iwpoe wrote:

Thus, in the bulk of cases, I don't understand you to be dealing with anything metaphysically problematic.

Yes, I'm aware that the peculiar metaphysics of modernity dictate both that my autonomous will can simply "identify" as a woman, and I will be one, my "existence creating my essence" or "constructing my own reality", and that my body is my property, to autonomously do with as I please, to such an extent that if it were biologically possible for me to conceive a child in my body, I would be a have a moral right to have it killed.

And I'm also aware that some people have a pathological kind of gender dysphoria that should be treated as a sickness.

But you got my question backwards. I don't care about the bulk of cases (if your account does apply to the bulk of them).  I am interested in the ones that ARE metaphysically problematic, IF ANY ARE.  



 

Last edited by Jason Grey (7/25/2015 12:18 am)

iwpoe wrote:

Well, we could start with the most obvious case that's a good candidate for a metaphysical gender problem: the medical hermaphrodite. I'm not exactly sure what to do with people who have a problem down to the point of a chromosomal abnormality that results in mixed expression of genitals and sexual characteristics.

Even if they are some kind of deformation of human nature they still would have some kind of proper metaphysical description. They wouldn't have no essence. And in that case you would have to admit that this is a human being or at least something very much like a human being that is not one gender or the other but in some sense analogous to both. Is that an adequate way of talking about it or is there something wrong with that account?

If you don't want to admit that the soul can be neither male nor female (or both/and), then it seems to me that the hermaphrodite would be a genuine case of somebody of some unknown metaphysical gender stuck in a body that does not express it.

Of course they have an essence: human being.  But we have an imperfect instantiation of that essence.   I would unhesitatingly says "This is a human being." 

You are wrong that it follows from this that I would "have a human being that is neither one gender nor the other."  First of all, there are a good number chromosomal abnormalities, XXX, XXY, XYY, and others.  I know that *what* I am dealing with is a human being that is neither clearly male or female.  But since I know human beings are sexually dimorphic as male or female, and I know "here is a human being with whose development something has gone wrong" it is perfectly reasonable for me to say "this human being is either a male whose development has gone wrong or a female whose development has gone wrong, even if I can't easly tell which I am dealing with."  

BUT

I don't want to talk about INTERSEXED people now (unless we need to).   I am interested in knowing what MAKES one be of a given sex.  The body? The soul? The composite? The body is clearly sexed.  Is the soul? And, if it is, is it possible for there to be a gendered soul in a differently gendered body.  

One's sex is a peculiar property.  Male and female are not sub-species of human being.  But what are they?  Is it like Aristotle when he says "We are neither virtuous or vicious by nature, but by nature we are either virtuous or vicious" ? It seems right to me to say "human nature is such that human beings are either male or female."   One's sex seems like a proper accident, except each human being gets one or the other, which doesn't seem like "capacity for humor" or "memory."  "Female" and "male" certainly seem closer to the human essence than variation in hair characteristics.  

I would really like to hear people's thoughts on the metaphysical status of "male" and "female."   Are they essential to personhood? 
 

Last edited by Jason Grey (7/25/2015 3:27 am)

Jason Grey wrote:

You are wrong that it follows from this that I would "have a human being that is neither one gender nor the other."  First of all, there are a good number chromosomal abnormalities, XXX, XXY, XYY, and others.  I know that *what* I am dealing with is a human being that is neither clearly male or female.  But since I know human beings are sexually dimorphic as male or female, and I know "here is a human being with whose development something has gone wrong" it is perfectly reasonable for me to say "this human being is either a male whose development has gone wrong or a female whose development has gone wrong, even if I can't easly tell which I am dealing with."

I meant to say “You might have” not “You would have”. Sorry: talk-type with the phone.

I wanted to polish up very clearly how you’re thinking about gender with a less vague case.

BUT

Jason Grey wrote:

I don't want to talk about INTERSEXED people now (unless we need to).

I’ll try it your way.

Jason Grey wrote:

I'm interested in what sort of metaphysical account one might try to use to either defend or discredit the concept.  What is transsexualism?  Popular phrases are "a woman trapped in a man's body" or a "man tripped in a woman's body" (I'll just mention MtF transsexualism for short).   Is there anything to this account?  Are souls gendered (or sexed) as well as bodies?  Can a person have a female soul but a male body?  (we do know that in a fallen world, accidents happen).   Is transsexualism compatable with a hylomorphic account, that is, if the psychē just is the form of the body, is it possible that has actualized the body as the wrong sex? 

[…]

Can there really be such a thing 'as a woman trapped in a man's body'?

Well, I’m having a hard time seeing a case where that wouldn’t be a pathology of some sort: I’m meant as a human being to actualize 2 arms. If I’m born with 1, then I’ve some sort of pathological deformity simply by virtue of the fact that I didn’t develop both. I would think it would be the same for gender problems.

But I suppose you’re asking about the case of a non-hylomorphic dualism also. If the dualist-soul can be considered entirely apart from the body, can it be considered to have a gender? Well, it seems obvious to me that you could stipulate that it can or that you can conclude so on the basis of the assumption of a dualist account of the soul plus certain scriptural evidence and psychological observations, but it’s hard to see the rout directly from dualism *to* dualism with a gendered soul. I’m just thinking about the usual caricature of Descartes: the soul as such seems to be nothing but unextended, immaterial, rational substance. The markers of gender seem all to be non-rational and many seems to be features of matter and extension. The best candidates for gendered markers of the soul on a Cartesian dualist account seem to me to be feminine and masculine habits of thought but I do not see how the Cartesian can settle whether these involve the activity of non-gendered reason as embodied in a gendered body (for even animals show differences in tendency between the sexes) or gendered reason in a gendered body. What would mark the difference? 

On a hylomorphic-dualist account I think it would be perfectly proper to say that souls as forms of the body are gendered in some sense just as they must, in some sense, have red hair or be inclined to run faster than others. For the hylomorphic soul, as I understand it, is a form of this body and not the form of man as such, otherwise, in what sense is it *me* who is immortal?

Jason Grey wrote:

Neil Gaimon somewhere in Sandman has a story about a MtF transgendered woman named Wanda, who is portrayed in rather saintly way, whom we see after her death as (finally) with a female body (albeit a spiritual one of some sort).  Is there any possible case to be made out that transsexualism is a real phenomenon, and that Christians could plausibly hold that those who are truly and not pathologically gender dysphoric might (say) be given spiritual bodies of the opposite sex they had before, at the Resurrection?

I think I’m very confused about what you mean to speak of a non-pathological case. Neil Gaimon is surely suffering a pathology he means to treat by way of becoming Wanda. Do you mean to ask whether that could ever be a proper treatment that could be perfected by God as God might perfect eyes I now treat with lenses or surgery or are you asking whether being MtF need be any sort of pathology in the first place?

Jason Grey wrote:

I am interested in knowing what MAKES one be of a given sex.  The body? The soul? The composite? The body is clearly sexed.  Is the soul? And, if it is, is it possible for there to be a gendered soul in a differently gendered body. 

One's sex is a peculiar property.  Male and female are not sub-species of human being.  But what are they?  Is it like Aristotle when he says "We are neither virtuous or vicious by nature, but by nature we are either virtuous or vicious" ? It seems right to me to say "human nature is such that human beings are either male or female."   One's sex seems like a proper accident, except each human being gets one or the other, which doesn't seem like "capacity for humor" or "memory."  "Female" and "male" certainly seem closer to the human essence than variation in hair characteristics.

Can you tell me whether it belongs to *my* soul that *I* be redheaded? I understand that, on a hylomorphic account, that does, in some sense belong to my soul because the soul is to be the form of my body and that is one of my essential features (while the scar on my left hand isn’t such a feature and doesn’t belong to my soul).

Jason Grey wrote:

I would really like to hear people's thoughts on the metaphysical status of "male" and "female."   Are they essential to personhood?

Well, can you better tell me what you mean by ‘person’ or do you simply want my answer?
I submit that it would be right to call by ‘person’…

1.    Rational monosexual aliens
2.    Angels, devils, and demons
3.    God

…by virtue of their intellect alone. Since I see no reason that it be necessary to consider 1 metaphysically impossible or 2 and 3 to be gendered then I would be in need of further elaboration to accept some version of the claim that “gender is essential to personhood”.

I could argue this way, it seems:

1.    If something has the faculty of intellect then it has “personhood”.
2.    Intellect seems to have nothing to do with gender (there is no particularly feminine intellection of “triangle” and male intellection of “triangle” only intellection itself as performed by people who are, in the case of human beings, gendered male and female).
3.    For gender to be essential to personhood as such it would have to be essential to the intellect.
4.    But gender isn’t essential to the intellect.
∴    Gender isn’t essential to personhood.

Last edited by iwpoe (7/25/2015 6:15 am)

I am really not sure about transexualism. It is certainly a phenomena that does have some precedent in traditional societies across the world.

I think that we would have to have a more worked out metaphysics of the sexes (I really wish people wouldn't use the term gender in this sense!).  Then, obviously, we'd have to look at the actual empirical evidence for those claiming to be transexual to see how this fits out metaphysical understanding of sex. Such evidence is far weaker than is often bandied about in the media - there is for example, no real proof that a transexual has the brain of the opposite sex or anything like that. To the traditional philosopher or amateur, it is an area rich in opportunities for furthering our understanding.