Abstract
At the end of his influential article “Understanding a Primitive Society” (1964), Peter Winch suggests that sexual relations, together with birth and death, are not to be considered as events or experiences in the world, but rather as having a more fundamental role in shaping what we make sense of as human life and morality. In this article, I discuss some senses in which sexual relations, perceived as such a “limiting notion”, can be said to “determine the ‘ethical space’ within which the possibilities of good and evil in human life can be exercised” (Winch 1964). I argue first that sexual relations, understood in a broad sense to include both sexual desire and the possibility of forming intimate relationships, as well as an understanding of ourselves as in some way sexed or gendered, interestingly differ from the other limiting notions of birth and death, in that they by necessity involve us in (desired, imagined or actualized) encounters with other human beings. Through a discussion of Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts (2015), I then consider the ethical character of such encounters, to show how varying and conflicting conceptions about sexual morality, and to some extent, politics, in our present society, reveal forms of disagreement that go deep with us.
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Notes
- 1.
Winch responds to questions raised about “Understanding a Primitive Society” in “Language, Belief and Relativism” (1987), and also discusses similar matters in “Human Nature” (1972). These articles are published together with The Idea of a Social Science in the Swedish translation of that work.
- 2.
‘T’ stands for the testosterone. The book touches on both Nelson’s and Harry’s shifting responses to the top surgery that takes place and the hormone treatment that is started within the time frame of the book.
- 3.
In fact, it can be read as an attempt to find a way of relating to all of Winch’s limiting notions. Besides the reflections around sexual relationships, birth and parenthood, their own as well as their relationships to their own parents, biological as well as social, Harry is adopted, the book also deals with questions of death. These come in the form of the recounting of the murder of Nelson’s aunt Nelson had discussed in a previous book and the death of Harry’s mother.
- 4.
Barthes describes how the subject who utters the phrase “I love you” is like “the Argonaut renewing his ship during its voyage without changing its name.” Just as the Argo’s parts may be replaced over time but the boat is still called the Argo, whenever the lover utters the phrase “I love you,” its meaning must be renewed by each use, as “the very task of love and of language is to give to one and the same phrase inflections which will be forever new.” (Nelson 2015, 6).
- 5.
It is mentioned before heading into a discussion of whether words are good enough, leaning both on a Wittgensteinian therapy of being made aware of what words do in context (Nelson) rather than a more poststructuralist disappointment with language for what it leaves undone (Harry) (Nelson 2015, 4–5). It thus links up with the more general theme approached in the book of marriage as a form of conversation, where part of the conversation turns around the possibilities of conversation and communication in the first place, the reach of words, the attitudes to it. It is, I would submit, central to this conversation that the sexual relation of the parties involved in it, and what one is able to say and not say about them, is not external to the conversation, but internal to it.
- 6.
But also, “Really, though, it’s more than a perfect match, as that implies a kind of stasis. Whereas we’re always moving, shape-shifting.” (Nelson 2015, 87).
- 7.
The reference to nuptial goes back to a quote by Gilles Deleuze/Claire Parnet. “Nuptials are the opposite of a couple. There are no longer binary machines; question-answer, masculine-feminine, man-animal, etc. This could be what a conversation is–simply the outline of a becoming.” (Nelson 2015, 8).
- 8.
This discussion is in significant respects an outgrowth of conversations I have had with Salla Aldrin Salskov over the years. I am grateful to Natan Elgabsi and Ryan Manhire for valuable comments during the writing of the chapter and to Ingeborg Löfgren for incisive remarks on reading The Argonauts.
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Kronqvist, C. (2020). The Good and Bad in Sexual Relations: A Reconsideration of Winch’s Limiting Notions. In: Campbell, M., Reid, L. (eds) Ethics, Society and Politics: Themes from the Philosophy of Peter Winch. Nordic Wittgenstein Studies, vol 6. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40742-1_13
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