If it were true that “There are only two kinds of people in the world,” then everyone of the one kind would be qualitatively identical to everyone else of the same kind. Well, apart from identical newborn twins and everyone else, they’re not. And so clearly that’s not what people mean. What they mean, if they think about it, is that there are an infinite number of two-kinds of people, and they’re picking out one of that infinite number of two-kinds. And what they’re saying is that everyone of the one kind is qualitatively identical to everyone else of the same kind with respect to that particular property.
To that particular property only? Not necessarily. Let’s put aside whether there are only two kinds of people, male and female. Whether those two categories are exhaustive or not, there are males, and there are females. Surely more than one male can be red-headed, and more than one female can be brown-eyed.
This much is just a duh. But here’s the puzzle. As it happens, the set of chordates and the set of renates are co-extensive. That is, whatever organism has a heart also has a kidney, and whatever organism has kidney also has a heart. So if I say, “There are only two kinds of organisms, chordates and non-chordates,” am I saying, “There are only two kinds of organisms, renates and non-renates.”? Certainly not if I don’t know that the sets of chordates and renates are co-extensive. But suppose I do know. If I’ve just had a heart attack a nephrologist does me no good. I want a cardiologist. And preferably not a veterinarian cardiologist.
What this shows is that for any real-world purposes we have in mind for carving up the human world, there are almost never only two kinds of people. There are red-headed males and non-red-headed males, there are brown-eyed girls and non-brown-eyed girls, there are … And so on, pretty much ad infinitum. So “There are only two kinds of people, male and female …” is an incomplete utterance. It requires a for these or for those purposes.
What’s been in dispute for the past couple of decades is not whether there are two kinds of people, male and female, for some purposes and not for others, but what those purposes are and are not. For the purpose of scheduling Pap smears? Not an issue. But for purposes of segregation in sports and shower rooms? Huge issues!
Disputants who don’t define their terms are just two ships passing in the night. But just as fruitless is not specifying the purpose for which they’ve divided the world as they have. Specify the purpose and then divide the world accordingly. For the purpose of shower room access, that there are two kinds of people, male and female, doesn’t cut it. What you’re after, I presume, is people with a penis and people without one. And here’s the rub. Some people without a penis don’t like showering with people with one.
Well, you might think, that’s a her problem. No, it’s yours too. For among the desiderata of civil society is what Hobbes calls the “fifth law of nature, complaisance,” namely “that every man [sic] strive to accommodate himself to the rest.” Fair enough. But in this case we seem to have competing demands for accommodation. So now what?
One proposal is to minimise the aggregate setback of interests. But this requires doing an interpersonal utility comparison, and personal utilities are notoriously hard to quantify. The squeakiest wheel isn’t always the most deserving of the grease. So both sides campaign for ‘allies’, she-without-a-penis to the Christian right, she-with-one to the woke left.
As it happens, I have no skin in this game. But I have friends who do. I’m neither Christian nor woke, so no one’s asked me to sign their [sic] petition. But I’m hoping that the very act of parsing the issue takes some of the vitriol out of it.
I don’t know how many kinds of people there are, but I’ve noticed there are only two kinds of entries in my blog, those designed to raise the temperature, and those designed to lower it. The former are more fun, but the latter are arguably more useful. This one was probably neither. Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.
Categories: argumentation theory, argumentation theory, Critical Thinking, Everything You Wanted to Know About What's Going On in the World But Were Afraid to Ask, Social and Political Philosophy
Paulosophical Vimplications 
Leave a comment