Housewives

This blog post is meant as a clarification of my earlier doctrine about marriage, which was written about one year ago, in 2021-01-03.

First, I would like to reiterate the fact that marriage is here conceived of as a heterotelic relationship, or society, constituted for the purpose of producing and raising children.

There are, of course, modern conceptions of marriage which make it, basically, into a version of what I call friendship, i.e., an equal, autotelic relationship. I do believe that it is best for marriages to be constituted between persons who already had a strong friendship, but the relationship which has the purpose of producing children is nevertheless quite distinguishable, and its traditional name is marriage, which I use here without qualms.

Second, I would like to make clearer my opinion that marriages ought to be hierarchical, because they own societal property. Given our culture, it was really foolish of me to mention hierarchical marriage, and to give the reasons for the traditional rule of the man, without making the following point clear; but it was not, in fact, fully clear in my mind at the time when I wrote that post.

I did not mean to support, and do not support, the institution of full-time housewives, i.e., of women doing no other work than staying at home and raising their children. Women should be allowed to do this, of course – contra de Beauvoir[1] – but I do not in any way recommend it.

I do, nevertheless, believe, from my recently-elaborated broader considerations on private property, that societies which own societal property should be hierarchical, and that this includes marriage. But for a marriage to be hierarchical means only that the subordinate party[2] should submit in decisions involving the purpose of the marriage and the employment of its societal property. The head of the marriage is the final decider regarding any property which is owned by the marriage, as a society. No further powers are required by reason to be allotted to him.[3]

Abstract reasoning being indifferent to any further decisions about a marriage, I do not make any hard prescription to married couples regarding how to guide their married lives, beyond the management of societal property.

I will note, however, that it appears from the various facts adduced by Betty Friedan, in her great book The Feminine Mystique, that the office of a full-time housewife is generally detrimental to her well-being, and that modern, civilized women, especially the educated ones, can live happier and ‘more fulfilled’ lives if they pursue other occupations in parallel with their housework.[4]

Rather than any cultural idea of the husband of a housewife, I believe that the necessary practical role of the head of a marriage is best illustrated by Harry Browne’s idea of one parent being the “custodian” of each child, which he advanced in his classic libertarian self-help book, How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World (§21, pp. 238–240). I will quote at length from that, since I think it will be helpful, but I won’t quote the entire relevant passage, to avoid copyright concerns.

Though a child is not a “thing” to be owned, some of the same principles apply to decision-making and custody that apply to property. Someone must make decisions concerning the child; and if there’s a separation, the question of custody will arise.

One of the most difficult problems a child can face is in being subject to conflicting authorities when the parents disagree. He’s put in an unfortunate position when two people whom he loves are claiming authority and telling him to act in two different ways. He knows he has to disappoint one of them when there are disagreements.

How much simpler for everyone concerned if one person has the major responsibility and sets the main plans for the child’s upbringing.

If the parents’ differences of opinion are so great that one couldn’t stand to live with a child raised by the other, they probably shouldn’t have a child—no matter what the arrangement. But if they’re compatible enough to live together harmoniously, the chances are good that one will not object to the methods used by the person who has the main responsibility.

Custody

I think it’s important, then, that it be clearly established before the child is born which parent is the ultimate custodian of the child. That parent will have the final say in decisions concerning the child and will automatically have custody of the child if the parents should separate.

If you think ahead to such a decision, you can see that the woman will realistically control such a question of custody. She has to deliver the child, and she doesn’t have to get pregnant if she doesn’t want to. Also, she can leave any time during the pregnancy and take the unborn child with her. So she will be the natural custodian unless she agrees otherwise.

Any agreement made before the birth can be altered later if both parties agree. In fact, if after the child is old enough to have some conception of the consequences of his choice he chooses the non-custodial parent (and that parent agrees), it’s probably best for all concerned that his choice be honored in the event of a separation of the parents. [...]

Notes

[1] In an interview with Betty Friedan, published in Friedan’s book It Changed My Life (p. 397), Simone de Beauvoir famously said that “no woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children”. To help my readers out, I’ll give a slightly fuller quotation:

de Beauvoir: Why women? That’s the question! Should one consider that the women are doomed to stay at home?

Friedan: I don’t think they should have to. The children should be the equal responsibility of both parents – and of society – but today a great many women have worked only in the home when their children were growing up, and this work has not been valued at even the minimum wage for purposes of Social Security, pensions, and division of property. There could be a voucher system which a woman who chooses to continue her profession or her education and have little children could use to pay for child care. But if she chooses to take care of her own children full time, she would earn the money herself.

de Beauvoir: No, we don’t believe that any woman should have this choice. No woman should be authorized to stay at home to raise her children. Society should be totally different. Women should not have that choice, precisely because if there is such a choice, too many women will make that one. It is a way of forcing women in a certain direction.

[2] Or parties, in the case of polygamy.

[3] Or her, if the woman were the head of a particular marriage.

[4] Addition, 2022-02-19: Catholic obedience to certain papal statements may require a wife to, nevertheless, primarily do housework, though. In particular, the following statements have been brought to my attention:

Women, again, are not suited for certain occupations; a woman is by nature fitted for home-work, and it is that which is best adapted at once to preserve her modesty and to promote the good bringing up of children and the well-being of the family. As a general principle it may be laid down that a workman ought to have leisure and rest proportionate to the wear and tear of his strength, for waste of strength must be repaired by cessation from hard work. (Rerum Novarum, §42)

In the first place, the worker must be paid a wage sufficient to support him and his family. That the rest of the family should also contribute to the common support, according to the capacity of each, is certainly right, as can be observed especially in the families of farmers, but also in the families of many craftsmen and small shopkeepers. But to abuse the years of childhood and the limited strength of women is grossly wrong. Mothers, concentrating on household duties, should work primarily in the home or in its immediate vicinity. [...] (Quadragesimo Anno, §71)

From desire to desire

This is a compilation of texts on the basic idea that human beings, having satisfied one desire, move on to attempt to satisfy a different desire, and that this seems to go on indefinitely while on earth, but could possibly end if we attain unto God, who is the last end of man. Of course, not all texts will recognize this last possibility.

At its first posting, I am much less satisfied with this compilation than with others on this blog. I have long delayed publishing it, out of a desire to improve it first. I still hope to update it later.

Texts that I will not quote

In the Bible, the entirety of Ecclesiastes 1–2 seems relevant, but that is very long, and I do not find any one section particularly relevant, so I have linked it rather than trying to quote it.

The Second Noble Truth, from Buddhism, also seems relevant, but I do not know which primary texts would be best to quote about it, and I have not tried to look for one.

The quote collection

Socrates: [...] Let me request you to consider how far you would accept this as an account of the two lives of the temperate and intemperate in a figure:—There are two men, both of whom have a number of casks; the one man has his casks sound and full, one of wine, another of honey, and a third of milk, besides others filled with other liquids, and the streams which fill them are few and scanty, and he can only obtain them with a great deal of toil and difficulty; but when his casks are once filled he has no need to feed them any more, and has no further trouble with them or care about them. The other, in like manner, can procure streams, though not without difficulty; but his vessels are leaky and unsound, and night and day he is compelled to be filling them, and if he pauses for a moment, he is in an agony of pain. Such are their respective lives:—And now would you say that the life of the intemperate is happier than that of the temperate? Do I not convince you that the opposite is the truth?
Callicles: You do not convince me, Socrates, for the one who has filled himself has no longer any pleasure left; and this, as I was just now saying, is the life of a stone: he has neither joy nor sorrow after he is once filled; but the pleasure depends on the superabundance of the influx.
Socrates: But the more you pour in, the greater the waste; and the holes must be large for the liquid to escape.
Callicles: Certainly.
Socrates: The life which you are now depicting is not that of a dead man, or of a stone, but of a cormorant; you mean that he is to be hungering and eating?
Callicles: Yes.
Socrates: And he is to be thirsting and drinking?
Callicles: Yes, that is what I mean; he is to have all his desires about him, and to be able to live happily in the gratification of them.

— Plato, Gorgias, 493d–494c

He must, then, if it should so happen, be able to lift up his voice, to come upon the stage, and say, like Socrates: “O mortals, whither are you hurrying? What are you about? Why do you tumble up and down, O miserable wretches! like blind men? You are going the wrong way, and have forsaken the right. You seek prosperity and happiness in a wrong place, where they are not; nor do you give credit to another, who shows you where they are. Why do you seek this possession without? It lies not in the body; if you do not believe me, look at Myro, look at Ofellius. It is not in wealth; if you do not believe me, look upon Crœsus; look upon the rich of the present age, how full of lamentation their life is. It is not in power; for otherwise, they who have been twice and thrice consuls must be happy; but they are not. To whom shall we give heed in these things? To you who look only upon the externals of their condition, and are dazzled by appearances, — or to themselves? What do they say? Hear them when they groan, when they sigh, when they pronounce themselves the more wretched and in more danger from these very consulships, this glory and splendor. It is not in empire; otherwise Nero and Sardanapalus had been happy. But not even Agamemnon was happy, though a better man than Sardanapalus or Nero. But, when others sleep soundly what is he doing?

“Forth by the roots he rends his hairs.”

And what does he himself say?
“I wander bewildered; my heart leaps forth from my bosom.”

Why; which of your affairs goes ill, poor wretch? Your possessions? No. Your body? No. But you have gold and brass in abundance. What then goes ill? That part of you is neglected and corrupted, whatever it be called, by which we desire, and shrink; by which we pursue, and avoid. How neglected? It is ignorant of that for which it was naturally formed, of the essence of good, and of the essence of evil. It is ignorant what is its own, and what another’s. And, when anything belonging to others goes ill, it says, “I am undone; the Greeks are in danger!” (Poor ruling faculty! which alone is neglected, and has no care taken of it.) “They will die by the sword of the Trojans!” And, if the Trojans should not kill them, will they not die? “Yes, but not all at once.” Why, where is the difference? For if it be an evil to die, then whether it be all at once or singly, it is equally an evil. Will anything more happen than the separation of soul and body? “Nothing.” And, when the Greeks perish, is the door shut against you? Is it not in your power to die? “It is.” Why then do you lament, while you are a king and hold the sceptre of Zeus? A king is no more to be made unfortunate than a god. What are you, then? You are a mere shepherd, truly so called; for you weep, just as shepherds do when the wolf seizes any of their sheep; and they who are governed by you are mere sheep. But why do you come hither? Was your desire in any danger? Your aversion? Your pursuits? Your avoidances? “No,” he says, “but my brother’s wife has been stolen.” Is it not great good luck, then, to be rid of an adulterous wife? “But must we be held in contempt by the Trojans?” What are they? Wise men, or fools? If wise, why do you go to war with them? If fools, why do you heed them?

— Epictetus, Discourses, book III, discourse XXII

Moreover, we are continually engaged and fixed in the same occupations; nor, by the prolongation of life, is any new pleasure discovered. Yet that which we desire, seems, while it is distant in the future, to excel all other objects; but afterwards, when it has fallen to our lot, we covet something else; and thus a uniform thirst of life occupies us, longing earnestly for that which is to come; while what fate the last period may bring us, or what chance may throw in our way, or what death awaits us, still remains in uncertainty.

— Lucretius, On the Nature of Things, end of book III
(Watson trans., page 144; see also the similar OLL ed.)

If I know you well, you have already been trying to find out, from the very beginning of my letter, what little contribution it brings to you. Sift the letter, and you will find it. You need not wonder at any genius of mine; for as yet I am lavish only with other men’s property. – But why did I say “other men”? Whatever is well said by anyone is mine. – This also is a saying of Epicurus: “If you live according to nature, you will never be poor; if you live according to opinion, you will never be rich.” Nature’s wants are slight; the demands of opinion are boundless. Suppose that the property of many millionaires is heaped up in your possession. Assume that fortune carries you far beyond the limits of a private income, decks you with gold, clothes you in purple, and brings you to such a degree of luxury and wealth that you can bury the earth under your marble floors; that you may not only possess, but tread upon, riches. Add statues, paintings, and whatever any art has devised for the satisfaction of luxury; you will only learn from such things to crave still greater.

Natural desires are limited; but those which spring from false opinion can have no stopping-point. The false has no limits. When you are travelling on a road, there must be an end; but when astray, your wanderings are limitless. Recall your steps, therefore, from idle things, and when you would know whether that which you seek is based upon a natural or upon a misleading desire, consider whether it can stop at any definite point. If you find, after having travelled far, that there is a more distant goal always in view, you may be sure that this condition is contrary to nature. Farewell.

— Seneca, Letter 16, §§7–9

Attalus used to employ the following simile: “Did you ever see a dog snapping with wide-open jaws at bits of bread or meat which his master tosses to him? Whatever he catches, he straightway swallows whole, and always opens his jaws in the hope of something more. So it is with ourselves; we stand expectant, and whatever Fortune has thrown to us we forthwith bolt, without any real pleasure, and then stand alert and frantic for something else to snatch.” But it is not so with the wise man; he is satisfied. Even if something falls to him, he merely accepts it carelessly and lays it aside. The happiness that he enjoys is supremely great, is lasting, is his own. Assume that a man has good intentions, and has made progress, but is still far from the heights; the result is a series of ups and downs; he is now raised to heaven, now brought down to earth. For those who lack experience and training, there is no limit to the downhill course; such a one falls into the Chaos of Epicurus, – empty and boundless.

— Seneca, Letter 72, §§8–9

You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.

— Augustine, Confessions 1.1 (speaking to God)

It is natural to a reasonable being to desire that which appears to him, according to his particular mode of thinking, better than what he possesses; and never to be satisfied if a good thing wants the particular quality which he prefers. If he loves beauty he will desire what seems to him most beautiful. If he plumes himself on the possession of a very precious jewel, he will desire to possess a still more splendid one; and whatever riches he may have, his nature is to want more. Is it not a thing we see every day, the owner of immense property and wealth buying up more land, and never content but in extending his estates? Those who dwell in vast palaces, are they not for ever building new ones, always altering, making round the cornered, and the cornered round? Are not men in high position constantly aspiring to higher, constantly striving to rise, out of an ambition more and more difficult to appease? There is no limit to such restlessness, because, in all such things, it is impossible to reach a point absolutely good and high. But it is not astonishing that so long as a man can see beyond him something greater and more perfect, he should be dissatisfied with his own possession of what is less and worse. What does seem foolish beyond all expression is, always to be longing for things which cannot even lull to sleep our desires, far less satisfy them. What follows? this—that the heart, tempted by many deceitful charms, wearies itself to no purpose, is always craving, and counts for nothing what it has enjoyed, compared to what it fain would have; and is tormented, by desire of what it has not, out of all delight with what it possesses. All one cannot have; for the little it is possible to get, the price of labour must be paid; and it must be enjoyed with trembling; nay, with the miserable certainty that one day it must be lost, though the date of that day be not known.

I have described the conduct of a perverted will blindly seeking the sovereign good. It makes haste in vain, the plaything of its own vanity, deceived by iniquity. Why wear out the day in fruitless struggle this way and that, and be caught by death unsatisfied? In such toils do the profane entangle themselves who seek about, like fools, to obtain their souls’ desires. They consume their life in useless efforts and arrive at no perfect happiness; for they are in love with created things, not with the Creator, and they try them, one and then another, before they dream of trying the Lord that made them all. Yet, if they could have their hearts’ desire and achieve the possession of the world, less Him who is its author, they would feel at last, by the same law which has ruled their life, that Him they must have, or never rest. They have gone from one ambition to another, coveting always some better thing; and now, masters of all in heaven and earth, they would soon find all insufficient, and discover that they were forced to seek Him who is wanting still, they must seek God Himself. Once discover that, once attain unto Him, there is peace; it is impossible to go beyond. The soul must cry out: “It is good for me to adhere to my God;” or, “What besides Thee have I in heaven, and besides Thee what do I desire upon earth?” and again: “Thou art the God of my heart, and the God that is my portion for ever.” Even this way would a soul necessarily end in God if it could try in sequence all lesser things than He.

— Bernard of Clairvaux, On the Love of God, ch. 7

Now this Soul, which still craved some support for her life, in order not to fall into despondency, as she had been created for love and happiness, trimmed her sail to the wind, although it was contrary, and finding herself no longer able to live in her own region, she still sustained herself, as best she could, saying, with some show of truth: “This beauty, pleasure, goodness, grandeur, and delight, together with all that adorns created things, furnish one means of knowing and tasting those that are divine;” and when she had tasted them she exclaimed: “Oh, how beautiful must be celestial things!”

And thus, still traveling with her two companions, she daily lost something of her natural, divine instinct, and fed on the husks for swine, as bestial as the body, so that, in a short time, the three found themselves on very good terms with one another.

While they were journeying on, in such great love and harmony, without any dissension, we may imagine what became of the rights of the superior reason. Nothing more was said about it. All their attention was turned to earthly things, to temporal pleasures, delights, and loves; and spiritual things seemed so unpalatable to them that they had no desire either to speak or hear of them, lest they should interfere with their earthly satisfactions. Thus they continued for some time, until nothing remained to the soul but a little compunction, which she seldom noticed, although at times she did so when it remained her of the risk she ran of losing everything at death. This thought caused her great fear, but when it left her she returned to the same course as before. One thing alone was against her, and that was, that although her companions and herself were all agreed to satisfy their appetites as fully as possible, yet they were not able to do so; for the soul having a boundless capacity, all finite and earthly things could neither satisfy her nor give her peace; the more she sought, the more restless she became, because she wandered farther every day from God, her true rest.

Yet earthly things so far blinded her that she believed she found peace here below; she strove, therefore, to keep herself continually occupied, in order to satisfy herself, and when she could not accomplish this in the manner she proposed, she became disgusted, and, in her interior blindness, tried something else. Thus passing from one thing to another, and from one hope to another, she forgot herself; and losing her time in these pursuits, she never obtained her wish, for so it was mercifully ordained by the Lord God. And certainly if man could find rest on earth, few souls would be saved, for they would become so absorbed in earthly things that they would make no effort to free themselves from them. The Soul, by her natural instinct, seeks enjoyment; and when she is blinded by the Body, she procures her pleasures through its means. So the Body leads her on from one thing to another, as they seek their food together; and though the Soul has an infinite capacity, and cannot, by means of the Body, find aught that will content her, yet she foolishly allows herself to be led by it, without receiving any satisfaction.

— Catherine of Genoa, Spiritual Dialogue, part I, chapter 5

That there is something very odd about this life of ours, that it is a kind of Egyptian bondage, where a daily tale of bricks must be given in, yet where we have no straw given us wherewith to bum them, is a very old confession indeed. We cry for something we cannot find; we cannot satisfy ourselves with what we do find, and there is more than cant in that yearning after a better land of promise, as all men know when they are once driven in upon themselves and compelled to be serious. Every pleasure palls, every employment possible for us is in the end vanity and disappointment—the highest employment most of all. We start with enthusiasm—out we go each of us to our task in all the brightness of sunrise, and hope beats along our pulses; we believe the world has no blanks except to cowards, and we find, at last, that, as far as we ourselves are concerned, it has no prizes; we sicken over the endless unprofitableness of labour most when we have most succeeded, and when the time comes for us to lay down our tools we cast them from us with the bitter aching sense, that it were better for us if it had been all a dream. We seem to know either too much or too little of ourselves—too much, for we feel that we are better than we can accomplish; too little, for, if we have done any good at all, it has been as we were servants of a system too vast for us to comprehend. We get along through life happily between clouds and sunshine, forgetting ourselves in our employments or our amusements, and so long as we can lose our consciousness in activity we can struggle on to the end. But when the end comes, when the life is lived and done, and stands there face to face with us; or if the heart is weak, and the spell breaks too soon, as if the strange master-worker has no longer any work to offer us, and turns us off to idleness and to ourselves; in the silence then our hearts lift up their voices, and cry out they can find no rest here, no home. Neither pleasure, nor rank, nor money, nor success in life, as it is called, have satisfied or can satisfy; and either earth has nothing at all which answers to our cravings, or else it is something different from all these, which we have missed finding—this peace which passes understanding—and from which in the heyday of hope we had turned away, as lacking the meretricious charm which then seemed most alluring.

— James Anthony Froude, The Nemesis of Faith, “Confessions of a Sceptic”

Given things as we know them, and have known them during recorded human history, capacity for choosing is intrinsic to rationality, if rationality entails a normal ability to apprehend the real world. To move in a frictionless medium, desiring only what one can attain, not tempted by alternatives, never seeking incompatible ends, is to live in a coherent fantasy. To offer it as the ideal is to seek to dehumanise men, to turn them into the brainwashed, contented beings of Aldous Huxley’s celebrated totalitarian nightmare.

— Isaiah Berlin, Introduction to his Essays on Liberty,
in: Liberty (2002), p. 44

Fundamental metaphysics

We attempt to begin doing philosophy, in accordance with the Rules. This is my third try.

We must begin with what is self-evident, even before we have admitted anything from the senses. The only such things are the laws of logic. Such are the basis for the first division.

The first division is between being and non-being. Given anything, it either is or is not. What is, we call being. What is not, we call non-being. This is exhaustive; tertium non datur.

What can we find out about being and non-being? Again, before using the senses. I think we can know the following things.

Possibility: Being can, and must, be. Non-being cannot be. This follows from the definitions of being and non-being.

Intelligibility of being: Being can be thought about, conceived, understood, known. This may also be said as that “all being is intelligible”. We must admit this if we set out to do philosophy, according to the First Rule.

Unintelligibility of non-being: Non-being cannot be thought about, conceived, understood, known. This is self-evident; “you cannot know what is not.” There must be something there for you to know it. “All non-being is unintelligible.”

Intelligibility: The last two propositions may be summarized as, “it is the same thing that can be thought and that can be.”

Desire: Here I just note that we are still not using the senses, and speaking only of rational desire, a.k.a. intellectual desire, or will.

Desirability: Being can be desired, wanted, loved, willed. This is to say that “all being is desirable”, or, which is the same thing, that “all being is good”.

This follows from the fact that all being is intelligible, and from that we set out to do philosophy, which means nothing other than that we desire to understand all things.

From the unintelligibility of non-being, we know that things must be, in order that we may understand them. So, in order to desire to understand them, which we do, we must desire that they be, which is nothing other than to desire them.

Since it is not, non-being cannot be desired, wanted, loved, willed. Which is to say, “all non-being is undesirable”, i.e., “all non-being is evil”.

Exhaustion of the first division.— The foregoing findings seem to be exhaustive. I think nothing else may be learned without admitting something from the senses. Having seen all that we could, we must now carefully open our eyes.

Survey of the sensible world.— There are many appearances in the sensible world. The most relevant at the moment is motion, or change, which I shall use interchangeably. Our senses give us the appearance of things coming to be, and of things passing away. This happens constantly.

Given what was said before, this poses a problem. By definition, being cannot fail to be, and non-being cannot be. The appearance of ‘passing’ from one to the other can only, then, be illusory.

Nevertheless, something does appear to us, and the First Rule requires that we apply reason to it. We must distinguish what appears and is, from what appears and is not – which is not, in turn, to be confused with what does not even appear. In order to do so, we give the apparent subject of change a name. Doing so is the basis for the second division.

The second division is between matter and form.

Matter is the subject of change, as presented by appearances. Properly speaking, it is not, since, like motion, it cannot be understood in itself, and all being is intelligible.

Form is the object of understanding. It is what was called being in the first division, and as such, it cannot be the subject of change.

Nothingness, then, shall be that non-being which, besides being unintelligible, is not even possibly apparent, either. It is that which, although we can name, we can neither understand nor imagine.

Given the two fundamental divisions, we may move on to admit and examine even more appearances from the senses. To do so, until we have understood everything, would be the object of a completed philosophy. This is just the start.

Derivation of the four causes.— For my own purposes, it is convenient to move on in this direction in particular.

Suppose that we can understand a particular moving object that we see in the sensible world. What does that imply?

First, it implies that the object is, so that it can be understood. This is its formal cause.

Second, it implies that the object appears, so that it can be seen. This is its material cause.

Third, it implies that the object’s motions can be related to the object, as it is understood. Something about the appearance leads particular motions to be referred to the form. The relation of motion to form is the object’s final cause.

Finally, since form is motionless, something movable must be referred to the motions of the object in order that their particular arrangement in time and space may be understood. This movable principle of motion is its efficient cause.

That’s enough for today.

Rules for doing philosophy

Suppose that we decide to engage in philosophy. Philosophy can here be understood as “the search, through natural reason, for certain knowledge of all things according to their first principles”.

If, for whatever reason, we decide to do that, there are some steps we should take to make sure we stick to that project, and don’t end up doing something else instead.

1. Use reason. In order to search for knowledge of all things through natural reason, you must avoid the doctrines and vices which prevent its application to some objects.

2. Do not stop using reason. In order for your knowledge to truly be attained through natural reason, you must avoid admitting any unexamined appearance from the senses, passions, or imagination. This is achieved by trying to put your thoughts into clear speech.

You must also avoid admitting anything on trust from any authority.

Both authorities and appearances may be used to illustrate what was already demonstrated, of course. Rhetoric is useful in teaching philosophy, but cannot substitute for philosophy.

3. Reason from principles to conclusions. If you are to know things through their principles, you must avoid knowing the principles through the things. Abduction is forbidden in philosophy, and is rather the method of poetry.

If you stick to these rules, you will do philosophy. Insofar as you depart from them, you won’t.

Sex and gender

Note: This blog post has been retracted, since I no longer think of it as a good representation of how I think about its topic. I may, or may not, have written a better post about the same topic since; check the full list of posts.

This is my first try.

0. Contents

1. Sex
2. Gendered language
3. Gender roles
4. The revolution
5. In favor of the revolution
6. Against the revolution
7. Using words today

1. Sex

We assume for the discussion that sex is well-defined. Some persons unambiguously have the male sex and some persons unambiguously have the female sex.

The male sex is the one that naturally has the power to make members of the female sex become pregnant. The female sex is the one that naturally has the power to be made pregnant by members of the male sex.

Some persons have this power prevented from working because of various circumstances, and this does not prevent them belonging to the sex. Some persons have conditions which actually make it ambiguous which sex they belong to, but these are very few.

For all we know, it appears that the male sex is genetically caused by the presence of the Y chromosome, and the female sex is genetically caused by its absence.

2. Gendered language

Gendered language is language that we use, where applicable, to communicate the sex of things. The paradigm case of gendered language is the language phenomenon known as grammatical gender, whereby some words are “male” and some words are “female”.

In English, besides some pairs of names such as “male” and “female”, and “man” and “woman”, the only gendered words are pronouns, such as he/him and she/her. Adjectives and adverbs are mostly genderless.

Regarding infrahuman animals, we seem to have always used gendered words strictly in accordance with indicators of the sex of the animals. When speaking of humans, the situation is complicated by gender expression and gender roles.

Gender expression is nonverbal gendered language. For instance, a person may communicate, externally, that she is a member of the female sex by means of wearing clothes that are socially understood in association with that sex.

Nonverbal gendered language is parallel to nonverbal language in general. It is looser, it is not as clearly defined. But as much as there are clear cases of unambiguous nonverbal language – for instance, wearing a police uniform clearly communicates that you are a policeman – there have been some clear cases of unambiguous gender expression. That is, until the revolution.

3. Gender roles

Gender roles are a set of norms, customs, expectations, which society has associated with the sexes. The name comes from persons of a particular sex being expected to play particular roles in particular situations.

Since gender roles are “a social construct”, they depend a lot on language. Some persons have been able, for various reasons, to socially play the role of the opposite sex, and they have been aided in doing so by using gendered language and gender expression in a way that does not fit their sex.

Since gender roles are so important in society, they have complicated people’s understanding of the sexes themselves, and of gendered language, as applied to humans. Some people have been able to form the notion that being a woman requires certain social expressions and behaviors, perhaps even more strongly than belonging to the female sex.

Nevertheless, it is clear from examination of a sufficient number of particular cases of gender roles, that the original intention of gender roles was to discriminate people by sex. So, when persons have been able to fit socially into the gender roles of the other sex, they have been running afoul of the spirit of the norms – a kind of action which I shall call, subverting gender roles.

4. The revolution

The revolution was born quietly. The way I understand it is as follows.

Some persons had a mental condition which made them believe that they really belonged to the other sex, despite their visible body parts. It is possible, after all, for a male to fail to be born with a penis in various situations. What happened in cases of this mental condition is that a true female – a member of the female sex – would believe herself to be one such male. She would not think that her vagina is a penis, for instance, but rather that her penis is missing somehow.

In order to accommodate persons with this mental condition, and make them feel more comfortable, some people took to allowing them to use the gendered language and gender expression that fit their ideas, and going along with it.

But since the point of this accommodation was, after all, to help some people feel better, there was no reason to restrict this to persons who did have the particular mental condition. The door was opened to various persons requesting the accommodation for various reasons.

Such are now known as transgender persons. They do not necessarily have any particular mental characteristics in common; the only thing that they have in common is their use of gendered language and gender expression in a way that does not fit their sex, and their request that society go along with this, therefore allowing them to fit into the gender roles of the other sex, that is, to subvert gender roles.

Since people expect that language does nevertheless refer to something about the objects to which it refers, the idea was devised that gendered language actually refers to “the gender”, or “the gender identity”, of persons, which is distinct from their sex, and in fact separate from their sex in the case of transgender persons. This idea took off easily, since, again, gender roles had already remarkably complicated the ideas of many persons about the true point of gendered language and expression, and of the meaning of the sexes themselves, as applied to humans.

But since transgender persons only have in common the fact that they use gendered language and gender expression in a new way, which does not fit their sex, attempts to understand “gender identity” in terms of psychology, or in other terms, must fail to apply to all transgender persons; each person, after all, has unique motives to desire the language accommodation, although the mental condition remains a prominent one.

This is a revolution because, of course, its necessary result is a massive increase in cases of subversion of gender roles. The old norms and customs are being overturned before our eyes.

5. In favor of the revolution

The main benefit of the revolution is that various persons are made to feel better by getting the accommodations in language, expression, and treatment, that they desire. This is the main reason for passive acceptance of the revolution. People do it out of compassion.

Those who are more strongly in favor of the revolution must also believe that gender roles were all, necessarily, intrinsically unjust. As they would see it, it is wrong to treat someone differently because of his sex. Therefore, the old norms and customs should be overturned, and it is high time that they were, and the new use of language is helping with this, although, ideally, even gendered language and gender expression should be made irrelevant to someone’s social treatment. Such seems to be the opinion of the more self-conscious supporters of the revolution.

6. Against the revolution

Some persons are against the revolution, because they support at least some of the old traditional gender roles. While they may be in favor of their reform, they oppose a revolution in language which must eventually result in their total eradication, in spirit – their permanent failure, forevermore, to discriminate persons by sex.

The most popular old gender role norm to be supported is the distinction of the sexes in sports. More traditionalist persons may also wish to emphasize that members of the female sex really are better fitted to the roles of mother and wife, and that members of the male sex really are better fitted to the roles of father and husband, as society has understood them.

I believe that it makes the most sense for Catholics to be against the revolution, since, after all, a valid Catholic marriage is still, and will always be, between two persons of opposite sexes. It is more difficult to seek such a thing in a society where people’s sexes are not reliably communicated socially, and are sometimes even thought to be an intimate, private matter; which seems to be the end result of the revolution, if it succeeds.

7. Using words today

Gendered language may still be used unambiguously in referring to what are called cisgender persons, i.e., persons who are not transgender, and do not request any accommodation of language. But when speaking of transgender persons, the question arises of whether to accept the demands of the revolution, or to deny them.

I believe that the most important end of language is truth. So, if your audience is composed entirely of supporters of the revolution, you ought to speak in the way that they understand. If your audience is composed entirely of opposers of the revolution, you should do likewise. Try not to confuse people.

More often, your speech will be public, and toward a necessarily mixed audience. Ideally, you will make clarifications to accommodate both usages, where it is relevant, so that no one is misled by your words. But where it is not relevant, and where there is not enough space, you must stick to a single usage of gendered words, and hope that your readers will realize that this is your usual usage, and that it reflects your opinion regarding the revolution.

I think such cases are rarer than may be thought. It is often perfectly possible to use a single extra word to say “trans woman”, which makes it clear to persons on both sides that you are speaking of a member of the male sex who has requested the language accommodation. But strong supporters of the revolution may refrain from doing so even where it is possible, since this hinders the achievement of the final goal of the revolution, which is to make the sex of persons into a purely private matter. I believe that such persons sometimes do so at the risk of misleading others, and that in doing so, they embody a deceitful attitude, which is morally reprehensible.

But, anyway, there really are some cases where you must use a single gendered term without any clarification. Pick your side and stick with it.

Russell’s philosophic spirit

In this blog post, I say that Bertrand Russell was wrong about Thomas Aquinas, that Anthony Kenny was wrong about Bertrand Russell, and that Bertrand Russell was a dishonest hypocrite.

0. Contents

1. What I saw
1.1. Russell’s charge
1.2. Kenny’s answer
1.3. A meme
2. My opinions about what I saw
2.1. Kenny’s answer is inadequate
2.2. Russell’s charge is false
2.3. Russell is a hypocrite
3. Notes

1. What I saw

1.1. Russell’s charge

Bertrand Russell devotes chapter 13 of his History of Western Philosophy specifically to Saint Thomas Aquinas. He ends the chapter by accusing Thomas of being some sort of propagandist:

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead. He is not engaged in an inquiry, the result of which it is impossible to know in advance. Before he begins to philosophize, he already knows the truth; it is declared in the Catholic faith. If he can find apparently rational arguments for some parts of the faith, so much the better; if he cannot, he need only fall back on revelation. The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading. I cannot, therefore, feel that he deserves to be put on a level with the best philosophers either of Greece or of modern times.

1.2. Kenny’s answer 

Sir Anthony Kenny thought that this charge was not very serious. In the first chapter of his book Aquinas On Mind, which is meant to answer the question “Why read Aquinas?”[1], he answers it thus:

The other major obstacle to the study of Aquinas outside ecclesiastical institutions has been the belief that his philosophical integrity was compromised by his adhesion to the authority of the Church. If, in advance of any philosophical inquiry, he was committed to a detailed set of beliefs on fundamental issues, surely he was not engaged in any impartial inquiry, following the argument wherever it led, but simply looking for good reasons for what he already believed.

The first thing to be said in response to this allegation is that it is not necessarily a serious charge against a philosopher to say that he is looking for good reasons for what he already believes in. Descartes, for instance, sitting beside his fire wearing his dressing gown, was looking for good reasons for believing that that was what he was doing, and he took a remarkably long time to find them. Bertrand Russell was one of those who accused Aquinas of not being a real philosopher because he was looking for reasons for what he already believed. It is extraordinary that that accusation should be made by Russell, who in the book Principia Mathematica takes hundreds of pages to prove that two and two make four, which is something he had believed all his life. [2]

1.3. A meme 

Kenny’s rhetorical prowess and defense of Thomas Aquinas have led this last sentence to end up in the following meme, made by the notable Catholic Filipino meme page called Katoliko Memes PH 2:[3]

(source)

2. My opinions about what I saw

2.1. Kenny’s answer is inadequate

I think Kenny has underestimated the seriousness of Russell’s charge. To “find arguments for a conclusion given in advance” really is not philosophy. It is an inversion of proper philosophical method, and the result is a disjointed system where the conclusions are more evident than the principles, which were made up and accepted with the sole purpose of supporting the conclusions. I see no reason to believe that Descartes was doing that, as Kenny says he was. Russell may have been doing that in the Principia Mathematica, but mathematical systems have always been totally arbitrary, and were never meant to be philosophy.

2.2. Russell’s charge is false

Despite being serious, though, the charge is simply false of Thomas Aquinas. Simply being a Christian does not make someone a rhetorician, and Russell gives no reason to believe that Thomas Aquinas was ever thinking backwards. The fact that Thomas rejected the ontological argument for the existence of God, for instance, seems to speak to his honesty, since this would be a waste of effort if he were seeking only to “find apparently rational arguments” for his opinions, rather than to find the truth about his subjects as best he could.

2.3. Russell is a hypocrite

Despite the Principia Mathematica not constituting an example of this, Russell really is guilty of his own charge, as may be shown from the ending of his introduction to Wittgenstein’s Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. In that introduction, Russell discusses some of Wittgenstein’s opinions. Not wanting to agree with all of them, he advances a hypothesis which might disprove one of Wittgenstein’s arguments. About that hypothesis, he says the following:

Such an hypothesis is very difficult, and I can see objections to it which at the moment I do not know how to answer. Yet I do not see how any easier hypothesis can escape from Mr Wittgenstein’s conclusions. Even if this very difficult hypothesis should prove tenable, it would leave untouched a very large part of Mr Wittgenstein’s theory, though possibly not the part upon which he himself would wish to lay most stress. As one with a long experience of the difficulties of logic and of the deceptiveness of theories which seem irrefutable, I find myself unable to be sure of the rightness of a theory, merely on the ground that I cannot see any point on which it is wrong.

Now, since Russell is unwilling to accept “the rightness of a theory”, even when he “cannot see any point on which it is wrong”, this shows clearly that he is not willing to “follow wherever the argument may lead” at all. In fact, he proposes a hypothesis, despite its difficulties, with the sole purpose to “escape from Mr Wittgenstein’s conclusions”, which is plainly the “finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance”, namely the denial of Mr Wittgenstein’s conclusions. 

This is a perversion of philosophy, and Russell is dishonest for doing it. He is also a hypocrite, since he condemned the same thing in another, who was not even guilty of the charge.

[Addendum 2023-10-06: When I wrote this post, I wasn’t even aware of Russell’s 1907 paper The Regressive Method of Discovering the Premises of Mathematics, which defends making up principles for defending desired mathematical conclusions; his hypocrisy went deeper than I had thought.]

3. Notes

[1] I have no idea why books about Thomas Aquinas begin by trying to defend their subject like this. Anyone who is reading has already decided to buy a book about Thomas Aquinas, so just get on with it, no?

[2] The passage is from page 11, and Kenny says more things after it, but they do not matter here.

[3] Clearly “PH” stands for the Philippines. Sometimes their memes reference specific Filipino topics; they are usually in English, but rarely you may also see something in Tagalog. Their memes are generally high quality. They seem to be SSPX sympathizers, but this rarely comes up.

Clear speech

I believe that following the rules below would make philosophical discussions clearer. The layout of this post is meant to make it easier to enact these rules as laws in a discussion forum.

1. Do not use “evidence” as a concrete noun

Rule: Do not ask for “evidence” of something, say that there is “evidence” for something, or say that “evidence” supports something. Speak, instead, of “reasons” to believe something.

You may use “evidence” as an abstract noun, meaning the quality of being “evident”.

Explanation: Talk of “evidence” biases discussions toward empiricism, because it heavily implies that the reasons to believe a statement are expected to be empirical data.

2. Do not refer to propositions as “intuitions”

Rule: Do not refer to any propositions or beliefs as “intuitions”, except when quoting or paraphrasing someone else. Say it in other words. For instance: “belief”, “opinion”, “clear and distinct conception”, “unprovable proposition”, “innate belief”...

Explanation: The word “intuition” is hopelessly ambiguous, and too often a rhetorical trick, used to falsely imply that a proposition is evident.

3. Do not speak of unqualified “needs”

Rule: Do not speak of “need” without saying what a thing is needed for. Do not speak of persons having “needs”.

Explanation: The idea of “needs” is too unclear to use.

4. Do not express emotions

Rule: Do not say how you feel, or how anyone feels, about anything, unless it is a part of a quotation which cannot be omitted. Adjectives such as “shocking” or “pleasant” are part of this.

Explanation: The passions are enemies to reason. No one feels emotions and does philosophy at the same time.

5. Do not use figures of speech unexplained

Rule: Do not use similes, metaphors, and analogies to sensible things, without immediately explaining what is meant by them in more abstract language.

Explanation: The senses are enemies to reason. No one uses his imagination and does philosophy at the same time.

6. Mark sentences that express analytic judgments as such (Added 2022-06-22)

Rule: If you mean a sentence to express an analytic rather than a synthetic judgment, use a phrase such as “by nature” or “by definition” to mark it as such.

Explanation: When unmarked, all sentences could be meant as either analytic or synthetic, and the ambiguity is best avoided, since this makes a difference as to whether they are true.