[Vision2020] Huh? Say WHAT!?

[Kenneth Marcy]

On 3/1/2013 2:34 PM, Joe Campbell wrote:
> Wilson's argument -- the argument you defend -- is a fallacy. It even 
> has a name: The slippery-slope fallacy. (Though there are conceptual 
> slippery-slope arguments too that are very different.)
>
> Even if you put the argument in the form of a conditional -- If it's 
> OK for any two consenting adults of either gender to marry, then it is 
> OK for any three or more consenting adults of any gender to marry -- 
> you still need an argument for the conditional. On the face of it, it 
> seems pretty easy to distinguish the cases: Does he have one wife, or 
> more than one? You say you see "the point" but I don't see the point, 
> or the connection between a gay marriage between two consenting adults 
> and a polygamous relationship.
>
> Unless the connection is that the government should stay out of the 
> marriage business, which would be fine, and polygamy would be fine, 
> too, if it weren't for fact that some adults will exploit the 
> circumstances and marry tweens. Fact. That is why government is in the 
> marriage business. We need to protect the young and vulnerable, and 
> thus we need laws against certain types of unions.
>
> Here the defense is an appeal to the harm principle: One can make a 
> law to protect citizens from harm (including harms to their 
> interests). If there is no good reason to think that something will 
> lead to a harm, the law should stay out of it. That protects us 
> against pedophiles but allows for gay marriage.

Interesting.  Does this conversation presage the availability of courses 
in three-value, trinary, or ternary logic?

I note that the Russians built a ternary electronic computer in 1958, 
and improved it in 1970.


Ken