matter? Is the adult supposed to become a slave
  to the marriage, a kind of colony worker for the
  good of the hive?
• Can we not say that the rights of the parents are
  at least equal to the rights of the children, and
  may in some cases outweigh them?

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HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE FOURTH OBJECTION I

• Houlgate says that, if we maintain that the
  rights of parents outweigh those of the children,
  then how can we say that parents have an
  obligation to care for their children? And this
  is something we clearly do say.
• If it is okay for a man or woman to divorce to
  pursue her own interests at the risk of
  emotionally damaging his or her child, then how
  can the parent be said to have an obligation to
  the rearing of the child?

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HOULGATES RESPONSE TO THE FOURTH OBJECTION II

• For Houlgate this empties the concept of moral
  obligation of most of its content.
• It does so, he thinks, because the rights of the
  parents are made to come before their obligation
  to the welfare of their children, which is
  incorrect.
• For Houlgate, parents have obligations to the
  emotional needs of their children as much as they
  are obligated to provide for the physical needs
  of the children, such as food, clothing, and
  shelter.
• For Houlgate, Russell is correct about the
  immorality of divorce in the vast number of
  cases, those which do not involve grave causes.
  And parents who divorce for reasons other than
  grave causes violate their obligation to their
  children.

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CONSIDERATIONS FOR HOULGATE

• Might it be objected that it is difficult to make
  a generalization about what is acceptable and
  what is not, given the range and complexity of
  human problems and behavior?
• Could there be cases in which the rights of a
  parent do outweigh the rights of the child, at
  the same time that there are other cases where
  they do not?
• Could it also be maintained, with Ahrons, that
  part of the emotional trauma of divorce, perhaps
  a large part, is due to the way in which it is
  perceived by society?
• If our attitudes change towards divorce, as
  Ahrons says they should, then could divorce be
  less traumatic for children?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS I

• Is Ahrons view too simple, perhaps even naive,
  that changing our language about divorce can
  change our attitude about divorce, and so
  children of divorce need not suffer emotionally?
• Do you think that good divorces, especially those
  involving children, are common or rare?
• Is Ahrons right that divorce is going to be the
  norm for the 21st century? Assuming that that is
  correct, how does the fact of divorce affect the
  issue of the morality of divorce?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS II

• Do you think that a child of either sex needs the
  father to be in the home as much as the mother?
• How do you weigh the rights of parents against
  those of their children? That is, should people
  who dislike one another intensely stay together
  for years for the sake of their children, or do
  the rights of the parents outweigh those of
  children in such an instance?
• Do you think that the Russell loophole or
  grave cause argument is the only legitimate
  reason for parents to divorce?

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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS III

• At what age do you think that it becomes less
  important for a child to have both parents in the
  home? Is it the same for both boys and girls?
• Is divorce ever immoral when no children are
  involved? When? Why?
• Is it immoral to make a person stay in a
  relationship with a spouse he or she cannot
  stand? Is this a kind of prison sentence for no
  crime? A kind of cruel and unusual punishment?
• Should it be harder for people to get married and
  easier for them to get divorced?

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THE PAUL GAUGUIN PROBLEM

• What if the following conditions hold a) the
  good which someone can do for the world is much
  greater than the good which he or she can do for
  his or her spouse and family and b) the person
  can only do this good for the world by leaving
  his or her family and working and living apart
  from them?
• I call this The Paul Gauguin problem, and it fits
  not just cases of artistic genius, such as
  Gauguins, but any case in which the world
  benefits from the efforts of someone but at the
  expense of the suffering of others, in
  particular, his or her family.
• For instance, would a medical genius who could
  cure cancer only if he leaves his family to work
  in a foreign laboratory be obligated to society
  or to his family? Why? Is beauty for the world
  worth even a single childs suffering? If yes
  why, and if no, why not?

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Paul Gauguin, Fe Tata Te Miti (By the Sea), 1892