Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

As a concern in moral philosophy or the theory of value, personal relationships generally refer to certain categories of human relationship-friendship, familial relationships, romantic love. Familial relationships are, in turn, generally understood to encompass four subtypes: parent/child, child/parent, spouse, and sibling. Let me make explicit that, contrary to the reigning paradigms of these relationships, friendships can be between persons of different sexes, romantic love can take place between persons of the same sex, and families can be adoptive. “Spouse” is, in this chapter, an ambiguous category, as some religious groups recognize same-sex marriages, and some political entities recognize same-sex unions in a form that encompasses much of what people ordinarily mean by “spouse”: spousal benefits, visitation rights during hospitalization, the ability to adopt children together, and so on. Let us call this the “categorial” sense of “personal relationship.” Personal relationships differ in volun-tariness of formation, with friendships, romantic loves, and spousal relations at the voluntary end, child-parent and sibling at the non-voluntary end, and parent-child somewhere in between. (We may choose to have a child, but not a particular child.) Social and legal conventions govern both ease and form of voluntariness of both entry and exit from different sorts of personal relationships. ... log in or subscribe to read full text