- Instincts! – said he with a satisfied smile, basking in
the warm light of the belief that he offered a brilliant one word response,
which, not wholly by incident, also happened to justify his behavior towards
his wife, and women in general.
- Well, but two questions throw some doubt on this: first,
just because something is an instinct, ‘natural’ so to say, is it good, is it
something we should act on? I think obviously not. After all we don’t want a
society in which people bash in each others’ skull when there is competition
for resources, or where man habitually rape woman they want to be with despites
that both of these behavior were widespread and prevalent in early humans.
Second, we have many different capacities that we can use to live different
kinds of lives. Relationships are not only about sex, although sex is an
integral part of most grown-up committed partnerships, and there might be very
valuable and meaningful relationships that would be seriously harmed and
affected by someone following their hedonistic sexual urges. In such cases
surely the fact that we – by nature – have some capacities which enable us to
have full, enriching experiences shows that i) an urge’s being natural does not
count either in favour or against acting on it, and that ii) acting on it might
go against a very human type of relationship, the committed relationship. I don’t
mean by ii) that only humans have committed relationships. But only humans have
the type of committed relationship involving the exercises of long term
planning, joint social and ethical values, participation in socially
constructed institutions of significance for local communities, and so on.
Proper grownup relationships have all these dimensions and are from no perspective
– natural or non-natural – second-rate. And they are surely not to be relegated
or scrapped in favour of acting on ‘instincts’. Humans have their instincts
under control all the time. There is no reason why they shouldn’t be expected
to do so in relationships.
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