Month: January 2026

After the 2015 attack on the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, commentators hastened to weave a narrative. Some, such as the folks at Fox News, Lindsay Graham and Rick Santorum, endeavored to present it as an assault on religious liberty. This did fit the narrative that Christians are being persecuted in a country whose population and holders of power are predominantly Christian. While the attack did take place in a church, it was a specific church with a history connected to the struggle against slavery and racism in America. If the intended target was just a church, presumably any church would have sufficed. Naturally, it could be claimed that it just so happened that this church was selected and it had nothing to do with its history.

But the killer’s own words made his motivation clear. He said that he acted because blacks were “raping our women” and “taking over our country.” As far as is known, he made no remarks about being motivated by hate of religion in general or Christianity in particular. Those who investigated his background found evidence of racism, but no evidence of a hatred of Christianity Given this evidence, it seems reasonable to accept that he was there to kill black people and not to kill Christians.

Some commentators also claimed the killer suffered from mental illness, despite a lack of evidence. This, as many have noted, is a go-to explanation when a white person engages in a mass shooting or political violence. However, people with mental illness (which is an incredibly broad and diverse population) are far more often victims of violence.

It is tempting to believe that a person who could murder nine people in a church must be mentally ill. After all, one might argue, no sane person would commit such a heinous deed. One reply is that if mental illness is a necessary condition for committing wicked deeds, then such illness must be very common in the human population. Accepting this explanation would, on the face of it, seem to require accepting that all violent criminals are mentally ill. It might even entail that almost anyone who engages in violence would be mentally ill.

One could accept that there is no evil, merely mental illness. This is an option that some accept and some even realize and embrace the implications of this view. Accepting this view does require its consistent application: if a white man who murders nine people must be mentally ill, then an ISIS terrorist who beheads a person must also be mentally ill rather than evil. As might be suspected, the narrative of mental illness is not, in practice, consistently applied.

 This view does have problems. Accepting this view would seem to deny the existence of evil (or at least the sort involved with violent acts) in favor of people being mentally ill. This would also be to deny people moral agency, making humans things rather than people. However, the fact that something might appear undesirable does not make it untrue. Perhaps the world is, after all, brutalized by the mad rather than evil.

An unsurprising narrative, put forth by Charles L. Cotton of the NRA, is that the Reverend Clementa Pickney was to blame for the deaths because he was also a state legislator “And he voted against concealed-carry. Eight of his church members who might be alive if he had expressly allowed members to carry handguns in church are dead. Innocent people died because of his position on a political issue.” While it is true that Rev. Pickney voted against a 2011 bill to allow guns to be brought into churches and day care centers, it is not true that Rev. Pickney is responsible for the deaths. The reasoning in Cotton’s claim is that if Rev. Pickney had not voted against the bill, then an armed “good guy” might have been in the church and might have been able to stop the shooter. From a moral and causal standpoint, this is quite a stretch. The moral responsibility falls on the killer. The blame can be extended beyond the killer, but the moral and causal analysis would certainly place blame on such factors as the influence of racism, the easy availability of weapons, and so on. If Cotton’s approach is accepted and broad counterfactual “what if” scenarios are considered, then the blame would spread far and wide. For example, if he had been called out on his racism and corrected, then he might not have committed the murders. As another example, if the state had taken a firm stand against racism by removing the Confederate flag and boldly denouncing the evils of slavery while acknowledging its legacy, perhaps the churchgoers would not have been murdered.

One could insist that the only thing that will stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun and that it is not possible to address social problems except through superior firepower. However, this seems untrue.

One intriguing narrative, put forth by Jeb Bush who was once the governor of my adopted state of Florida, is the idea of an unknown (or even unknowable) motivation. Speaking after the alleged killer’s expressed motivations were known (he has apparently asserted that he wanted to start a race war), Bush claimed  he did not “know what was on the mind or the heart of the man who committed these atrocious crimes.” While philosophers do recognize the problem of other minds in particular and epistemic skepticism in general, it seems unlikely that Bush embraced philosophical skepticism. While it is true that one can never know the mind or heart of another with certainty, the evidence shows it was racism. To claim that it is unknown, one might think, is to deny what is obvious in the hopes of denying the broader reality of racism in America. It can be replied that there is no such broader reality of racism in America, which leads to the last narrative I will consider.

The final narrative under consideration is that such an attack is an “isolated incident” conducted by a “lone wolf.” When a killer is a white man, this is another go-to explanation used by the right.  This narrative allows that the “lone wolf” can be motivated by racism. However, it denies the existence of a broader context of racism in America, such as the Confederate flag that flew proudly on public land near the capital of South Carolina. Instead, the shooter is cast as an isolated hater, acting solely from his own motives and ideology. This approach allows one to avoid the absurdity of denying the shooter was motivated by racism while being able to deny that racism is a broader problem. One obvious problem with the “isolated incident” explanation is that incidents of violence against African Americans is more systematic than isolated, as anyone who knows American history will attest. In regard to the “lone wolf” explanation, while it is true that the alleged shooter seems to have acted alone, he did not create the ideology that motivated the attack. While acting alone, he was a member of a large pack and that pack is still in the wild.

It can be replied that the alleged shooter was, by definition, a lone wolf (since he acted alone) and that the incident was isolated because there has not been a systematic series of attacks across the country in recent years. The lone wolf claim has some appeal since the shooter acted alone. However, when other terrorists attempt attacks in the United States, the narrative is that each act is part of a larger whole and not an isolated incident. In fact, some extend the blame to religion and ethnic background of the terrorist or criminal, blaming all of Islam, all migrants, or all Arabs for an attack.

In the past, I have argued that the acts of terrorists should not confer blame on their professed religion or ethnicity. However, I do accept that the terrorist groups (such as ISIS) that a terrorist belongs to get some of the blame for the acts of its members. Groups that try to radicalize people and motivate them to commit acts of terror deserve some blame for these acts. Being consistent, I certainly will not claim that all or even many white people are racists or terrorists just because the alleged shooter is white. That would be absurd, especially since I am a white guy. However, I some of the responsibility rests with the racist community that helped motivate the shooter to engage in his act of terror.

As mentioned in the first essay of this series, what set me on the path of considering my philosophy of violence was the “machete that wasn’t” episode. When the person charged at me in the woods, my mind saw a machete. The metal blade was clear and distinct, though it turned out to be just a stick.

Initially, I was literally afraid for my life: I felt the fear that I was about to be hacked by a machete. Though armed, my response was to disengage and rely on my speed as a runner. When he caught me, I turned to face him and used my best weapon: I spoke to him and the situation was resolved peacefully. As this is about my faith and violence, if I had engaged the person with violence, a case could be made that it would have an acceptable action. As I sincerely believed he had a machete and he was, in fact, charging me, I would seem to have been justified in self-defense.  Even when it turned out that it was just a large stick, self-defense would also seem to have been warranted. Yet, I decided to talk rather than fight. One reason for this takes us back to my grad school days.

As a graduate student at The Ohio State University, I read far too much Descartes and became a Cartesian dualist. On this view, I am an immaterial mind that has a material body. While being an immaterial mind does not entail that there must be an afterlife in which one is subject to the consequences of sins and good deeds, it does provide a metaphysical foundation for this. As a philosopher, I am aware of the arguments against Cartesian dualism and against the possibility of existing after the death of the body. I teach some of these in my classes, such as David Hume’s view of the immortality of the soul and the classic mind-body problem. But if one considers the problem of the external world (the challenge of proving that the experienced world is really real for real), believing that I am a ghostly mind seems reasonable.  Or at least no more absurd than believing in other minds and an external reality. So, although I am probably wrong, I do believe that I am a Cartesian mind connected, in an unexplained manner, to a body. And, during that incident, it seemed that my body was in danger. As might be guessed, Cartesian dualism fits in with my faith and through that lens I would say I am a soul.

On the face of it, what justifies violence in self defense is that one is protecting their life against a wrongful threat. If I were a metaphysical materialist and believed that I am a purely physical entity, then it would make good sense to use force to protect what would presumably be my most valuable possession, which is my biological life. After all, death would be the end of me. One could even do a bit of a word game here and note that if I am my body, it is my self and self-defense would be protecting my body.

But if I am an immaterial mind that I think can exist after the death of my body, then harm to my body would not be my greatest concern. Rather, harm to my mind (soul) would be of far greater worry and I should thus prioritize protecting my soul over protecting my body. To go back to the word game, my self would be an immaterial mind that is beyond the reach of such things as machetes.

Socrates, in the Apology, said that “The difficulty, my friends, is not in avoiding death, but in avoiding unrighteousness; for that runs faster than death.” To steal a bit from his sentiment towards death and unrighteousness, while I might postpone death, it is inevitable. But I have some control over my actions and can decide whether to act in an unrighteous manner. And acting in an unrighteous manner to preserve my life at the expense of my soul would be a mistake, as it is said in Mark 8:36:”For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Thus, my faith (and my morality) requires that I carefully consider whether any act of self-defense is righteous or not because I believe that it is better to die than become wicked. This is thus one of the reasons why I put my body at risk rather than immediately engaging in what would probably be justified self-defense. While I do not have the right to impose my faith on others, those who profess to be Christians should take a similar approach to violence and should thus be reluctant to use violence against others. They should be more afraid of endangering their soul with evil than being afraid for their lives. As such, a Christian should engage in self-defense with great caution and should certainly not lie about killing in self-defense when they committed murder. It is, I think, completely fair to ask someone who publicly professes faith to publicly reconcile their professed faith with their acts of violence. For example, the right angelized ICE agent Ross as a Christian after he killed Renee Good and hence it is fair to ask them about faith and killing. As noted in another essay, professing to be a Christian ironically makes the killing even worse.

I also put myself at risk because of another aspect of my faith, which is that God is love and commands us to love. That is the subject of the next essay in the series.

Way back in 2015 the internet exploded over Rachel Dolezal, the former leader of Spokane’s NAACP chapter. Ms. Dolezal had claimed to be African-American, Native American and white. She also claimed that her father is black. Reporters at KXLY-TV, however, looked up her birth certificate and determined that her legal parents are both white. Her parents asserted that she is white.

While the specifics of her case were certainly interesting to many, my concern is with more general issues about race and identity. While this situation was the best-known case of a white person trying to pass as black, passing as another “race” has long been a common practice in the United States, although this has usually been people trying to pass as white. Since being accepted as white enables a person to avoid many disadvantages, it is clear why people would attempt to pass as white. Since being accepted as black generally does not confer advantages in the United States, it is not surprising that Dolezal drew so much attention. These matters raise some interesting questions and issues about race.

Borrowing language from metaphysics, one approach to race could be called race realism. This is not being realistic about race in the common use of the term “realistic.” Rather, it is accepting that race is a real feature of reality. That is, the metaphysics of the world includes categories of race. As such, a person could be objectively black or white (or a mix). Naturally, even if there are real categories of race, people could be wrong about them.

One alternative is race nominalism. This is the idea that racial categories are social constructs and do not line up with an underlying metaphysical and physical reality. This is because there is no underlying metaphysical and physical reality that objectively grounds racial categories. In this case, a person might engage in self-identification in regard to race and this might or might not be accepted by others. A person might also have others place them into a race category, which they might or might not accept.

Throughout history, some people have struggled to find an objective basis for categories of race. Before genetics, people had to use appearance and ancestry. The ancestry was, obviously, needed because people did not always look like the race category that some people wanted them to be in. One example of this is the “one drop” rule once popular in some parts of the United States: one drop of black blood made a person black, regardless of their appearance.

The discovery of genes provided some people with a new foundation for race categories as they believed that there would be a genetic basis for their racism. The idea was that just as a human can be distinguished from a cat by genes, humans could be divided into races by their genetic make-up. While humans show genetic variations that are often linked to the geographical migration and origin of their many ancestors, race genes were not found. That is, humans (not surprisingly) are all humans with some minor genetic variations. The variations are not sufficient to objectively ground race categories.

In general, the people who quested for objective foundations for race categories were (or are) racists. These searches typically involved trying to find evidence of the alleged superiority of one’s race and the inferiority of other races. That said, a person could look for foundations for race without being a racist. They could be engaged in a scientific or philosophical inquiry rather than seeking to justify social practices and behaviors.

Given the failure to find a real foundation for race categories, it makes sense to embrace race nominalism. On this view, the categories of race exist only in the mind, they designate  how people think about the world rather than how reality is carved up. Even if it is accepted that race is a social construct, there is still the matter of the rules of construction: how the categories are created and how people are placed in them

One approach, which is similar to that sometimes taken for gender, is that people can self-identify. That is, a person can declare their race and this is sufficient to be in that category. If race categories are essentially made up, this does have a certain appeal. If race is a fiction, then anyone can be the author of her own fiction.

While there are some who do accept this view, the outrage over Ms. Dolezal showed that most people reject the idea of self-identification at least when a white person endeavors to self-identify as black. Interestingly, some of those who condemned her did defend the historical passing as white by some black people. The defense is appealing since blacks endeavoring to pass as white were doing so to escape oppression and this can be justified as a form of self-defense. In the case of Ms. Dolezal, the presumption seemed to be that the self-identification was both insincere and aimed at personal gain. Regardless of her true motivation, insincere self-identification aimed at personal gain seems to be wrong on the grounds that it is a malign deception. Some might, of course, regard all attempts at passing to gain an advantage as being immoral.

Another approach is that of the social consensus. The idea is that a person’s membership in a race category depends on the acceptance of others. This could be a matter of majority acceptance (one is, for example, black if most people accept one as black) or acceptance by a specific group or social authority. The obvious problem is working out what group or authority has the right to decide membership in race categories. On the one hand, this very notion seems linked to racism: one probably thinks of white supremacists and Nazis setting race categories. On the other hand, groups also seem to want to serve as the authority for their race category. Consistency might indicate that this would also be racist.

The group or authority that decides membership in race categories might make use of a race credential system to provide a basis for their decisions. That is, they might make use of appearance and ancestry. So, Ms. Dolezal would not be black because she looks white and has white parents. The concern with this sort of approach is that it was also used by racists, such as the KKK and Nazis, to divide people by race. A more philosophical concern is the basis for using appearance and ancestry as the foundation for race categories, for what justifies their use?

This discussion does show an obvious concern with policing race categories as it seems like doing so uses the tools of racism and would thus seem to be at least a bit racist. However, arguments could be advanced as to why the policing of race categories is morally acceptable and not racist.

In the previous essay I discussed gender nominalism, the idea that gender is not a feature of reality, but a social (or individual) construct. As such, a person falling within a gender class is a matter of naming rather than a matter of having objective features. In this essay I will not argue for (or against) gender nominalism. Rather, I will be discussing gender nominalism within the context of competition.

Being a runner, I will start with competitive sports. As anyone who has run competitively knows, males and females usually compete within their own sexes. So, for example, a typical road race will often have awards for the top males and for the top females. While individual males and females vary greatly in their abilities, males have a general physical advantage over females when it comes to running: the best male runner is better than the best female runner and average male runners are also better than average female runners.  But good female runners are better than average male runners and the best female runners are better than good male runners.

Given that males generally have an advantage over females in running (and many other physical sports), it could be advantageous for a male runner if the division was based on gender and people could simply declare their genders. That is, a male could declare himself a woman and thus be more likely to do better relative to the competition. While there are those who do accept that people have the right to declare their gender and that others are obliged to accept this, it seems clear that this would not be morally acceptable in competitive sports.

The ethics based purpose of dividing athletes by sex is to allow for a fairer completion. This same principle, that of fairer competition, is also used to justify age groups. As older runner knows, few things slow you down like dragging years.  Because of this, a runner could, in general, gain an advantage by making a declaration of age identity (typically older). Perhaps the person could claim that he has always been old on the inside and that to refuse to accept his age identification would be oppression. However, this would be absurd: declaring an age does not change the person’s ability to compete and would thus grant an unfair advantage. Likewise, allowing a male to compete as a woman (or girl) in virtue of merely declared gender identification would be unfair. A declaration by itself would not, obviously, change the person’s anatomy and physiology.

There are, however, cases that are more complicated. These include cases in which a person has undergone a change in anatomy. While these cases are important, they go beyond the intended scope of this essay, which is gender nominalism.

Some competitions do not divide the competitors by sex. These are typically those where the statistical physical differences between males and females do not impact the outcome. Some examples include debate, chess, spelling bees and NASCAR. In these cases, males and females compete equally and hence the principle of fairness allows for the lack of sex divisions. Some of these competitions do have other divisions. For example, spelling bees do not normally pit elementary school students against high school students. In such competitions, gender identification would be irrelevant. As such, competitors should be free to gender identify as they wish within the context of such competitions.

Interestingly, there are competitions where there appear to be no sex-based advantages (in terms of physical abilities), yet there are gender divisions. There are competitions in literature, music, and acting that are divided by gender (and some are open only to one gender). There are also scholarships, fellowships and other academic awards that are open only to one gender.

Since being a biological male would seem to yield no advantage in such cases, the principle of fairness would not seem to apply. For example, the fact that males are generally larger and stronger would yield no advantage when it came to writing a novel, acting in a play, or playing a guitar. As such, if people should be able to set their own gender identity, they should be able to do so for such competitions, thus enabling them to compete where they wish.

It could be argued that the principle of fairness would still apply, that people born as males would still have an advantage even if they elected to identify as women for the competition. This advantage, it might be claimed, would be based in the socially constructed advantages that males possess. Naturally, it would need to be shown that a male that gender identifies as a woman for such competitions, such as getting a woman’s only scholarship, would still retain the alleged male advantage.

It could also be argued that these divisions are not based on a principle of fairness about advantages or disadvantages. Rather, the divisions are to give more people a chance of winning. This could be justified on the same grounds that justify having many categories. For example, there are awards for being the best actor in a supporting role, which exists to create another chance for an actor to win something. If a person could just gender declare and be eligible, then that would create an “imbalance”, much as allowing non-supporting actors to declare themselves supporting actors to get a shot at that award would be unfair.

Of course, this seems to assume that there is a justified distinction between the genders that would ground the claims of unfairness. That is, it would be as wrong for a male to win best actress as it would be for a female screenwriter who never acted to win best actress for her screenplay.  Or that it would be as bad for a male to get a scholarship intended for a woman as it would be for a football player who cannot do math to get a math scholarship. This approach, which would involve rejecting one form of gender nominalism (the version in which the individual gets to declare gender) is an option. This would not, however, require accepting that gender is not a social construct. One could still be a gender nominalist of the sort that believes that gender classification is both a matter of individual declaration and acceptance by the “relevant community.” As such, the relevant communities could police their competitions. For example, those who dole out scholarships for woman can define what it is to be a woman for the purpose of their scholarships, to prevent non-woman from getting them. This would, of course, seem to justify similar gender policing by society, which leads to some interesting problems about who gets to define gender identity. The usual answer people give is, of course, themselves.

 

While, as a professor, talking is my business, I am generally reluctant to talk about my faith. One reason for this is a matter of professionalism. As a professor at a state university, it would be both unprofessional and improper to preach rather than teach. While some might take the view that a believer should attempt to always spread their belief, consider if you hired a plumber to fix your sink and she spent the entire time preaching rather than plumbing. If my students seek religion, they can easily find it in the many places of worship in Tallahassee. If I wished to be a religious teacher, I could seek employment at a religious institution. If I wanted to preach rather than teach, I could join the ministry.

Another reason for my reluctance is that our ruling class has taken Aristotle’s advice to heart. “A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.” Also, in the United States, when a person loudly professes to be Christian, they are all too often signaling that they have spray painted their cruelty, greed, and bigotry with a thin coat of theology. When I do not have time to explain what I believe, I prefer to remain silent, lest someone think that I am signaling that I am a wicked person trying to mask my sins with false faith. This, I admit, makes me feel some shame.

I am also reluctant to impose on people as a matter of humility. Billions of humans have and have had deeply held religious beliefs. But each person’s beliefs differ from those of everyone else and even themselves over time. It would be the height of prideful arrogance to think that I, out of the billions, have gotten things right and can thus impose my beliefs on others. But I obviously think there is value in sharing what I believe in this context as I have no power over you and you can stop reading at any time. I now turn to the main topic, that of my faith and violence.

While I am working through a general theory of violence, the recent killings of Renee Good and Alex Petti by ICE agents of the Trump regime have focused my thoughts on the claim that we (or perhaps only ICE agents) are permitted to use violence when we are afraid for our lives. This can also be cast as the general topic of self-defense. A good place to begin is the commandment against killing.

When I was a young atheist, I delighted in pointing out the apparent contradiction in the bible between the commandment against killing and the fact that the text explicitly allows for or even calls for killing. But, as my colleagues in religion point out, the commandment is against wrongful killing. While the ethics of killing can and should be debated, this entails that certain types of killing are acceptable even if one accepts this commandment. As my religion colleagues tell me, the bible does allow killing in self-defense. But this leads to the question of what counts as self-defense and the additional question about when one should kill rather than avoid doing so. My view, as I will argue in a future essay, is that killing should be avoided and that a believer should accept considerable risk to avoid killing another even in self-defense. But, to provide a concrete example, I will examine the killing of Renee Good. Using the religious context is especially relevant since ICE agent Jonathan Ross has been angelized by the right as a conservative Christian. In contrast, they have tried to demonize Renee Good.

According to the Trump regime, Ross was acting in self defense when he killed Renee Good. But is this claim justified? The gist of the argument in favor of this claim is that Ross was in front of Renee Good’s vehicle and she drove towards him, thus making him afraid for his life. There seem to be two possibilities as to why he was in front of her vehicle and thus allegedly in danger. The first is that he unintentionally acted in violation of his training  and good sense by placing himself in front of a moving vehicle. If this is the case, then his incompetence or bad judgment placed him in a situation in which he was allegedly afraid for his life. Even if he believed that Renee Good was trying to run him over, his actions placed him in that alleged danger, and this would undercut a self-defense justification. I must stress that I am not engaged in “victim blaming” of the sort that blames a woman for being assaulted because of how she was dressed or where she went. Rather, Ross should have acted in accord with his training and good sense because he should know that his failure could result in the death of another. If so, he would have some guilt in causing a wrongful death. As far as the legal issue goes, that is up to the courts.

The other possibility is that Ross intentionally moved in front of the vehicle with the intention of placing himself in potential danger so he could claim he was “afraid for his life” and thus use violence in “self-defense.” That is, Ross was trying to set up Renee Good so he could shoot her. In this case, he would be guilty of causing a wrongful death, although one could argue that God might see the sin as somewhat mitigated since one could argue that there was some possible mote of self defense in all the blood that was spilled.

As might be gathered, my view is that killing someone because one’s incompetence or malign intent created a “self-defense” situation is not warranted. But what about the situation that inspired my consideration of my philosophy of violence? That question will be the focus of my next essay in this series and will require a dive into my metaphysics and view of love and faith. Stay safe.

 

After losing the battle over same-sex marriage, some on the right selected trans rights as their new battleground. A key front in this battle is that of sports, with the arguments centering around professed concerns about fairness. There is also a lot of implied metaphysics going on behind the scenes, so this essay will examine gender nominalism and competition. This will, however, require some metaphysical groundwork.

A classic philosophical problem is the problem of universals. Put roughly, the problem is determining in virtue of what (if anything) a particular a is of the type F. To use a concrete example, the question would be “in virtue of what is Morris a cat?” Philosophers often split into two camps when answering this question. The nominalists, shockingly enough, embrace nominalism. This is the view that what makes a particular a an F is that we name it an F. For example, what makes Morris a cat is that we call (or name) him a cat.

The other camp, the realists, take the view that there is a metaphysical reality underlying a being of the type F. Put another way, it is not just a matter of naming or calling something an F that makes it an F. In terms of what makes a of the type F, different realist philosophers give different answers. Plato famously claimed that it is the Form of F that makes individual F things F. For example, it is the Form of Beauty that makes all the beautiful things beautiful. And, presumably, the Form of ugly that makes the ugly things ugly. Others, such as myself, accept tropes (not to be confused with the tropes of film and literature) that serve a similar function.

While realists believe in the reality of some categories, they usually think some categories are not grounded in features of objective reality. As such, most realists agree that nominalists are right about some categories. To use an easy example, being a Democrat (or Republican) is not grounded in metaphysics, but is a social construct. A political party is made up by people and membership is a matter of social convention rather than metaphysical reality. There is presumably no Form of Democrat or Republican.

When it comes to sorting out sex and gender, things are complicated and involves at least four factors.  One is anatomy, which might (or might not) correspond to the second, which is genetic makeup (XX, XY, XYY, etc.). The third factor is the person’s own claimed gender identity which might (or might not) correspond to the fourth, which is the gender identity assigned by other people.

While anatomy and physiology are adjustable (via chemicals or surgery), they are objective features of reality. While a person can choose to alter their anatomy, merely changing how one designates one’s sex does not change the physical features. While a complete genetic conversion (XX to XY or vice versa) is (probably) not yet possible, it is just a matter of time before that can be done. However, even if genetics could be changed, a person’s genetic makeup is still an objective feature of reality and a person cannot change their genes merely by claiming a change in designation. But if genes define a person’s sex, then a genetic change would objectively change their sex.

Gender is, perhaps, another matter. Like most people, I often use the terms “sex” and “gender” interchangeably when speaking informally. Obviously, if gender is taken as the same as sex, then gender would seem to be an objective feature of reality. But if  gender and sex are taken as the same, then we would need a new term to take the place of “gender.”

However, gender has been largely or even entirely split from anatomy or genetics, at least by experts in the relevant fields. One version of this view can be called “gender nominalism.” On this view, gender is not an objective feature of reality, like anatomy, but a matter of naming, like being a Republican or Democrat. While some politicians have decreed that there are two genders, the fact that they think they need to do this just proves that they understand gender is a social construct. After all, politicians do not feel the need to decree that water is hydrogen and oxygen or that that triangles have three sides.

Some thinkers have cast gender as being constructed by society, while others contend that individuals have lesser or greater power to construct their own gender identities. People can place whatever gender label they wish upon themselves, but there is still the question of the role of others in that gender identity. The question is, then, to what degree can individuals construct their own gender identities? There is also the moral question about whether others should (morally) accept such gender self-identification. These matters are part of the broader challenge of identity in terms of who defines one’s identity (and what aspects) and to what degree are people morally obligated to accept these assignments (or declarations of identity).

My own view is to go with the obvious: people are free to self-declare whatever gender they wish, just as they are free to make any other claim of identity that is a social construct (which is a polite term for “made up”). So, a person could declare that he is a straight, Republican, Rotarian, fundamentalist, Christian, and a man. Another person could declare that she is a lesbian, Republican, Jewish woman, who belongs to the Elks. And so on. But, of course, there is the matter of getting others to recognize that identity. For example, if a person identifies as a Republican, yet believes in climate change, argues for abortion rights, endorses same-sex marriage, supports trans rights, favors tax increases, supports education spending, endorse the minimum wage, and is pro-environment, then other Republicans could rightly question the person’s Republican identity and claim that that person is a RINO (Republican in Name Only). As another example, a biological male could declare identity as a woman, yet still dress like a man, act like a man, date women, and exhibit no behavior that is associated with being a woman. In this case, other women might accuse her of being a WINO (Woman in Name Only).

In cases in which self-identification has no meaningful consequences for other people, it makes sense for people to freely self-identify. In such cases, claiming to be F makes the person F, and what other people believe should have no impact on that person being F. That said, people might still dispute a person’s claim. For example, if someone self-identifies as a Trekkie, yet knows little about Star Trek, others might point out that this self-identification is in error. However, since this has no meaningful consequences, the person has every right to insist on being a Trekkie, though doing so might suggest that he is about as smart as a tribble.

In cases in which self-identification does have meaningful consequences for others, then there would seem to be moral grounds (based on the principle of harm) to allow restrictions on such self-identification. For example, if a relatively fast male runner wanted to self-identify as a woman simply by claiming this identity so “she” could qualify for the Olympics, then it would be reasonable to prevent that from happening. After all, “she” would bump a qualified woman off the team, which would be wrong. Because of the potential for such harm, it would be absurd to accept that everyone is obligated to automatically accept the self-identification of others.

The flip side of this is that others should not have an automatic right to deny the self-identification of others. As a general rule, the principle of harm would apply here as well: others  have the right to impose in cases in which there is actual harm, and the person would have the right to refuse the forced identity of others when doing so would inflict wrongful harm. The practical challenge is, clearly enough, working out the ethics of specific cases.

There is an old legend that King Midas for a long time hunted the wise Silenus, the companion of Dionysus, in the forests, without catching him. When Silenus finally fell into the king’s hands, the king asked what was the best thing of all for men, the very finest. The daemon remained silent, motionless and inflexible, until, compelled by the king, he finally broke out into shrill laughter and said these words, “Suffering creature, born for a day, child of accident and toil, why are you forcing me to say what would give you the greatest pleasure not to hear? The very best thing for you is totally unreachable: not to have been born, not to exist, to be nothing. The second-best thing for you, however, is this — to die soon.”

 

-Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

 

A classic metaphysical question is “why is there something rather than nothing?” An interesting value question is “is it better to be nothing rather than something?” That is, is it better “not to have been born, not to exist, to be nothing?”

Addressing this question requires determining the measure of value that should be used. One standard approach is to use the crude currencies of pleasure and pain. A somewhat more refined approach is to calculate in terms of happiness and unhappiness. Or one could simply go generic and use vague categories of positive value and negative value.

What also must be determined is the best moral theory to use. For the individual, a sensible theory would be ethical egoism, that what a person should do is what maximizes the positive value for them. On this view, it would be better if the person did not exist if their existence would generate more negative than positive value for them. It would be better if the person existed if their existence would generate more positive than negative value for them.

To make an argument in favor of never existing being better than existing, one likely approach is to make use of the problem of evil, such as the version developed by David Hume. When discussing this matter, Hume contends that everyone believes life is miserable and presents an impressive catalog of pains and evils. While he considers that pain is less frequent than pleasure, he notes that even if this is true, pain “is infinitely more violent and durable.” As such, Hume makes a strong case that the negative value of existence outweighs its positive value.

If it is true that the negative value outweighs the positive value, and better is measured in terms of maximizing value, then it would thus seem to be better to have never existed. After all, existence will result (if Hume is right) in more pain than pleasure. In contrast, non-existence will have no pain (and no pleasure) for a total of zero. Doing value math, since zero is greater than a negative value, never existing is better than existing.

But this sort of calculation might seem odd. After all, if the person does not exist, then their pleasure and pain will not balance to zero. Rather this sum would be an undefined value. It cannot be better for a person that they do not exist, since there would not be anyone for the nonexistence to be better for.

This can be countered by saying that this is just a semantic trick and nonexistence would be better than existence because of the relative balance of pleasure and pain. There is also another approach, which is to broaden the calculation from the individual to the world.

In this case, the question would not be about whether it would be better for an individual to exist, but whether a world with the individual would be better than a world without them. If a consequentialist approach is assumed, if it is assumed that pain and pleasure are the measure of value and if it is assumed that pain will outweigh pleasure in every life, then the world would be better if a person never existed. This is because the absence of an individual would reduce the overall pain. Given these assumptions, a world with no humans at all would be a better world. This could be extended to its logical conclusion: if suffering outweighs the pleasures in the case of all beings (Hume did argue that the suffering of all creatures exceeds their enjoyments), then it would be better that no feeling creatures existed. At this point, one might as well do away with existence altogether and have nothing. Thus, while it might not be known why there is something rather than nothing, this argument would seem to show that it would be better to have nothing rather than something.

Of course, this reasoning rests on many assumptions. It can be argued that the measure of value is not solely in terms of pleasures and pains. That is, even if life resulted in more pain than pleasure, the overall positive value could be greater than the negative value. For example, the creation of art and the development of knowledge could provide value that outweighs the pain. It could also be argued that the consequentialist approach is in error and that estimating the worth of life is not just a matter of tallying up the negative and positive. There are, after all, many other moral theories of the value of existence. It is also possible to dispute the claim that pain exceeds pleasure (or that unhappiness exceeds happiness).

Way back in February of 2015 Laura Kipnis’ essay “Sexual Paranoia Strikes Academe” was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education. Though controversial in content, it was a balanced consideration of campus codes governing relationships between students and professors. In response to this essay, Kipnis was subjected to what she rightly called a Title IX Inquisition. While the legal issues of such codes are interesting, my main concern as a philosopher is with their ethics.

I will begin by getting the easy stuff out of the way. As universities are obligated to provide a safe environment conducive to learning, they should have rules that protect students. Since universities are obligated to ensure grades are assigned on merit, they should have rules forbidding exchanging goods or services (including sexual services) for grades. Crimes such as sexual assault and rape should be handled by the police, though universities should also have rules governing the employment of professors who are convicted of such crimes.

It is also relatively easy to settle the issue of whether universities should forbid consenting relationships between professors and students when the professor has power over the student. This would include such things as the student being enrolled in the professor’s class or serving as their TA.  After all, if a student is involved with a professor, then the student might have an unfair advantage relative to other students. This is distinct from the explicit exchange of a grade for sexual favors. Rather, this is a matter of positive bias in favor of the student that can result in special treatment. For example, a professor might grade her boyfriend’s paper much easier than those of other students. 

While sexual relations can lead to bias, these are not the only relations that can have this effect. A professor who is friends with a student or related to a student can be biased in favor of that student. This is distinct from explicit nepotism in which grades are decided based on the relationship. So, if the principle is based on the potential for bias, then students who are friends, relatives or otherwise comparably connected to the professor would also need to be forbidden from being in such roles.

It can, obviously, be argued there is a relevant difference between sexual relations and non-sexual relations that would justify forbidding a professor from dating a student in, while still allowing them to have a friend or relative as a student. Alternatively, a university could have a general ban on professors having students with whom they have a potentially biasing relationship, be it sexual, platonic, or family relationship. As a general policy, this has considerable appeal on the grounds of fairness. It can, however, be countered on the grounds that a professional should be able to control bias in favor of friends and family. But this view opens the door to the claim that a professional should also be able to control bias in the case of a romantic relationship. However, most would certainly be skeptical about such a claim. I recall from my own graduate school days the comments students would make about students who were involved with their professor or TA. Put in polite terms, they expressed skepticism about the fairness of the grading.

My considered view is a conditional one: if a professor can maintain objectivity, then the unfairness argument would have no weight. However, it is reasonable to think that many professors could not maintain such objectivity, thus justifying a general rule forbidding relationship. After all, rule are not crafted with the best people in mind, but those that are less than the best.

The fairness argument could not, of course, be used to justify forbidding professors from dating students who are not and will not be in their classes (or otherwise under them in a professional capacity). So, for example, if an engineering professor were to date an English Literature major who will never take any of the classes she teaches, then there would be no concerns about fairness.

As harassment and coercive relationships should always be forbidden, there would thus seem to be no grounds for forbidding such a consensual relationship between two adults. However, there are good arguments in favor of this general forbiddance.

There are excellent practical reasons to forbid romantic or sexual relationships between students and professors even when there is no coercion, no harassment, and no unfairness. One practical reason is that relationships usually fail and often fail in dramatic ways, and it could be problematic for a university to have such drama play out on campus. Another practical reason is that such relationships can be a legal powder keg in terms of potential lawsuits against a university. As such, university administrators sensibly think that their money and brand should be protected by forbidding such relationships.

From a moral perspective, the concern is whether there are grounds for forbidding such relationships (other than, of course, a utilitarian argument about the potential for brand damage or lawsuits).

One standard argument is that there is always a power disparity between professors and students, and this entails that all such relationships are potentially coercive. Even if most professors would not consciously coerce a student, rules are not made for how the best people would act but for what those who are less than best are likely to do. As such, a blanket ban on relationships is necessary to prevent the possibility of coercive relationships between students and professors. It is thus morally justified.

It might be objected that a rule against coercive relationships would suffice and that if the professor has no professional relationship with the student, then they should be treated as consenting adults. After all, a professor in such a situation would seem to have no power over the student and coercion via professional position would not be possible. So, they should be free to have a relationship.

It could be countered that a professor always has power over a student in virtue of being a professor, even when the professor has no professional relationship with the student. While a professor might have some “power” in regard to being older (usually), having some status, having more income (usually), and so on, these do not seem to be distinct from the “power” one adult could have over another outside the academy and in the dating world.

One could argue that there seems to be nothing specific to being a professor that would give a professor power over the student that would make the relationship automatically coercive. As such, there would seem to be no grounds for forbidding the relationship.

It could be objected that students are especially vulnerable to the power of professors and lack the autonomy needed to resist this power. As such, the university must act in a paternalistic way and forbid all relationships—to protect naïve and powerless students from the cunning, powerful predatorial professors. This would be analogous to laws that protect minors from adults because minors cannot give informed consent. If college students are analogous to (but not legally) minors, then the same reasoning would apply. But this approach seems insulting to the students and would suggest that changes to the age of consent would be warranted. So casting adult students as analogous to children is probably not a good idea.

A reasonable approach is to point out that there is no guarantee that a professor might not end up being in a position of relative power and it would be unreasonable to depend on some sort of informal honor system in which students and professors promise to never be in such a situation. Hence, a blanket ban on such relationships would seem warranted. This is analogous to how a professional should never date co-workers or clients of their business, even if they currently have no professional interaction. Since they could have such interaction someday, they should not risk having a relationship.

There are also other moral grounds for forbidding such relationships that are not based on concerns about power disparities. For example, a case can be made that a professor being involved with a student would simply be unprofessional and hence unethical.

From a legal, practical and moral standpoint, the best policy would seem to be for professors and students to not have romantic relationships.

American gun rights groups, such as the NRA (National Rifle Association), have long argued that citizens need to be armed as a defense against government tyranny. The traditional narrative has been that “the left” would send agents of the state to “take your guns.” In recent years, right wing protestors and demonstrators have often made a point of being well-armed, sometimes looking like they were LARPing a Call of Duty game. White Americans have also enjoyed a right to use violence in “self-defense” against people of other colors, with the Kyle Rittenhouse case being a famous example.

As many pointed out on Facebook and other social media sites, the NRA and other gun rights groups remained silent when the Trump regime sent ICE to impose the president’s whims and act on his petty grievances. But the killing of Alex Pretti by ICE triggered a response.

While the evidence seems clear that Alex was executed by ICE agents, the Trump regime immediately claimed the ICE agents acted in self-defense. Obviously, no investigation had been conducted, and the Trump regime has blocked efforts of local law enforcement to investigate the shooting. Alex was legally carrying a gun, and Bill Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said, “if you approach law enforcement with a gun, there is a high likelihood they will be legally justified in shooting you,” finishing with “Don’t do it.” This was a rhetorical mistake on his part, as it triggered an immediate response from gun activists as well as gun rights groups. A response from Gun Owners of America was that “federal agents are not ‘highly likely’ to be ‘legally justified’ in ‘shooting’ concealed carry licensees who approach while lawfully carrying a firearm. The Second Amendment protects Americans’ right to bear arms while protesting — a right the federal government must not infringe upon.” Essayli seems to have attempted to move the goal posts in the face of this criticism or, as his defenders would say, “clarified his remarks.” Gun rights activists do have grounds for concern and those on the right probably feel that they have been betrayed.

As noted above, people on the right often show up at protests and demonstrations well-armed. In states that allow open carry, people sometimes make a point of openly carrying their weapons. But there seems to have been a social contract that the police would leave armed whites alone, if they were not committing crimes.  But Alex, who was a white gun owner, was killed while doing nothing wrong and the narrative used against him was anti-gun rights. As such, Essayli’s statement would sound like a threat to people who believe in Second Amendment rights. So, the criticism of Essayli and these specific actions of ICE are consistent with the values and warnings expressed by the right leaning gun rights groups. That said, the Gun Owners’ of America also accused the left of “antagonizing” ICE agents. This could be seen as a gesture to the Trump regime to show their solidarity with the President and ICE’s actions. On this view, the condemnation of Essayli and “the left” can be seen as a warning for officials to adjust their rhetoric rather than a true condemnation of ICE’s unrestrained violence. After all, these groups did not issue statements about the killing of Renee Good and their condemnation has focused on the demonization of the gun and gun ownership rather than primarily on the killing. As such, the right leaning gun rights groups face a quandary here: they want to defend gun rights but also want to blame and condemn “the left.”

To be fair and balanced, some gun rights activists have condemned the killing and have noted that ICE presents a threat that crosses the left/right boundary in the United States. This is a reasonable view for although liberals tend to favor gun control and conservatives tend to favor gun rights, taking away or protecting gun rights is not a matter of left versus right. Rather, taking away or protecting rights is on the authoritarian axis of politics, and this can be left or right. Jokingly, I call authoritarians on the left “authoritarians in red” and those on the right “authoritarians in black.” While the right often aligns itself with authoritarian views in the United States, those who are truly in favor of gun rights and sincerely oppose government tyranny should oppose the tyranny being imposed by the Trump regime, especially the use of ICE. But there are presumably those who think that gun rights should depend on both a person’s color and their political views, such that law enforcement should leave the right and white alone, while they should be free to kill the left or non-white.

While the Trump regime has attempted to demonize Alex, he seems to have been a kind, caring person who worked as a registered nurse for the United States Department of Veteran’s Affairs. While the Trump regime is surely hoping his killing will intimidate people by sending the message that ICE will kill even people like Alex if they oppose the whims of Trump, it does run the risk of galvanizing Americans by making it clear that no one is safe from the Trump regime. It is a sad and terrible thing that he was killed, and the world is a worse place because of his absence.

My critical thinking class covers credibility, experiments and studies. As critical thinking is often seen as dull, I use real-world examples that might be marginally interesting to students. One is John Bohannon’s detailed account of how he “fooled millions into thinking chocolate helps weight loss.”

Bohannon’s con provides an excellent cautionary tale for critical thinkers. First, he shows how easy it is to rig an experiment to get “significant” results. As I point out to my students, a small experiment or study can easily generate results that seem significant. This is why it is important to have an adequate sample size. What is also needed is proper control, proper selection of the groups, and so on.

Second, he provides a clear example of a blight on academic publishing, namely “pay to publish” journals that lack peer review. While bad science does slip through peer review, these journals seem to publish almost anything, provided payment is made. Since the journals have reputable sounding names and most people do not know which journals are credible, it is easy to create a journal publication that seems credible. This is why I cover the importance of checking sources in my class.

Third, he detailed how news outlets published or posted the story without even perfunctory efforts to check its credibility. I cover the media in my class both from the standpoint of being a good journalist and being a critical consumer of news. I stress the importance of confirming credibility before accepting claims, especially when doing so is (supposed to be) one’s job.

While Bohannon’s con is evidence of problems with corrupt journals, uncritical reporting and consumer credulity, it raises other points worth considering. One is that while he might have “fooled millions” of people, he seems to have fooled relative few journalists (13 out of about 5,000 reporters who subscribe to the Newswise feed Bohannon used) and these seem to be more of the likes of the Huffington Post and Cosmopolitan as opposed to what might be seen as more serious health news sources. While I do not know why the other reporters did not run the story, it is worth considering that some did look at it critically. In any case, the fact that a few reporters fell for a dubious story is hardly shocking. It is, in fact, just what would be expected given the history of journalism.

Another point of concern is the ethics of engaging in such a con. It can be argued that Bohannon acted ethically. One way to do this is to note that using deceit to expose a problem can be justified on utilitarian grounds. For example, it seems morally acceptable for a journalist or police officer to use deceit and go undercover to expose harmful criminal activity. As such, Bohannon could contend that his con was effectively an undercover operation. He and his fellows pretended to be the bad guys to expose a problem and thus his deceit was morally justified.

One obvious objection is that Bohannon’s deceit did not just expose corrupt journals and incautious reporters. It also misinformed people. To be fair, any harm would be minimal. At worst, people who believed the story would consume dark chocolate and this is not a health hazard. Interestingly, as I am writing this, the view is that dark chocolate is beneficial. However, intentionally spreading such misinformation is morally problematic, especially since story retractions or corrections get far less attention than the original story.

One way to counter this objection is to draw an analogy to the exposure of flaws by “white hat” hackers. These hackers reveal vulnerabilities in software with the professed intent of forcing companies to address them. Exposing vulnerabilities can do some harm by informing the bad guys, but the usual argument is that this is outweighed by the good done when the vulnerability is fixed. Assuming it gets fixed.

While this does have some appeal, there is the concern that the harm might not outweigh the good. In Bohannon’s case it could be argued that he did more harm than good. After all, it was well-established that the “pay to publish” journals are corrupt, that there are incautious journalists and credulous consumers. As such, Bohannon did not expose anything new and merely added more misinformation to the pile.

It could be countered that although these problems are well known, it does help to continue to bring them to the attention of the public. Going back to the analogy of software vulnerabilities, it could be argued that if a vulnerability is exposed, but nothing is done to patch it, then the problem should be brought up until it is fixed, “for it is the doom of men that they forget.” Bohannon brought these problems into the spotlight and this might do more good than harm. If so, then this con would be morally acceptable—at least on utilitarian grounds.