Philosophy of Love and Sex

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Philosophy of Love and Sex

• Sexual Equality

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Anita Superson, A Feminist Definition of Sexual
Harassment

• Superson defines sexual harassment as
• any behavior (verbal or physical) caused by a
  person, A, in the dominant class directed at
  another, B, in the subjugated class, that
  expresses and perpetuates the attitude that B or
  members of Bs sex is / are inferior because of
  their sex, thereby causing harm to B and / or
  members of Bs sex. p. 699

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Superson, Sexual Harassment

• Thus sexual harassment of a woman is necessarily
  directed at all women, according to Superson.
• It also follows from Supersons definition that
  men cant be sexually harassed by women.
• Finally, this is an objective definition of SH
• (i) it doesnt matter whether the woman being
  (directly) harassed is actually bothered by the
  harassment and
• (ii) it doesnt matter whether the man doing the
  harassing intended to bother the woman.

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F.M. Christensen, Sexual Harassment Must Be
Eliminated

• According to Christensen, the very concept of
  sexual harassment is problematic for a number of
  reasons.
• It is conceptually incoherent.
• It lumps together serious crimes, minor
  offenses, and actions that are arguably not wrong
  at all.
• What the actions do have in commonis irrelevant
  to what it is about each action that makes it
  wrong. 706
• By definition harassment involves ongoing
  efforts that vex someone else 710 yet the
  term sexual harassment is often used to label
  single acts.

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Christensen, Sexual Harassment

• It perpetuates this cultures long-entrenched
  antisexualism sex is debased and debasing unless
  redeemed by something noble (love, art, etc.).
  708
• The fact that a type of behaviour as harmless
  and as natural for human beings as talking about
  sex would be treated as a crime reveals something
  deeply perverted about this culture. 708
• Analogy with anti-religious feelings and aversion
  to emotional closeness

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Christensen, Sexual Harassment

• The assumption that male sexual openness toward
  women is sexist, is false.
• In fact, this assumption is itself sexist toward
  women. It relies on the double standard of
  sexual offense, whereby women are supposed to be
  too morally pure for exposure to sexual thought,
  speech and behaviour.
• Relative to that double standard then,
  treating women the same as men in regard to
  sexual frankness is seen as treating them worse
  - i.e., discriminating against them.
  Yesterdays charge of disrespect for women has
  simply become todays sexism against women.
  711

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Christensen, Sexual Harassment

• The concept and application of sexual
  harassment are discriminatory against men.
• The social tradition of male-initiated romantic /
  sexual contact, which women have done little to
  reverse, places men at serious risk of
  prosecution, since unwanted expressions of
  sexual interest constitute sexual harassment.
• SH policy employs a double standard, whereby
  typically male methods of sexual expression are
  punishable, and typically female methods are not.

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An Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology

• A herd of gazelle

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Intro to EP

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Intro to EP

• What physical features of the gazelle will help
  it to escape?
• i.
• ii.
• iii.
• iv.

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Intro to EP

• What is this gazelle doing?

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Intro to EP

• What psychological features of the gazelle will
  help it to escape?
• i.
• ii.
• iii.
• iv.

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Intro to EP

• A key insight
• a watershed event in evolutionary history was
  the evolution of psychological signalspositive
  or negative feelingsthat inform the animal when
  its goals of survival and reproduction are being
  met or unmet.
• MacDonald and Hershberger, 2005

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Intro to EP

• Evolutionary Psychology (EP) A recent
  interdisciplinary effort to explain the mind as a
  product of evolution.
• In other words, EP is the attempt to show that
  psychological traits such as beliefs, fears,
  desires, and reasoning processes are part of our
  species genetic inheritance.

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Intro to EP

• If we are, as Richard Dawkins puts it, the
  vehicles through which our DNA replicates itself,
  then
• What roles do our various psychological traits
  play in this process of replication? Can we
  explain, that is, our mental traits as
  evolutionary adaptations?

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Intro to EP

• Why are babies and pandas cute?

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• Everything can be inherited except sterility.
  None of your ancestors died childless.
• -Matt Ridley, The Red Queen

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Intro to EP

• EP goes against an influential 20th century view
  of human nature according to which human nature
  is a product of culture.
• This view is very old, but its modern roots are
  in John Lockes view of the mind as a tabula
  rasa.

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Intro to EP

• Human nature is a product of culture, but
  culture is also a product of human nature, and
  both are products of evolution.
• -Matt Ridley, The Red Queen

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Robert Wright, Feminists, Meet Mr. Darwin

• Wrights thesis
• Evolutionary psychology sees (among other
  things) some clear differences between the male
  and female minds.many of the differences between
  men and women are more stubborn than most
  feminists would like, and complicate the quest
  for - even the definition of - social
  equality between the sexes. Wright, 470

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Wright, Feminists

• According to Wright, men and women are (on
  average) profoundly different, psychologically,
  in part because of their different biological
  roles in reproduction.
• Source xkcd.com

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Wright, Feminists

• Thus many of the specific behavioural
  differences traditionally observed between men
  and women have a biological basis.
• On feminine sexual reserve
• A female can reproduce less often than a male,
  because she is stuck with the time-sapping job of
  birthing and maybe even rearing the young. Thus
  it makes Darwinian sense for her to appraise
  carefully the quality of aspiring mates - both
  their genetic quality and, in species with high
  parental investment, like ours, their ability
  and willingness to help provide for the young
  after birth. 470

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Wright, Feminists

• One of Wrights major themes is that our
  societys failure to openly acknowledge deep
  sexual differences prevents us from dealing
  effectively with sexual conflict.
• If women and men are different, to treat women
  and men fairly the law must explicitly address
  these differences.

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Wright, Feminists

• Consider his criticism of the American Supreme
  Courts reasonable person criterion for sexual
  harassment
• How does a reasonable person feel about the
  implication that he or she closed a deal by
  sleeping with a customer? Well, the average
  woman feels quite insulted, and the average man
  feels somewhere between mildly insulted and quite
  flattered. She is being called a whore. He is
  being called a stud. 473
• Hence
• Asking what a reasonable person finds
  offensive is like asking what color a typical
  fruit is. 474

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Wright, Feminists

• What is the naturalistic fallacy?