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TheOtherDave comments on Thoughts on moral intuitions - LessWrong
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However, are you sure that you understand just how radical the above statement is? The libertarian theory of contracts -- that you should have full freedom to enter any voluntary contract as far as your own property and rights are concerned -- sounds appealing in the abstract. (Robin Hanson would probably say "in far mode.") Yet on closer consideration, it implies all sorts of possible (and plausible) arrangements that would make most people scream with horror.
In any realistic human society, there are huge limitations on what sorts of contracts you are allowed to enter, much narrower than what any simple quasi-libertarian theory would imply. Except for a handful of real honest libertarians, who are inevitably marginal and without influence, whenever you see someone make a libertarian argument that some arrangement should be permitted, it is nearly always part of an underhanded rhetorical ploy in which the underlying libertarian principle is switched on and off depending on whether its application is some particular case produces a conclusion favorable to the speaker's ideology.
What sort of examples can you bring up of custom marital contracts that would make people scream in horror? My guess is that people would generally feel queasy about allowing legal enforcement of what looks like slavish or abusive relationships. I think this would be a genuine cause for concern, not because I don't think that people should be able to enter whatever relationships please them in principle, but because in practice I'm concerned about people being coerced into signing contracts harmful to themselves. Not sure where I'd draw the line exactly; this is probably a Hard Problem.
I simply want more freedom to do things in ways that suit me and the other person as long as it doesn't harm anyone else. There may be gotchas and necessary qualifications once you get into the details, but the basic idea I think is hardly outrageous; surely there is at least room to move from the current stale state of affairs in that direction.
So I guess I don't believe the statement I quoted earlier entirely without qualification. Still, I like it because it recognises the fact that the current situation with marriage is ridiculous and it doesn't, in principle, have to be that way. That recognition, as opposed to taking existing absurdities for granted without even thinking about them like most people do, is what I was referring to as a rare dose of sanity:
Your second paragraph serves... I'm not sure what purpose. To tell me that the idea is politically unfeasable? I know that.
Agreed.
Speaking personally, I'm also concerned about people willingly signing contracts harmful to themselves without coercion (since I don't believe that people are always correct, or even definitive, about what harms them). I'm also concerned about people willingly signing contracts that benefit them but are harmful to third parties far out of proportion to that benefit. In some cases I'm even concerned about people willingly signing contracts that benefit them proportionally to the harm they cause third parties.
As you say, it's a Hard Problem.
But, sure, within the context of a framework that avoids the more egregious harms, I'm all in favor of allowing people to do things in ways that suit them, including agreeing to binding contracts if that's what they want to do.