The Philosophy Concentrator with Avery Kaak ’29: Is it unethical to ghost your marriage pact match?

“I know the Marriage Pact is supposed to be about finding a connection with someone new based on shared values. However, after getting my match, I’m really not sure what to do. Is it unethical for me not to reach out to them because I don’t find them attractive? I was initially enthusiastic about the idea of not considering looks, but after getting my result, I couldn’t help but look them up on Instagram. What I saw was not someone I would be interested in, even though Marriage Pact thinks we would be an excellent match. I feel like not reaching out, just because of their looks, might make me a bad person. What do you think?” — Anonymous Inquirer

From a philosophical perspective, whether or not one is obligated to reach out to their Marriage Pact partner is fundamentally a question about contracts. For those who might not have experienced the campus craze, the Marriage Pact is an algorithmic platform that uses questionnaire answers to match college students with their “perfect match.” As implied by the name, the service is intended to pair you with a “marital backup plan,” a last resort should you be unmarried in old age. To directly answer your question, you are not obligated to reach out to your match if you are not attracted to them and they have not already reached out to you. But if they reach out to you, you have a moral obligation to at least respond with kindness and an open mind — even if the only possible end you see is friendship. 

While the Marriage Pact — unlike some other dating services that pair based on physical attraction — pairs people based on values, the truth is that physical attraction is an important part of a successful relationship. Sexual chemistry is frequently cited as crucial to a romantic relationship. In contrast, personal values, while important, were not as highly rated. Although this preference may seem vain, it intuitively makes sense. Much of the difference between a relationship and a deep friendship is rooted in attraction. Choosing a life partner should involve a healthy mix of weighing looks and values.

When applied to the question submitted by this week’s anonymous inquirer, finding your Marriage Pact unattractive is a valid reason not to want to go out with them. Realistically, a relationship built in spite of one partner’s unattraction to the other is likely destined for failure. 

However, in signing up for the Marriage Pact, you literally made a “pact” — a “marital backup plan.” You took a leap of faith in trusting the Marriage Pact algorithm to match you with another student on campus, and in taking this leap, you and your match agreed to a set of terms. This set of agreements is a contract. You need not reach out to a marriage pact you’re not interested in if they convey their similar disinterest in not contacting you, but if they uphold their end of the Marriage Pact contract, you have an obligation to respond. You do not owe your match a romantic relationship, but you do at least owe them the courtesy of a response.

I am taking inspiration from Kant’s categorical imperative to explain why participants should take this contract seriously. According to the theory, we must only act according to principles that would be rational for everyone to follow. Some actions are wrong not merely because they produce bad outcomes, but because they would undermine the very system that makes them possible if universally adopted. Cheating, for example, is immoral not only because it is dishonest, but because it depends on others not cheating. If everyone were cheating on an exam, the professor would surely find out. The individual cheater, then, benefits from being the only one who is willing to compromise the rules.

Likewise, if everyone were to ignore their Marriage Pact matches, there would be no reason to buy into the Marriage Pact at all. Its value depends on participants treating their match as at least potentially tenable. If everyone were to sign up for the pact and ignore their match, there would be no reason for anyone to take the program seriously in the first place. Signing up for the pact creates an obligation to follow through with the intentions of the program — that is, it creates an obligation to respond when your match reaches out. Ignoring your match, while limited in consequence, undermines the very systems that the Marriage Pact is built upon.

So you must fulfill your contract to respond to your Marriage Pact match, even if you’re not romantically interested in them. This can be achieved simply by forming platonic plans with your pact. Just grab a coffee and chat. While some may consider this awkward — or even cruel, as there is always a slight sting that comes with romantic rejection — it would be morally worse to ghost your match. 

But even if we are not to apply the contract framework, it is also common sense to just treat others with respect. Once again appealing to Kant, we ought to treat people as ends in themselves. This means that people should be respected as rational autonomous beings, not means to ends. From this perspective, the moral thing to do is to act in a way that respects their rational qualities. In a non-Marriage Pact setting this principle may be easier to conceptualize: It would undoubtedly be immoral to refuse to talk to a partner in a group project based on physical appearance alone. Likewise, it would clearly be similarly incorrect to only be friends with someone on the basis that they were attractive. In both of these cases, the person would be evaluated by some quality other than the contents of their rational character. Similarly, snubbing your Marriage Pact on this basis would be immoral.

But there is another question to be asked. Why do we feel so comfortable breaking our contracts with our matches? I suggest that it is the digital nature of the Marriage Pact agreement that makes it so easy to do our matches wrong. If there were some physical signing of a Marriage Pact contract required to be put into the algorithms pool, I doubt that this question would even half as easily be of issue. However, just because the digital platform lacks the seriousness of a pen and paper legal document, that does not mean that the moral legitimacy of the contract is weakened. While the Marriage Pact might appear to be harmless fun, there are real people on the other side of your matches. When you decide to ghost your match on the basis of appearance, that was a fellow Brunonian who you treated immorally: whether by breaking the contract of the algorithm or by disrespecting them as rational human beings.

You should give your Marriage Pact a chance: whether you see romantic potential or not. Reach out, talk for a little bit and see if you are at all compatible — even if it’s just platonically. If they are not your type, there’s not much to be done about that. At worst, you might have just found another great friend on College Hill. 

In his column, “The Philosophy Concentrator,” Avery Kaak ’29 responds to the Brown community’s ethical dilemmas. Please submit your queries here. Avery Kaak ’29 can be reached at avery_kaak@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.