Day: January 28, 2026

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.