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On Being Uncomfortable with “Toxic Masculinity” I: Ethics

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While I am aware of the nuances of the phrase “toxic masculinity”, I am somewhat uncomfortable with the concept. At this point, some might believe that my discomfort is because I am a man and thus feel threatened by any questioning of my male privilege. However, this is not the case—I can distinguish between criticisms of bad behavior by males and general attacks on males simply for being male. My lack of comfort with the concept stems from two main sources. The first is my approach to ethics and the second arises from pragmatic considerations. I will look at the first in this essay and the second in the essay that follows.

While this oversimplifies things considerably, I approach ethics in terms of universal principles. One implication of this approach is that I hold that if something is wrong to do, then it is wrong for anyone to do. I am, of course, aware of the principle of relevant difference: that a difference in treatment or application of a principle (and so on) can be justified by there being a difference that warrants the variation in the treatment or application. For example, some argue that while it is wrong for members of one ethnicity to “put on the face” of another ethnicity, there are exceptions. One illustration is that is acceptable for Michael Che to “go undercover” as a white female liberal, but the idea of Colin Jost going undercover as a black girl is utterly unacceptable. The moral justification for this rests on the relevant differences between a black man putting on “white face” and a white man putting on “black face.” These differences are connected to the history of racism and power differences. Naturally, people do disagree about whether these differences are truly relevant, but a case can certainly be made that they are. In such cases of relevant differences between ethnicities, it makes sense to reference ethnicity when discussing ethics—after all, there would thus be a difference in the ethics. The same sort of reasoning can be applied to sex or gender issues. For example, some argue that male comedians would be sexist if they used the same sort of humor as female comedians who do routines about the failures and defects of men. In such cases, the ethics of a joke would thus depend on the gender or sex of the person telling it and the target of the joke. Using these examples, it would thus make sense to talk about toxic (immoral) white comedy or toxic (immoral) male comedy—because the whiteness or maleness of the comic would thus be essential to the wrongness of the comedy. But what about toxic masculinity, considered as moral misdeeds and moral vices?

In the case of the set of moral misdeeds and vices that are said to constitute toxic masculinity what seems to matter is the ethics of the behavior itself, its consequences and so on—rather than on whether the actions are predominantly done by men. To illustrate, while sexual harassment is predominantly done by males, the moral concern is with the wrongness of sexual harassment and its consequences. After all, while most sexual harassment is done by men, it is not restricted to men and its wrongness does not stem from men doing it. It is, after all, equally wrong for a female to engage in sexual harassment. To focus on toxic masculinity would seem to imply that the vices and moral misdeeds are wrong because they are the misdeeds and vices of males, which would seem to be an error.

One reasonable counter is to argue that while the general misdeeds and vices that make up the evils of toxic masculinity are not limited to males, focusing on males make sense because males are the main offenders. Doing so, one might argue, does not exclude focusing on similar misdeeds by females—it is just that there are less to worry about.

Another reasonable counter is that the vices and misdeeds of males that are grouped under the label of “toxic masculinity” are male in character because of the masculinity part—that is, they are vices and misdeeds that do arise from a concept of maleness and thus it is appropriate to use the term. This certainly has considerable appeal and could counter my initial concern. As such, in my next essay I will focus on my pragmatic concern.

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Virtual Cheating V: Virtual People

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In this last in the virtual cheating series, the focus of the discussion is on virtual people. The virtual aspect is easy enough to define—these are entities that exist entirely within the realm of computer memory and do not exist as physical beings in that they lack bodies of the traditional sort. They are, of course, physical beings in the broad sense, existing as data within physical memory systems.

An example of such a virtual being is a non-player character (NPC) in a video game. These coded entities range from enemies that fight the player to characters that engage in the illusion of conversation and interaction. As it now stands, these NPCs are quite simple—although players often have very strong emotional responses and even (one-sided) relationships with them. Bioware, for example, excels at creating NPCs that players get very involved with and their games often feature elaborate relationship and romance systems.

While these simple coded entities are usually designed to look like and imitate the behavior of people, they are obviously not people. They cannot even pass a basic Turning test. They are, at best, the illusion of people. As such, while humans could become emotionally attached to these virtual entities, it would be impossible to cheat with them. Naturally, a human could become angry with how involved their partner is with video games, but that is another matter.

As technology improves, the virtual people will become more and more person-like. As with the robots discussed in the previous essay, if a virtual person were a person, then cheating would be potentially possible. Also as with the discussion of robots, there could be degrees of virtual personhood, thus allowing for degrees of cheating. Since virtual people are essentially robots in the virtual world, the discussion of robots in that essay would apply analogously to the virtual robots of the virtual world. There is, however, one obvious break in the analogy: unlike robots, virtual people lack physical bodies. This leads to the obvious question of whether a human can virtually cheat with a virtual person or if cheating requires a physical sexual component.

While, as discussed in a previous essay, there is a form of virtual sex that involves physical devices that stimulate the sexual organs, this is not “pure” virtual sex. After all, the user is using a VR headset to “look” at the partner, but the stimulation is all done mechanically. Pure virtual sex would require the sci-fi sort of virtual reality of cyberpunk—a person fully “jacked in” to the virtual reality so all the inputs and outputs are essentially directly to and from the brain. The person would have a virtual body in the virtual reality that mediates their interaction with that world, rather than having crude devices stimulating their physical body.

Assuming the technology is good enough, a person could have virtual sex with a virtual person (or another person who is also jacked into the virtual world). On the one hand, this would obviously not be sex in the usual sense—those involved would have no physical contact. This would avoid many of the usual harms of traditional cheating—STDs and pregnancies would not be possible (although sexual malware and virtual babies might be possible). This does, of course, leave open the door for accusations of emotional infidelity.

On the other hand, if the experience is indistinguishable from the experience of physical sex, then it could be argued that the lack of physical contact is irrelevant. At this point, the classic problem of the external world becomes relevant. The gist of this problem is that because I cannot get outside of my experiences to “see” that they are really being caused by external things that seem to be causing them, I can never know if there is really an external world. For all I know, I am dreaming or already in a virtual world. While this is usually seen as the nightmare scenario in epistemology, George Berkeley embraced this view in his idealism—he argued that there is no metaphysical matter and that “to be is to be perceived.” On his view, all that exists are minds and within them are ideas. Crudely put, Berkeley’s reality is virtual and God is the server.

So, if cheating is defined such that it requires physical sexual activity, knowing whether a person is cheating or not would require solving the problem of the external world. And there would be the possibility that there never has been any cheating since there might be no physical world. If sexual activity is defined in terms of the behavior and sensations without references to a need for physical systems, then virtual cheating would be possible—assuming the technology can reach the required level.

While this discussion of virtual cheating is currently purely theoretical, it does provide an interesting way to explore what it is about cheating (if anything) that is wrong. As noted at the start of the series, many of the main concerns about cheating are purely physical concerns about STDs and pregnancy. These concerns are avoided by virtual cheating. What remains are the emotions of those involved and the agreements between them. As a practical matter, the future is likely to see people working out the specifics of their relationships in terms of what sort of virtual and robotic activities are allowed and which are forbidden. While people can simply agree to anything, there is the deeper question of the rational foundation of relationship boundaries. For example, whether it is reasonable to consider interaction with a sexbot cheating or elaborate masturbation. Perhaps Bill Clinton, with his inquiries into the definition of “sex” should be leading the discussion of this matter.

 

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Kant & Sexbots

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Robotina [005]
Robotina [005] (Photo credit: PVBroadz)
The Fox sci-fi buddy cop show Almost Human episode on sexbots inspired me to revisit the ethics of sexbots. While the advanced, human-like models of the show are still things of fiction, there is already considerable research and development devoted to creating sexbots. As such, it seems well worth considering the ethical issues involving sexbots real and fictional.

At this time, sexbots are clearly mere objects—while often made to look like humans, they do not have the qualities that would make them even person-like. As such, ethical concerns involving these sexbots would not involve concerns about wrongs done to such objects—presumably they cannot be wronged. One potentially interesting way to approach the matter of sexbots is to make use of Kant’s discussion of ethics and animals.

In his ethical theory Kant makes it quite clear that animals are means rather than ends. They are mere objects. Rational beings, in contrast, are ends. For Kant, this distinction rests on the fact that rational beings can (as he sees it) chose to follow the moral law. Animals, lacking reason, cannot do this. Since animals are means and not ends, Kant claims that we have no direct duties to animals. They are classified in with the other “objects of our inclinations” that derive value from the value we give them. Sexbots would, obviously, qualify as paradigm “objects of our inclinations.”

Interestingly enough, Kant argues that we should treat animals well. However, he does so while also trying to avoid ascribing animals themselves any moral status. Here is how he does it (or tries to do it).

While Kant is not willing to accept that we have any direct duties to animals, he “smuggles” in duties to them indirectly. As he puts it, our duties towards animals are indirect duties towards humans. To make his case for this, he employs an argument from analogy: if a human doing X would obligate us to that human, then an animal doing X would also create an analogous moral obligation. For example, a human who has long and faithfully served another person should not simply be abandoned or put to death when he has grown old. Likewise, a dog who has served faithfully and well should not be cast aside in his old age.

While this would seem to create an obligation to the dog, Kant uses a little philosophical sleight of hand here. The dog cannot judge (that is, the dog is not rational) so, as Kant sees it, the dog cannot be wronged. So, then, why would it be wrong to shoot the dog?

Kant’s answer seems to be rather consequentialist in character: he argues that if a person acts in inhumane ways towards animals (shooting the dog, for example) then his humanity will likely be damaged. Since, as Kant sees it, humans do have a duty to show humanity to other humans, shooting the dog would be wrong. This would not be because the dog was wronged but because humanity would be wronged by the shooter damaging his humanity through such a cruel act.

Interestingly enough, Kant discusses how people develop cruelty—they often begin with animals and then work up to harming human beings. As I point out to my students, Kant seems to have anticipated the psychological devolution of serial killers.

Kant goes beyond merely enjoining us to not be cruel to animals and encourages us to be kind to them. He even praises Leibniz for being rather gentle with a worm he found. Of course, he encourages this because those who are kind to animals will develop more humane feelings towards humans. So, roughly put, animals are essentially practice for us: how we treat them is training for how we will treat human beings.

In the case of the current sexbots, they obviously lack any meaningful moral status of their own. They do not feel or think—they are mere machines that might happen to be made to look like a human. As such, they lack all the qualities that might give them a moral status of their own.

Oddly enough, sexbots could be taken as being comparable to animals, at least as Kant sees them. After all, animals are mere objects and have no moral status of their own. Likewise for sexbots. Of course, the same is also true of sticks and stones. Yet Kant would never argue that we should treat stones well. Perhaps this would also apply to sexbots. That is, perhaps it makes no sense to talk about good or bad relative to such objects. Thus, a key matter to settle is whether sexbots are more like animals or more like stones—at least in regards to the matter at hand.

If Kant’s argument has merit, then the key concern about how non-rational beings are treated is how such treatment affects the behavior of the person engaging in said behavior. So, for example, if being cruel to a real dog could damage a person’s humanity, then he should (as Kant sees it) not be cruel to the dog.  This should also extend to sexbots. For example, if engaging in certain activities with a sexbot would damage a person’s humanity, then he should not act in that way. If engaging in certain behavior with a sexbot would make a person more inclined to be kind to other rational beings, then the person should engage in that behavior. It is also worth considering that perhaps people should not engage in any behavior with sexbots—that having sex of any kind with a bot would be damaging to the person’s humanity.

Interestingly enough (or boringly enough), this sort of argument is often employed to argue against people watching pornography. The gist of such arguments is that viewing pornography can condition people (typically men) to behave badly in real life or at least have a negative impact on their character. If pornography can have this effect, then it seems reasonable to be concerned about the potential impact of sexbots on people. After all, pornography casts a person in a passive role viewing other people acting as sexual objects, while a sexbot allows a person to have sex with an actual sexual object.

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Hotel Inconsequential

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Hotel in Regensburg
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Strauss-Kahn made headlines for allegedly assaulting a hotel worker. The folks at Newsweek decided to follow up on the story with a bit of sensationalism. In “Hotel Confidential“, Bernstein and Ellison begin with “It’s the dirty secret about business travel. Many married men expect sex along with their room service, according to a NEWSWEEK poll.”

The poll asked about what the men did on business trips.  8% claim to have cheated on their spouse. 3% claim they made a pass at a hotel worker with a reported 55% failure rate and a 27% success rate. 9% claim they booked a massage via their hotel and 11% claim an attempt at sexual contact occurred. Interestingly, none of the men claimed to have initiated this. 2% claimed they had sex with a hotel worker, 6% claimed they had paid for sex and 21% admitted they had thought about cheating.

Now, let us crunch the numbers and subject the key claim (many married men expect sex along with their room service) to some critical thinking.

The claim itself could be taken at least two ways. One interpretation is that many married men expect sex while traveling on business. The other is that many married men expect sex to be provided sex by people associate with the hotel. This could mean that they expect sex from the people who provide room service or that they expect to be provided sex via the auspices of hotel employees but not with said employees.

Taking the numbers as presented, 21% of men thought about cheating. That cannot reasonably be taken as counting as expecting sex. The 8% who claimed to have cheated can probably be taken as expecting sex when they travel (but even that is an inference), but that hardly counts as many. The 11% of the 9% who booked massages in which sexual contact was attempted also does not seem to constitute a many. The 2% who claimed to have had sex with hotel workers is also not a many. The 3% who made a pass and presumably expected sex also do not seem to constitute a many.

Of course, it would be an error to take the numbers as presented. After all, polls have a margin of error that must be taken into account when considering the results. Assuming that the survey was done properly, the margin of error for a survey of 400 people is 4.9%. While this means that the percentages could be higher, it also means they could be lower (although not reduced to 0%). Given the small size of the survey and the rather small percentages, it would not be very reasonable to take much away from this survey. It certainly does not support the claim that many married men expect sex along with their room service (taken in any of the ways mentioned above). I have no doubt that some men do, but no evidence is given that shows that many do.

This discussion should not be taken as dismissing the harassment of or assaults on hotel workers. That clearly happens and is reprehensible. It is also good that the matter is getting media coverage. However, Newsweek seems to have rather dropped the ball on this matter.

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The End of Men II

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Former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina
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This blog continues my discussion of Rosin’s article “The End of Men.”

Rosin’s next step is to consider the nature of the current, “postindustrial” economy. She argues that this economy favors women. The basis for her case is that the male’s advantages in size and strength do not provide an edge in this new economy, rather social skills (such as communication) and the ability to “sit still and focus” are the dominant skills. While women do not have a monopoly on these traits, she does consider that these attributes might be held predominantly by women.

Interestingly enough, her view rests on the classic stereotypes: men are strong and woman are social. Of course, when women were regarded as the weaker sex because of this difference, feminists argued that these were unjust stereotypes. However, now that these traits are advantageous, they are lauded. One might infer that the rule is that stereotyping is acceptable, provided that it stereotypes men as being at a disadvantage and women as being superior. Naturally, the reverse of this is still to be regarded as unacceptable.

Those who are rather against stereotyping might point out that this approach is still stereotyping and be critical of such an approach. Also, those who were concerned about how women fared poorly in the past economies should now be concerned about the situation faced by men. If the plight of women in the past was a bad thing, then the comparable plight of men today should also be a bad thing. However, there seems to be an unfortunate tendency to laud the “fall of men” and there seems to be, at best, modest concern for the plight of men.

In fact, as Rosin points out, there is a tendency to blame men for the current woes. She cites Iceland’s Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardotti’s expressed desire to put an end to the  “age of testosterone.” While this probably involves the usual political rhetoric, comparable attacks on women would no doubt be seen as sexist and hateful. However, consistency requires that what is hateful for one sex should also be hateful when applied to the other.

Following the standard approach, Rosin notes that although women have made significant advances and dominate higher education, they still fall behind men in wages. However, she is quick to point out that this is changing and that the  “modern economy is becoming a place where women hold the cards.”

While Rosin might be right, it is also possible that her prediction is mistaken. While the male dominated aspects of the economy have slumped badly, it is risky to make predictions from this situation. After all, the economy might very well shift again during the course of the recovery. As such, the plight of men might not be as dire as she predicts. That said, the general trends do seem to favor women over men.

To be specific, the current prediction is that there are 15 jobs that are likely to experience the most growth. As Rosin notes, only two (janitor and computer engineer) are currently male dominated. The other 13 jobs are dominated by women and, ironically, consist of traditional female jobs such as nursing, child care and food preparation. As Rosin notes, while women have expanded into jobs traditionally held by men, the reverse has generally not occurred-at least not yet. Some, such as Jessica Grose, have claimed that men seem to be stuck in their roles and are largely unable to adapt to the changes.

Rosin and Grose seem to be fairly accurate in this point: while women face cultural obstacles when entering fields traditionally dominated by men, men seem to face even greater obstacles. One difference is that the obstacles men face seem to be internal. That is, men are not being excluded by external forces but by their own decisions not to enter such fields. For example, there have been significant attempts to recruit men into the field of nursing, but men seem to be largely reluctant to enter that field.

If this analysis is correct, then men largely have themselves to blame for this aspect of the situation. If men could adapt as women did and enter non-traditional roles, then this would counter (to some degree) the new gender gap. Making such a conceptual switch would require redefining what it is to be a man, much as women went through a conceptual change when they began entering male dominated fields.

Men might be able to do this and, in fact, might be forced to do so by the realities of the new economy. While it might be unmanly to work in childcare, it might be seen as less unmanly than being unemployed.

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Viagra For Women

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Symbol of the planet and Roman goddess Venus, ...
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Well, not quite. However, a drug that is supposed to boost a woman’s libido is being considered for approval by the FDA. This drug, flibanserin, is supposed to have three positive effects: 1) increase in sexual desire, 2) greater sexual satisfaction, and 3) a reduction in emotional distress. Roughly put, it promises better sex through chemistry.

Since men who suffer from erectile dysfunction have various erection corrections to chose from, it seems only fair that women have a similar opportunity to rectify their sexual problems. Given the delay in the development of comparable drugs for women, it might be suspected that old attitudes about female sexuality were a factor. After all, the old stereotypes are that while men are always interested in sex, it is natural for women to lack sexual desire and to merely endure sex without experiencing pleasure. As such, one might claim, a lack of sexual desire and pleasure are not conditions that need correction but merely the natural state for women. Of course, research seems to show that this is not the case and thus the drug would seem to be addressing real problems.

Rather than get into a debate about the true nature of female sexuality, I will instead address the matter of medication. If the drug is addressing a medical problem, then it seems reasonable for women who have that problem to use the drug. This would be analogous to the situation of men who medically need Viagra and to the situation of people who need blood pressure medication.

However, the drug might also be used in cases in which the conditions it is supposed to address are caused by factors that the drug itself does not correct. For example, if a woman is not experiencing desire because of stress or a poor relationship, the drug will merely cover up those problems with a chemically created pseudo-desire. As another example, if a woman is not enjoying sex because she and her partner are not doing a very good job, then the drug will merely cover up that problem as well. As a final example, if a woman is feeling distressed because of real problems, then the drug will merely mask the feelings without doing anything to solve the problems.

It might be replied that even in such cases the drug would be a real improvement because it would enhance the woman’s quality of life: she would feel more desire, more pleasure and less distress. Surely, one might argue, that would justify using the medicine?

That is, of course, a reasonable point. After all, when I take aspirin because of a running injury, it does not help heal the injury. It merely reduces the pain. But, of course, taking the aspirin is fine. That is, provided that masking the pain does not interfere with addressing the underlying cause of the pain.  If it does, then the aspirin will actually contribute to making things worse. An even better analogy might be alcohol: it is said that alcohol can help with sexual desire-but that is hardly a desirable solution.

Likewise for the drug-if a woman medicates herself and does not address the underlying problems, then these problems will remain unresolved. They would either tend to remain the same or even grow worse, perhaps requiring more or new drugs. As such, it would be more sensible to address the underlying problems rather than masking them.

Another reply might be that this criticism would seem to be yet another example of sexual stereotyping. After all, why single out this drug for criticism?

This is a reasonable concern and would be a serious objection if my view were limited to this drug. However, my view of this drug is based on a general principle about drugs, namely that masking problems using drugs is not a wise approach. This is not to say that I am opposed to drugs. But, I think that we have created an unfortunate approach to medication and health issues that has been partially fueled by the pharmaceutical companies. To be specific, there is a general tendency to over-medicate.

In the case of this specific drug, I have no issue with women who have a legitimate medical need for treatment. However, I think it would be a poor choice to use this drug without first determining the cause of the problems and the possibility of addressing them. While I am no expect on female libido, I suspect that in many cases the cause is not a medical disorder but a life problem (the relationship, work, stress, and so on). While a drug might address the effects of life problems, it would not address the causes.

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