Here’s what I trust will be an instructive analogy. There are very few knock-down arguments in philosophy, but Plato’s Euthyphro is one of them. Does God make something good by approving of it, asks Socrates, or does He approve of… Read More ›
self-identification
IDENTITY
I think of myself as tall, dark, and handsome. I’m both fun and funny. I’m warm, sensitive, caring, generous, and incredibly intelligent. In short, I’m God’s gift to women. But apparently this judgment is not widely shared. But surely there’s… Read More ›
SELF-IDENTIFICATION
If what it is to be a woman, or Black, or Jewish, is just to publicly so self-identify, then all hell’s going to break loose. Some dirty ol’ man like me is going to saunter at will and unchallenged into… Read More ›
JEWS, THE SHOAH, AND IDENTITY POLITICS (July 18, 2017)
There’s not a whole lot that’s special about us Jews. Yes, we do celebrate Easter by drinking the blood of a Christian baby, preferably one still wet from the baptismal fount. But other than that we’re pretty much like everyone… Read More ›
GENDER DYSPHORIA
A few years back the feminist philosophy journal Hypatia published a paper by Rebecca Tuvel in which she wondered, if one can be trans-gendered, why not trans-racial? So one has to either deny one can be trans-gendered, or else deny that… Read More ›
GENDER IDENTITY – WHO GETS TO SAY?
Unless you’re some kind of natural law theorist – in which case there’s no talking to you – let it be granted that all rights are contingent on the material conditions recommending them to us. And at that, they’re negotiated…. Read More ›
Burkinis and Bathrooms
BURKINIS AND BATHROOMS Sometime during the Apartheid years in South Africa there was a proposal to do an end run around international condemnation of the regime’s racism by having certain rights – presumably the important ones – attach not to… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 