phiLOLZophy

Cartesian Dualism

Cartesian Dualism is both wholly responsible for the worldview you probably hold now and probably the most disappointing thing to have happened to anybody ever in the last couple of hundred of years.

Here’s the deal. Dualism as defined by Descartes (hence Cartesian, our “C” this week) has two components:

1. The world is divided into two separate, distinct, dual realities (in an ontological sense; we’ll get to “O” eventually).

2. One of those “halves” is better than the other. This is where Descartes borrowed from Plato… reality must be ranked in a top-down hierarchy rather than represented in terms of an equal-but-different distinction.

This has been the case since Plato and the dawn of Christianity so it’s not like Descartes or modern feminists or me invented it; it’s super ingrained in the Western world and, quite simply, that’s that.

Here’s some dualist hierarchies (again—that means there are two groups and one is better than another) that you as an American and/or Western European probably at least to some degree assume, implicitly or explicitly:

[Note: I am NOT supporting these dualities as reality or even suggesting that they aren’t super offensive, just saying they are wedded to the Western worldview so you are at the very least familiar with them]

Men are superior to women
Whites are superior to non-whites
Technology is better than nature
Wealthy people are better than non-wealthy people
Straight people are better than gay people

You get the picture. Cartesian dualism is maybe okay as a metaphysic (see “M” in like a dozen days) but for now let’s agree that it’s responsible for lots of people being shitty to lots of other people.

“Boat” Ethics

Okay this one is a reach but all the other “B”-related stuff is better utilized in other parts of the alphabet (yes I have it all planned) so today we are going to talk about what is technically called Lifeboat Ethics, appropriately abbreviated for the sake of consistency.

I like to think of lifeboat ethics as a way to conceptualize ethical dilemmas in general. Why think about ethics in the first place? Because in many cases it will not be immediately clear what the right decision is, and/or no option may be perfectly free of negative consequences.

Thinking about lifeboat ethics allows one to explore the various, broad aspects of moral decision-making and consider for themselves what matters.

So here’s the scenario… you are on a lifeboat stuck in the middle of the ocean. It becomes apparent that there is only enough food and water to support all but one of you, and the raft cannot support the weight of all of you either. Long story short: somebody gotta go if anybody wanna live.

The general question is this: if faced with the decision to deliberately kill one person to save the life of several others, does the good of the many outweigh the good of the few/one? Does the end justify the means?

We could argue about that for hours, right? On the one hand, if you throw someone overboard, you’ve saved a lot more people than you’ve harmed. Good, right? But on the other hand, if you don’t do anything, at least you aren’t literally culpable for someone’s death. You haven’t violated any rights. If anybody (all of you) dies, it’s the lifeboat’s fault, not a moral agent’s. Dilemma!!!!

But consider this—in the real world, to throw or not to throw is a way bigger decision that. Consider the lifeboat’s companions are you, Kourtney, Khloe and Kim Kardashian, Kourtney’s baby, and your great grandmother. The stakes change, huh.

Suddenly the following issues become relevant:
- Does it matter whether the person you throw overboard is a ‘good person’?
- What if they are a wife or a mother… does the fact that they have family make them more worthy of living?
- Does a child deserve to live because it is ‘innocent’ and has the whole world ahead of it? Or what about an older person, who has many dependent family members?
- Do you get to change your mind based on your personal feelings towards the person?
- Should you just draw straws?
- Should you throw yourself overboard so you don’t have to decide?
- Should you chance it and hope Kim can survive without food by her body absorbing her ass fat? 

Would you throw someone overboard? If so, would would you pick and why?

The Adversarial Method

Listen up cuz this is probably the most important thing I will ever teach you if you typically find yourself on the powerless end of the relationship spectrum (and let’s be honest, you do, given the apparent positive correlation between # of notes our posts get as compared to general poutiness of said post).

Back when I was in grad school I invited the other lolz doll to come and visit me where she met my then-boyfriend. Of course we got in a fight (because at best we were incompatible and at worst he was a majorly certifiable dummie) and rather than take my side, she pulled him aside and whispered to him to “tell her she’s being adversarial.” He did that in every fight for the next three years and it was infuriating.

The adversarial method is basically what happens when two people attack each other with logic in a way that’s less deliberative and more just an attempt to aggressively destroy the other’s position in attempt to promote their own. It’s not a fallacy in the way that another “A” is—the ad hominem (attacking the person holding the argument and not the argument itself—but it’s still alienating in the sense that it doesn’t allow for discussion, compromise, feeling, etc. 

An analytic feminist (Janice Moulton—here’s where if I was teaching I’d say, “It’s okay, you don’t need to know her name, just the concept”…. probably gonna get struck down for that) thought of it because she was all “the adversary method doesn’t give women a fair chance because they are both less aggressive and less allowed to be aggressive.” But you don’t have to be a woman or even a feminist to see how this is an unproductive way of communicating.

That said she has a point—think about Hilary Clinton. People hate her for some reason (well you don’t, you read blogs and are an interesting, well-rounded person) but I think a lot of it is because she doesn’t represent her typical gender role (she’s an ESTJ, the most masculine personality type, if that means anything to you). We feel uncomfortable because we want her to be more girly, which is less assertive, aggressive, rational, etc. 

Anyway, you don’t have to be a chick to fall victim to the adversary method—anyone who employs emotional evidence when engaged in arguments, wants to compromise rather than win, etc., will feel uncomfortable with a unilateral, attacking method of argument.

So here’s how I’m going to help you…. next time some hyper-rational, unemotional a-hole is yelling at you, just say, simply, “you’re utilizing the adversarial method and I refuse to engage with you.” At the very least they’ll be confused… that’s worth something.