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A thread for further comments on the misconduct by the Hypatia editors and the defamation of Prof. Tuvel

Brian Leiter

MOVING TO FRONT FROM MAY 4–FURTHER DISCUSSION INVITED

I continue to get e-mail from readers related to this earlier thread; I think it will be more efficient to open a discussion thread here for further contributions.  Do look at the earlier contributions by Debra Satz, Jose Bermudez, Matt Kotzen et al. to get an idea what is sought.  I will moderate and edit for substance and discursive relevance.  Thanks.  (Signed comments only, valid e-mail address, which will not appear.)

ADDENDUM:  Trying to moderate two threads, I've lost track about which permitted pseudonyms, which didn't.  I do still require a valid e-mail address, that won't be published, and please try to keep it substantive.

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50 responses to “A thread for further comments on the misconduct by the Hypatia editors and the defamation of Prof. Tuvel”

  1. Steven Hales

    To me, one of the incredible things about the Tuvel matter, and also the Kipnis/Ludlow imbroglio, is that anyone daring to suggest that the putatively transgendered, transracial, or ostensible victims of sexual misconduct could be mistaken in some way is swiftly marched to the auto-da-fé. The vast literature on self-deception, privileged access, and personal identity seems summarily ignored in favor of the infallibility of personal feelings. This is especially ironic at a time when the epistemic value of intuition is under serious scrutiny and work on heuristics and biases continues apace. Critics who think that philosophy is worthless outside of the ivory tower are vindicated when philosophers ignore their own scholarship in practical life.

    Reply
  2. Justin Kalef

    I agree completely, Steven. However, I also wonder whether some of the characters who are behaving in these ways were ever really committed to philosophy (as it seems most of us understand philosophy) in the first place. Some of the difficulty may stem from the fact that we often apply the term 'philosophy' to a range of very different practices. If that is right, then the best response to these critics may be to point out that many, and I suspect most, of us are committed to the careful questioning of our most cherished beliefs and causes, and that we should not be run together with those who are apparently pursuing a very different set of goals by a different set of methods just because our work is misleadingly referred to by the same word.

    With philosophy yet again in the media in a negative color, as all humanities departments face ongoing funding crises and so much relies on our promoting and maintaining the reputation of our discipline, I wonder whether it might be helpful to consider what it is that we, as philosophers, essentially stand for, and be mindful of presenting ourselves that way.

    I have always taken for granted that what anything properly calling itself philosophy must be committed to includes the following:

    a) the careful, reasonable consideration of a range of topics, including (and perhaps especially) many of the most sensitive and controversial issues there are. Many people do not dare to discuss or even question the accepted views of their culture or subculture on matters of religion, morality, politics, and so on. We philosophers are bold enough to wade in on such issues with reasoned criticisms of all views, including the most popular and sacred, and to promote free discussion on these matters. Indeed, this is one of the great social benefits of, and perhaps the primary justification for, philosophy.

    b) the impartial consideration (or as close as we can come to it) of the best reasoning and evidence on all sides, rather than social pressure or other forms of silencing and exclusion, as the way to resolve the issues we consider.

    c) teaching people to think for themselves rather than to accept our worldviews. A test of this: which of these results would you count as evidence that you were doing an irresponsible job teaching: if your students develop their reasoning skills to a high degree in your classes but use them to come to conclusions of which you strongly disapprove, or if they come away from your courses comfortable in your views but without the intellectual and emotional resources to question them? If the latter, then it seems clear that you are not primarily teaching philosophy but rather engaging in indoctrination.

    d) promoting a professional culture of diverse viewpoints and critical open-mindedness in our service to the profession. Whether one is helping to assemble a colloquium series, a panel, a set of articles to be published in a journal or anthology, or even the members of a department, it runs counter to the spirit of philosophy to limit the range of viewpoints. It is all too easy to justify excluding unfamiliar views and arguments by saying that they do not take into consideration enough of the existing literature. If there are arguments or objections in the literature that someone is overlooking, then one can provide that person with a summary of those arguments or objections. But a true philosopher welcomes criticism from the outside. A solid philosophical position or argument should be able to withstand naïve criticism quite easily. Moreover, it is often those who are the least steeped in the often-invisible ideological commitments of a subdiscipline who can raise the most important objections.

    I know that many will dismiss my views as naïve, uninformed, limited, or outdated. I have a few questions for those who think this:

    1) We as a discipline often, and increasingly, have to make a public case for the value of philosophical research. Imagine that you are called upon to make such a case, and that your audience consists of people who do not share your sociopolitical views and dismiss philosophy as just so much indoctrination. In such a setting, I think the best bet is to point to the boldness with which we question even the views we ourselves hold most dear, to the rigorous openness and responsiveness to all serious criticism we exhibit in our professional work in person and in print, and to the great value we put on diverse viewpoints. If you don’t think these things are of fundamental importance to the discipline, how would you make the case for philosophical research?

    2) Imagine that the president of your institution is on the verge of eliminating your philosophy department: she just doesn’t see the need to sustain it when there are already social sciences and humanities departments that, as far as she can see, teach all the skills philosophy is meant to teach. How would you respond?

    3) Your department is hiring a new member, and you are on the search committee. One of the two top candidates strikes you as deeply committed to a reasoned self-examination of her most cherished views, and to be open to changing her mind in the face of good reasons. The other is committed to various sociopolitical causes to such an extent that she finds it inappropriate even to discuss or entertain views she finds wrong, and sets about silencing them in alliance with others. There have been some divisive issues in the department, and you realize that the new hire might oppose you on them. Which would you prefer as your colleague, and why?

    4) It is quite likely that those who complete their undergraduate programs in their early twenties today will continue to be active citizens and workers until their late seventies – a period of some fifty-five years after graduation. Do you think that a student who did her undergraduate work between 1958 and 1962 would have been better prepared for a career and life if she had been taught to reason, argue, and critically re-evaluate her own beliefs, while engaging in dialogue with those whose views she may have found initially repellent? Or do you think she would have done better over the decades if she had instead learned from her professors which socioeconomic groups (of the late 1950s and early 1960s) most needed support and empathy, and came to value standing in solidarity with others in the defense of those groups, waving aside criticism and calling out inappropriate dissent? If the latter, then why?

    5) Given the historical use of the term ‘philosophy’, which set of practices really deserves to be referred to by that term? Think of two or three people you consider to be among the greatest philosophers of all time. Which is easier to imagine: that these people would shock their contemporaries by arguing for an unpopular and unsettling view? Or that they would add their names to a petition to block other philosophers from reading an argument for the unpopular view, lest that unpopular view somehow lead in some difficult-to-fathom way to social harm?

    Reply
  3. Matt Lister

    I have just finished reading a book on Georg Lukács. This brings to mind two ironies in relation to the current debate. First, that Lukács, largely the "father" of standpoint epistemology (in _History and Class Consciousness_) is rarely cited in the works of scholars critical of Tuvel, an irony given that much of the criticism is (supposedly) based on not citing the right people. Secondly, Lukács himself was subject to a large number of humiliating and degrading forced recantations and admissions of intellectual errors. He did have the excuse that, if he did not do so, he risked not only losing any sort of academic job, but also being shot, at least in many of the instances. While we can certainly be glad that no one risks being shot over this current fiasco, the parallels between the current bruhaha and the sorry history of debate in 20th century Marxism really should make some people take a step back and evaluate their positions.

    Reply
  4. Cecile Fabre

    Rebecca Tuvel has been, still is being, treated appallingly. This kind of behavior would be outrageous in any context. Within academia, and especially against someone who is at a vulnerable career stage and whose sin, such as it is, is to argue, thoughtfully and thought-provokingly, in the direction of greater tolerance – it's unforgivable.

    Reply
  5. Daniel Kaufman

    I shared this privately with Brian, but as he has opened up this discussion, it seems apropos to share here.

    One of the Associate Editors posted this at the Daily Nous:

    "I am one of the AEs and want to clarify a couple of things.

    1. Hypatia has a complicated (feminist and procedure oriented) organizational structure where the Associate Editors select the Editors, which makes us share the responsibility with the Editors for what gets published in the journal. The AE statement is the official Hypatia statement. It was signed “A Majority of Hypatia’s board of Associate Editors” at first because time was of the essence and members were offline. This did not signify a disagreement on the board.

    2. I can say that from my perspective, apart from the deadnaming (which should be relatively easy to fix) the central issue is not the topic or the conclusion, but rather to whom we consider ourselves accountable and how we theorize about other people. Hypatia is a philosophy journal, but it is not a standard one in that it is committed to the feminist community and to fighting against the ignoring and silencing of marginalized and minority voices. That practical commitment translates into a methodological one: when we theorize about other people and their experiences, we need to listen to and read what they themselves say and have said on the matter. Papers published in Hypatia should reflect that commitment.

    What to do? I personally think the journal owed an apology and we need to change our review process and naming policies but a retraction is a different matter. And I absolutely condemn the attacks on the author of the article. This is not about her, the topic, or the conclusion. It is about our own journal standards."

    http://dailynous.com/2017/05/01/philosophers-article-transracialism-sparks-controversy/#comment-108562

    = = =

    To which I posted the following reply:

    "This strikes me as a rather amazing comment. You pretty much openly admit that Hypatia has abandoned the fundamentally critical stance that has defined philosophy since Socrates, in favor of ideological and political advocacy. In real philosophy, every one of the commitments you describe Hypatia as operating under should be open to critical scrutiny.

    At a bare minimum, Hypatia should make it very clear to prospective authors (and readers) that it is not a philosophy journal in the Socratic tradition and that while it is peer-reviewed, the reviewers operate under a number of nonnegotiable ideological standards that will be enforced, regardless of the quality of the arguments in a submission; that there is an ideological litmus test, which even translates (incredibly) into a methodological one, which articles have to meet, regardless of their philosophical quality. But to be honest, I think the journal should be officially censured by the APA, until it demonstrates that it is full committed to truly philosophical — and thus, critical — inquiry. Until it does, I don’t see how it is any different from — or better than — the publications of partisan think tanks, like Heritage or Cato, none of which would be acceptable as publishing venues in hiring, tenure and promotion decisions … at least, not as fulfilling requirements in the area of research.

    I must say that as a person who not only has chaired several hiring committees but chaired and served on personnel committees, knowing what I know now makes me seriously question how I would treat a publication in Hypatia in hiring and tenure and promotion decisions."

    http://dailynous.com/2017/05/01/philosophers-article-transracialism-sparks-controversy/#comment-108641

    = = =

    Reply
  6. Gregg Sean Hunter

    As someone who graduated from an MA program strong in feminist philosophy, I am astonished and appalled that many of my friends, colleagues, and mentors signed this ridiculous letter. One of the primary virtues of feminist philosophy, so I was taught, is that it “uses vocabulary and frameworks not recognized, accepted, or adopted by the conventions of the relevant subfields.” Were this a legitimate reason to silence and censor arguments put forward in good faith, it is doubtful that feminist philosophy or philosophy of race would exist in any substantial sense at all. On my understanding, the sort of standpoint epistemology that the signatories to the letter scold Tuvel for failing to cite could itself be accurately described as subverting the dominant norms of traditional epistemology. For serious theorists of gender and race to assert this as a standard for scholarship reeks of hypocrisy and special pleading. I am deeply saddened that many philosophers that I once respected would engage in this egregious attempt at censorship.

    Reply
  7. Phil

    What alarmed me most about the open letter was its repeated assertion that the publication of Tuvel's paper had caused *harm*. There's a substantial literature in legal philosophy on the 'harm principle' (conceived in either Millian or Kantian terms) and whether this can or should be supplemented by an 'offence principle'. If it becomes accepted that asserting a proposition* can in and of itself cause harm, that debate isn't so much foreclosed as rendered unthinkable. Subsuming offence into harm would be an extraordinary piece of epistemic vandalism.

    *This can be gussied up a bit – "giving authoritative exposure to a set of arguments associated with the exclusion of members of minority groups", etc – but ultimately the problematic act is the assertion of propositions.

    Reply
  8. Anon PhD

    I've read the petition, as well as various blog and facebook posts written in defense of the retraction of Professor Tuvel's article. Much of it comes down to vague hand-waving about 'systemic' problems, dubious claims about the 'harm' of noting that Caitlyn Jenner was formerly Bruce Jenner, disputes over proper terminology, and undefended assertions that articles on trans or other individuals must cite first personal accounts written by these individuals.

    None of this is persuasive. Combatting systemic professional problems by enforcing anti-discrimination and anti-harassment norms is not well served by this latest mob action; quite the opposite. That Caitlyn Jenner was formerly Bruce Jenner is a matter of public record and it is not harmful to point this out. Neither is it harmful to use terminology that (at least some) trans scholars themselves use. Finally, no one has yet pointed out just how Professor Tuvel's argument would have been materially changed had she cited first personal accounts written by transgender or 'transracial' individuals. Likely this is because, as pointed out at Daily Nous, trans individuals themselves do not agree with regard to these, and other, related issues.

    I've also read more than a few posts claiming to find substantial causal relations between the alleged sins committed by Tuvel and the murder of gay and trans individuals, most recently in Chechnya. People who make such assertions are morally and intellectually unserious.

    Frankly I think it's embarrassing that so many major moral and political philosophers have remained silent. Tenure is supposedly necessary if one is to 'speak truth to power.' Tenured folks who say nothing in the face of this are abusing their privileged position.

    Reply
  9. V. Alan White

    I support criticism of this trammeling of the results of prima facie reasonable standards of philosophical refereeing by ad hoc standards of what should constitute an acceptable publication. Does anyone else recall the insulting language used in the back-and-forth of certain scholars on the matter of identity a few decades ago, and in prestigious journals? I really used to cringe reading those–but the supposition was that, as long as the insults were directed at ideas–and only by association those that produced them–then only the quality of ideas was thus attacked. Since then the scholarly separation of the quality of ideas, and personal qualities of those that produce those ideas, has obviously narrowed. Not to the betterment of the exchange of ideas, I'd argue.

    Reply
  10. Eric Johnson-DeBaufre

    I agree with you about the flimsiness of the allegations against Tuvel, at least as they have been expressed in the open letter and in the comments that have appeared on Daily Nous by supporters of the open letter's authors. Perhaps they have other, better arguments to make that they have not shared. If so, they should make them.

    I also agree that the silence of respected tenured members of the profession is puzzling and a little troubling. Here is a clear instance of harm being very publicly done to an untenured member of the profession by some of its senior members (among others) and yet we have seen so few of them say or write anything in opposition to this disgraceful defamation.

    Reply
  11. Different Anon PhD

    In response to Anon PhD and Eric Johnson-DeBaufre: I have seen, both in the original open letter calling for retraction (point 4) and in a number of facebook posts by those in academia critical of the article, the claim repeated that it is not sufficiently in dialogue with the existing writing on this issue from black and trans authors.

    Aside from (obvious) methodological challenge already raised by Steven Hales in this post, I think that it is worth considering the possibility that the challenge is, in a certain sense, disingenuous. Would the article have been acceptable to these critics if it had engaged with this writing, considered the arguments advanced, and rejected them? I do mean this as a sincere question, but I suspect that the answer is no.

    For how can one both argue that the conclusion reached is per se harmful, and simultaneously critique method? Indeed, the apology posted by the Associate Editors of Hypatia seems to suggest that what is objectionable is the very fact that such an article–and such an argument–was made at all:

    "Perhaps most fundamentally, to compare ethically the lived experience of trans people (from a distinctly external perspective) primarily to a single example of a white person claiming to have adopted a black identity creates an equivalency that fails to recognize the history of racial appropriation, while also associating trans people with racial appropriation."

    Aside from the apparent indifference to the fact that Tuvel's article makes very clear that her interest is not in assessing the merits of Dolezal's specific claim, does not the final clause suggest a kind of begging the question regarding the status of 'transracial' as racial appropriation, i.e., takes as a given precisely the point that would be at stake in such a paper? I think it is worth asking those who say Tuvel should have cited different literature whether they would accept her having done so and still coming to the same conclusion.

    Reply
  12. Russell Blackford

    I commented on the later thread – but for completeness, I'll also say something here. I've been upset over the last few days to see this witch hunt against Tuvel. I'm very disappointed to see senior academics in philosophy and cognate disciplines involved. It's appalling that they would go after a relatively powerless junior colleague merely because they disagree with her philosophical approach.

    And I'm likewise disappointed by the cowardly response of the Hypatia editors when confronted by a mob. One thing we should all have learned by now is never to cave in when such a mob embarks on a witch hunt. Each time this happens, it rewards the behaviour and encourages more of it. In any event, the response of the Hypatia editors is odious and unprofessional. It gravely violates fundamental scholarly standards and runs counter to the point of philosophy as an academic discipline. Our function is to scrutinise all ideas, not to pass and administer ideological litmus tests.

    In the other thread, there is discussion about a possible letter calling for the resignation of everyone associated with Hypatia's editorial board. I think that any such letter would have to come from somebody who is seen as something of a leader within the discipline of philosophy. That might be too much to hope for. But if anyone does take the initiative, and subject to what's in the detail, I'd certainly be willing to put my signature on such a letter.

    It would be good if tenured professors – people who are well insulated from attack – would stand up to be counted on this one. When something like this happens to an individual like Tuvel, who has done little or (more likely) nothing wrong, the whole profession should rally in her support. Enough is enough.

    Reply
  13. harry b

    Erik — I think it is more important (for now) that Tuvel get pretty clear messages of support from senior colleagues, than that colleagues say stuff on the internet in public. I appreciate what Brian has been doing, and think more is probably needed, But it is the end of term and I have very limited time to devote to keeping up. My priority, in the circumstances, was to write a short, kind, supportive email to her, offering a public intervention that might be some help. I'm hoping (and guessing) that she is getting a fair bit of private correspondence (though if she is sensible she is not reading it!)

    Reply
  14. Anon Asst. Prof

    I concur with every word of this assessment. I have scoured all manner of comment threads, including Lisa Guenther's facebook posts, including every comment on them, and come away simply nauseated. The only things in those threads in defense of retracting Tuvel's paper that are even halfway close to adequate have to do with the question of whether it's appropriate for white cis academics to write about these topics without citing those who have written on the topics from a privileged epistemic standpoint, namely those with relevant lived experience (assuming that such materials are available). That is an interesting question, and I'm not qualified to answer it. Far from wishing to silence these voices, I'd like to hear more about it and more from them. Which is a large part of why I have spent so much time scouring comment threads like these.

    But this is an interesting question, not a closed one, much less was this policy publicly in place such that authors were aware of it. Had it been in place, surely the open letter would have cited it. Moreover, the paper presumably would not have been published, and we would certainly have heard about such a policy by now. Instead, there is a general commitment to lessening the marginalization of certain voices. And by itself, that sounds good to me (depending on the details). But this constant invocation of nebulous harms, including the palpably absurd notion that mentioning that Caitlyn was once Bruce is an objectionable instance of 'deadnaming'; of citing the fact that murders take place against trans people at a high rate, and pretending that there is some connection between this paper and that vicious bigotry and violence, without even pretending to draw out a plausible connection; of pretending that the fact (if it is a fact, which is nowhere near proven) that some, even most, trans and black people are upset about the piece amounts to harm, much less serious harm, even violence against these and all trans people…it's just painfully ridiculous. Even the constant accusation that Tuvel 'silences' these voices is noxious. Can they really not see that that kind of language is purely for the choir? Everybody not already on their side is just turned off by the abuse of terms like 'silencing' and 'erasure' and 'violence' where they simply don't apply. Tuvel in no interesting sense whatsoever silenced or erased or did violence to anyone and it is not only unserious, but quite clearly counterproductive to their stated values to talk and act they way they are. Which raises the question: if we apply the same standards to the signatories and the editors that they apply to Tuvel, how much harm, even perhaps serious violence, have these people just committed on trans people? I'd say a great deal more than Tuvel. But this very idea, for which a plausible connection can actually be described, unlike the case of Tuvel's article, is naturally doubleplusforbidden.

    That her former dissertation members could participate in this is simply incredible and appalling to me. And reading what passes for Prof. Guenther's justification on facebook–it has almost nothing to do with the stated justification in the letter, and doesn't even begin to try to justify what was actually done, as opposed to discussing a general, systemic problem, *as she sees it*! The idea that this general problem should have been dealt with in the way that it was, by defaming and publicly assailing Tuvel's ability as a scholar, and then compounding the disgrace by accusing her of a shameful form of 'white feminism'–her own former student!–isn't even remotely justified in her remarks.

    In the comments, a noble woman attempts to express concern that calling Tuvel's piece an instance of 'white feminism', which is characterized as 'anti-black', is prejudicial and unhelpful. Lisa clarifies by telling us a bit about 'white feminism'. It has a history, you see. Back in the day, white feminists made black women march in the back of feminist marches. And then recently they had a Million Woman March without realizing that women of color had already done that. And she could go on and on. So, you know, Tuvel's piece was anti-black, which presumably is racist and noxious. That's seriously as close as you get to a justification of the idea that her piece was 'anti-black'. But then people in the comments are like, "Why are we worrying about this so-called vulnerable professor when she wrote something anti-black?" Meaning that she did not cite black people when she *arguably* should have, and despite the fact that there was no such policy, and despite the fact that the editors approved it for publication.

    The parable of crying wolf is around for a reason. There is a wisdom in it. If you care about keeping people from being silenced and from violence, if you care about policies that are 'anti-black' or 'anti-trans', don't rob those concepts of their emotional impact. To do so is to willfully contribute to the likelihood of those things happening, for real, to the people you say you want to protect.

    Reply
  15. Anon post-doc

    This relates to the piece in IHE by Bermudez that was just linked to in a new post:

    I generally agree with Bermudez's comments about how we understand harm, and his list of the parties *actually* harmed by all of this. However, I think it is an unfortunate irony that he omits on his list the very marginalized voices/groups in academia (and outside) who the open letter and apologies were supposed to be defending.

    I hope everyone can agree that if there has been a general harm to the academic community, and to the humanities specifically, then there has also been a harm (more specific still) to those members of our community who are trans and/or POC and are trying to get their voices heard. I imagine what has transpired must be both frustrating and demoralizing for many of them. For me at least, this is one of the saddest, and most bitter ironies of all of this.

    Reply
  16. Brian Ogilvie

    Thanks for your reporting on the shameful treatment of Rebecca Tuvel by an Internet mob. I find it particularly ironic that it involves an article published in Hypatia, given that the historical Hypatia of Alexandria was a philosopher and mathematician who was murdered by a Christian mob in the course of a political dispute.

    Brian Ogilvie, Professor of History, University of Massachusetts Amherst

    Reply
  17. John Gardner

    Yes, Mill's harm principle is surely a victim of its own success. The hope of bringing one's grievance under it, hence opening the door to coercive measures, encourages everyone these days to describe every negative aspect of everything as a 'harm'. Mill warned about this in ch 4 of On Liberty (imagining the ease with which harms and connections to them may be proliferated in order to empty the principle of its content while ostensibly adhering to it).

    But I'm not sure that the Hypatia editorial board members (and their friends) are doing anything so above-board as 'subsuming offence into harm' in their accusations against Prof Tuvel. It is excessively charitable of you to see it that way. Rather they are deliberately declining to say what the supposed harm done by Prof Tuvel is. In their formulations, what was done by Prof Tuvel is always just unspecified 'harm'. This failure of specification is calculated to make the claim that harm was done by Prof Tuvel impossible to answer. If we don't know what the harm is supposed to be, we can't investigate whether it exists and we can't investigate how it was caused. If we can't investigate how it was caused, we can't establish that Prof Tuvel didn't help to cause it. It is the same kind of deliberately obfuscatory manoeuvre that Kafka dramatized in The Trial, in which Josef K can't mount a defence because nobody will tell him what the charge is. Remember the alarming information imparted by court artist Titorelli, that so far as he knows nobody has ever been acquitted? That is the point. When you have been subjected to no concrete charge, nothing you or your supporters say can answer it. Every time you try, the rejoinder can always be 'that wasn't what we were accusing you of'. (We have even seen this very rejoinder from particular flustered Hypatia board members over the past few days, who nevertheless still kept banging on about unspecified 'harm'.)

    The tragic thing about all this is that serious harm has indeed been done. It has not been done by Prof Tuvel. It has been done by the Hypatia board members who indicted her. What harm? First of all, a once-proud philsophy journal has had its reputation trashed virtually overnight by its own board. (No doubt some enemies will use that fact, opportunistically, to help trash the serious philosophical topics in which Hypatia has long specialized. That will compound the harm done by the mere discrediting of the journal.) Secondly, and more importantly, many broadly progressive people otherwise moved by the difficult lives of trans* people (like Prof Tuvel herself, and like me, and like many other contributors to this and many other current threads in the philosophy blogosphere) are being alienated from the cause by the confirmation that if you won't be a trans* purist, indeed if you make trouble for trans* purists by asking any tricky questions, your support and sympathy are not welcome. So trans* people find themselves even more vulnerable thanks to purges of (as it were) trans* Mensheviks by trans* Bolsheviks. That plays right into the hands of the alt-right neanderthals who are out get us all.

    Now those are concrete charges. Some readers may think they are false. But then those readers have a luxury that is being denied to Prof Tuvel. They have the luxury of knowing what the charges are and having the chance to show them to be false. I challenge any of the Hypatia signatories to do so.

    Reply
  18. Justin Kalef

    I'd like to add another criterion to the list of features that seem essential to philosophical discussion: the criterion that anyone can participate. In saying this, I do not mean to imply that anyone's contribution to a discussion is as good as anyone else's. But if there are topics that only certain people are allowed to engage in — and this can follow, de facto, from an environment in which people who don't fit a certain demographic feel so afraid of being shouted down for daring to participate that they put their objections only meekly or not at all — then it should not be difficult to see that the free and unbiased discussion that gives philosophy and science their status and power is simply not being respected. The fact that some critics are not steeped in the ideologies of those whose positions and arguments they are disputing is, in philosophy as in science, generally a benefit. It would surely be wrong to rule out such dissenting voices on principle.

    Peter Singer's 'Famine, Affluence, and Morality' deals with our duties to those living in absolute poverty, but Singer has never lived in absolute poverty and gives no indication in that article of having steeped himself in the writings of those who have. In his treatment of the same material in _Practical Ethics_, he refers to the work of Robert McNamara, an affluent and powerful westerner, in categorizing what absolute poverty is. But no reasonable person rejects, or would think of rejecting, Singer's arguments because he does not demonstrate familiarity of first-person accounts of extreme poverty. Judith Jarvis Thomson's 'A Defense of Abortion' is, rightly, a much-discussed article. In it, Thomson does not draw our attention to the writings of people who have had abortions. I have no idea from reading the article whether Thomson herself ever had an abortion, nor do I care, and nor should I. Her argument, as any good argument, stands or falls on its own merits. Frances Kamm has written a number of excellent articles on trolley problems, though I presume that she has never stood at a railway switch (or anywhere else) with the weight of a life-and-death moral decision on her own shoulders, nor is her philosophical work weakened by a neglect to refer directly to the words and sentiments and 'lived experiences' of those who have.

    Anyone thinks that these points are legitimate objections against Singer, Thomson and Kamm simply misunderstands the nature and purpose of the philosophical enterprise. Philosophy is not a two-phase process in which there is first of all a contest to see whose life experiences best qualify them as experts on an issue and then a period of listening to those experts in quiet awe as they present the final word on that issue. True philosophy is egalitarian. Anyone at all gets to present any argument at all on an issue, and then anyone at all gets to review that argument for soundness and relevance and raise any objection against the logic, facts, or relevance that they think is objectively powerful. For this process to work fairly, we should ensure that those with arguments and objections that don't conform with what the group is already saying feel _particularly encouraged_ to raise those arguments and objections.

    This is not to say that familiarity with the life experiences and conditions of those under discussion is never relevant. Someone who argues that we have no obligation to assist those in absolute poverty because impoverished people can just go get jobs if they want to can and should be informed of the fact that many of those in absolute poverty are young children and infants, and that he or she is taking certain presumptions about the availability of employment for granted. But the ends of philosophy would be served much better if such uninformed arguments can be made and refuted without shame and stigma than if most arguments and objections are not made at all because people feel terrified that they will be shouted down, ridiculed, and exposed as ignorant outsiders if they are deemed by vocal insiders to have got something wrong. In the latter sort of environment, the arguments and positions that will hold sway will not be those that are supported by the best reasoning, but rather those that nobody dares to question because of social pressures that may have nothing to do with reasoning and argument. What would follow as a result would not be philosophy, but pseudophilosophy: a range of views and arguments that come stamped with a name that implies that they are the product of fair, impartial, and rigorous discussion, open to all who care to critically examine them, whereas in fact they are merely the views and slogans that survive in a climate of intellectual fear.

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  19. Anon PhD

    The claim that philosophers must cite the work of certain groups must be unpacked if it is to carry any weight.

    It is surely the case that, if one is writing about a particular subordinated group, and one has not had the experience of being a member of that group, or one has no close personal contact with members of that group, reading the first-personal works of members of that group will provide one with information relevant to one's project that could not have been obtained otherwise.

    However, this is not the end of the story. First, as Professor Hales notes above, members of subordinated groups are surely subject to many of the same errors of reasoning and biases as the rest of us. Thus, first-personal accounts are not necessarily decisive. Of course, pointing this out publicly is verboten.

    Second, the "lived experiences" of members of subordinated groups varies widely. Indeed, many women, trans folks, persons of color, and scholars of race, presumably drawing upon their own lived experiences, have weighed in here and at Daily Nous in support of Tuvel and/or opposed to this latest mob action. Apparently, however, for the critics of Tuvel (many of whom are white, well-compensated academics), these voices do not count.

    Third, as I noted above, no one has demonstrated how Tuvel's alleged lack of relevant citations would have materially changed her arguments. This raises the question: what is the point of demanding such citations?

    At best, such citations indicate that one is at least basically familiar with the relevant literature. In practice, however, it strikes me as more likely that this is a form of virtue signaling and tokenism.

    Reply
  20. John Haldane

    This affair is the sort of thing that in an earlier period would have been described as bringing the academy into public disrepute, but it seems rather late in the day to be concerned about that. I do, however, worry about the effect on students.

    About a year ago I was involved in an Intelligence Squared Debate in Sydney, Australia recorded by the BBC and broadcast in Australia by ABC, then internationally by BBC World. The motion was ‘Society must Recognise Trans People’s Gender Identities’. I discussed the Rachel Dolezal case in connection with the issue of self-claimed identities – see

    (in particular from 34 minutes in)

    The furore in anticipation of the debate, with calls for it to be cancelled, prompted me to write a piece for the Guardian published on the eve of the event see https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/03/practices-such-as-no-platforming-threaten-to-strangle-the-roots-of-freedom. Interesting that there was, contrary to every expectation, a swing in the vote at the end.

    Reply
  21. John Haldane

    Corrected link to Guardian article https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/mar/03/practices-such-as-no-platforming-threaten-to-strangle-the-roots-of-freedom

    Reply
  22. Leslie Glazer

    I would suggest that one of the harms assumed and motivating the outrage is that while the paper on the face of it is an application and extension of the arguments for transsexualism to transracialism, as if to argue for the acceptability of the later because the former is acceptable, in actuality the effect of the argument is to undermine the legitimacy of transexualism because people assume the argument for transracialism is absurd and unacceptible. It is sort of an reductio ad absurdum argument that puts two liberal concepts and groups in opposition….Either we accept transracialism or we have to realize transsexualism may also be suspect for the same reasons. Those who identify as transexual or advocate for them may then feel their experience and self-understanding is then being questioned, and feel offended. What any of this has to do with the acceptability of the paper for publication remains unclear.

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  23. Anon PhD

    LK McPherson makes a similar point at Daily Nous: "[Tuvel's critics] worry that the race case functions, in effect, as a reductio of the gender case. The challenge, of course, is that the cases don’t seem all that structurally different."

    I don't take you to be defending this claim, but if this is indeed the 'harm' thought to be caused by the paper, then the mob reaction is truly absurd. Tuvel is merely pointing out that we seem to have adopted different moral attitudes with regard to two types of social identity, despite the fact that these categories are structurally similar. In essence she concludes that we ought to resolve this inconsistency in favor of morally accepting transracial individuals.

    You don't have to accept Tuvel's claims, but this general form of argument is the bread and butter of analytic philosophy. If Tuvel's critics were intellectually and morally serious, they would respond in the manner appropriate to philosophical argument, by, for example, pointing to a morally relevant difference between the two cases. But Tuvel's critics are plainly neither

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  24. Different Anon PhD

    Leslie, I think that you are certainly right in assuming that that is part of the anxiety, but — is that not the opportunity afforded and risk posed by critical thought, that one may suddenly find oneself unable to justify things that one was previously able to take for granted? By that definition, the 'harms' of philosophy extend back to Theognis of Megara…

    "Best of all for mortal beings is never to have been born at all
    Nor ever to have set eyes on the bright light of the sun
    But, since he is born, a man should make utmost haste through the gates of Death
    And then repose, the earth piled into a mound round himself."

    Will one forbid discussions of suicide, atheism or skepticism, on account of their potential for 'harm'?

    Reply
  25. Not a PhD

    I think you are being too quick to dismiss the absurdity of the mob reaction here. Suppose a philosopher's article said "we treat eating dead animals and eating dead people very differently. But I argue that the same arguments that justify eating dead animals also justify eating dead people." You might be disgusted by that conclusion, if convinced, and it might lead you to become a vegetarian, not a cannibal. Similarly, the Tuvel paper might lead you to shun transgenderism, rather than embrace both transgenderism and transracialism. But, more importantly, if you were a non-vegetarian, you might be offended by the suggestion that you were basically an incipient cannibal, or the implication that cannibals and you were on the same moral footing and entitled to as much consideration, deference, etc., as one another.

    We can make the examples more and more offensive, if you like. "We treat animals and mentally disabled humans differently. But the same arguments that justify using animals for brute unpaid labor also justify using mentally disabled people for brute unpaid labor." The point is that the argumentative form does not alone insulate the argument from the possibility of causing serious offense, disgust, etc. Calling something "an argument" or a "syllogism" doesn't somehow immunize it from being offensive.

    If a paper making the above claim about the mentally disabled were written, and it had somehow had been published, and then outrage ensued, and then its retraction had been called for, and then the retraction had been made, would everyone on this page be in such a tizzy? I'm genuinely curious, as an outsider to philosophy, how much of this brouhaha is simply a result of different thresholds for offense across populations, and how much is a genuine disagreement about free speech and academic debate.

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  26. David Wallace

    I, at least, would be in exactly as much of a tizzy.

    Reply
  27. Leslie Glazer

    I agree that this is the bread and butter of philosophical analysis, but wanted to point out where the over-reaction might possibly be stemming form, i.e. where her analysis— actually even just the fact of asking the question– pokes at some more everyday common assumptions connected with personal identifications embedded in some commonly assumed liberal ways of thinking which may be contradictory or at least problematic.

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  28. Justin

    Let me invite you to take a ride on a bus, Not a PhD.

    http://fs2.american.edu/dfagel/www/feinbergRideOnTheBus.html

    This selection from Feinberg's book is widely celebrated in political and legal philosophy. Outside of what is increasingly looking like a small circle of puritans, this is not a discipline in which people are afraid to write, speak, or think about gross and offensive things. Your cannibalism example, in particular, would probably not even be an inappropriate thing to talk about at dinner with colleagues for most of us. So yes, I think probably almost everyone on this page would be in just as much a tizzy in your imagined scenarios. You could probably find papers making very similar arguments that have passed through professional journals with no fuss at all.

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  29. Leslie Glazer

    good point. but I think you miss the difference. In the cases you mention, which certainly can be raised philosophically— consider for example possibly related cases analyzed by Singer regarding animals and babies in terms of utilitarianism— the argument comes up against a traditional if ambiguous concept of personhood, which has been used to differentiate the cases. One shouldn't eat animals perhaps to the extent one extends to them concepts of personhood, for example. One can eat them to the degree they are not so included under the concept. Similarly with the labor case. One can treat the disabled as beasts of burden to the extent one removes from them the attribution of personhood. To the degree and in so far as one attributes personhood to them they remain bearers of rights and so on. I am not arguing for this here but only trying to demonstrate how in your analogy you miss how these cases have some concept that is then used in application to differentiate them. The analogy doesn't hold with Tuvel's comparison in that there is no such traditional or accepted concept to help adjudicate the different cases. And so one remains curious as to how to make one's treatment of them consistent. On the one hand one has the argument from social construction and self-identification. But if gender and race are social constructions and participation in those categories is a matter of self-ascription then how can one object to the one and not the other. On the other hand, if one seeks to ground such ascription to some independent reality, for example of birth, genetics, blood, or even perhaps the social attribution by others, then again one can find in a limited way such factors for both identities[ both race and sex can be grounded in facts outside of self-ascription], and both can begin to deconstruct. To apply birth and blood to one [race] and social construction and self-identification to the other [gender] simply seems inconsistent on the face of it. But where is the clarifying concept?

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  30. Anon PhD

    "the argumentative form does not alone insulate the argument from the possibility of causing serious offense, disgust, etc."

    The idea that arguments must be insulated from the possibility of causing serious offense, disgust, etc. is fundamentally inimical to even moderately free inquiry. It's comical the examples you take to be shocking are rather mild.

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  31. Daniel Kaufman

    Cora Diamond has a famous essay, entitled "Eating Meat and Eating People." And Peter Singer has published articles in which he argues that sex with animals may be moral.

    There are tons of published works in philosophy with precisely the subjects you imagine and worse.

    Whether a proposition is "offensive" has no relevance to philosophical investigation, only whether it has warrant, in the epistemic sense.

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  32. Not a PhD

    Thank you, Justin. I enjoyed my ride on the bus. It was interesting to consider the range of offensive harms. And it left me wondering whether there might be a second deck on the bus. On that deck, this happens:
    Story 1: A person sits down and loudly explains her argument why arguments favoring decriminalizing same sex relationships would also favor decriminalizing bestiality.
    Story 2: Same as Story 1, except the analogy drawn is to pedophilia.

    A gay person on that bus may feel deeply offended by those comments, and even threatened, because her conduct was being placed in equivalence to conduct she felt was disgusting, and not at all like her own behavior. Is that not a "harm" of some sort? If so, why would Bermudez — who must surely be familiar with this celebrated work? — write of this Tuvel controversy that "the concept of harm has been twisted beyond all recognition. Making a comparison is simply making a comparison — it is to look at two or more phenomena and identify respects in which they are similar and respects in which they are dissimilar."?

    It seems to me that one can (and should) acknowledge that the article was offensive but defend its publication anyway, not deny that harm or offense has been caused. Some of the responses to the retraction request (like Bermudez) seem to pretend that "an argument by definition cannot be harmful", which is demonstrably inaccurate. That is my primary point.

    (P.S. because I am a cynic, I do continue to harbor the suspicion that a public-outrage-driven retraction of papers making the arguments in Story One and Story Two would not cause the same tizzy as the Tuvel retraction. But that's just a hunch.)

    BL COMMENT: Can you say what the harm is exactly? Is it emotional upset? Something else?

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  33. tenure?nope

    My God. If you want to laugh or cry yourself sick, look at the discussion of the term "Becky" here:

    https://feministphilosophers.wordpress.com/2017/05/02/symbolic-conscription/

    Reply
  34. Justin Kalef

    Leslie Glazer (Comment 29): it seems that the clarifying concept in this case is essence, 'identity' (in the now-popular sense of the word) or perhaps just legitimate self-ascription. If one holds that Jenner's claim to be a woman is legitimate in ways that Dolezal's claim to be black is not, then it appears that one is probably committed to the view that one's soul (for want of a better word) can be essentially female even if one's body is male whereas the same cannot be said for something like one's race: if one's body is white, then that's what one is, period; but if one's body is that of a man then one might still be a woman. That presumption seems to be what Tuvel is examining, akin to the ways in which Singer and others examine the presumption that personhood is something that all humans have while no nonhuman animals do.

    Not a PhD (Comment 32): You seem to be suggesting that it would be reasonable for someone on a bus to feel offended and outraged because two other people were considering parallels between his or her own sexuality and bestiality, in a way that it would _not_ be reasonable for someone to feel offended and outraged at seeing two other people on the bus gleefully smashing in the face of their grandmother's corpse with a hammer (since that was mentioned by Feinberg excerpt, but you apparently felt that your own added cases were more persuasive). Is that right?

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  35. Jimmy Lenman

    THere is an excellent piece here by Suzanna Danuta Walters

    http://www.chronicle.com/article/Academe-s-Poisonous-Call-Out/240016/

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  36. Not a PhD

    Justin 34: My analogies are better ones than the corpse ones, or the others available on the Feinberg list. I was not making a normative claim that my cases would cause "worse" offense or more reasonable offense than the ones in the excerpt. I'm just trying to get to the right analogy, one with the right cultural valences and some realism (I mean, who smashes corpses on buses?).

    BL: The harm is emotional upset, feeling of insult, dislike of being placed in a false equivalence with a group you despise. Nothing financial or physical. I think this sort of thing readily counts as harm or offense. If not, how is anything on Feinberg's bus harmful or offensive?

    Again, everyone, I am not saying that people ought not to write or argue about the offensive things or that this paper should not have been published. I'm aware that philosophers entertain Very Daring Thoughts and Very Scary Ideas. But the correct thing to do here is to own up to the hurt feelings, not feign ignorance by saying things like "harm? What harm? I've never seen something like this called harm!" Bermudez does this and now so does Walters ("grave misuse of the term 'harm'"). Instead, as I said before, comment 32, acknowledge the offense is real and sincerely felt, and defend the article's publication anyway.

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  37. Brian Leiter

    Thanks for stating the harm clearly. This is not a harm American law recognizes (except in rare extreme cases, of which this does not qualify). It is also not a harm that can suffice for retraction of a peer-reviewed article, or there will be nothing left of academic freedom, since offense (feeling of insult, emotional upset) is both too easy to give and too easy to take.

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  38. Aspiring feminist philosopher

    Not even Foucault, who in many ways gave birth to queer studies, would have passed muster with these people, given his principled objections to uncritical considerations of "first-hand lived experience" and all the historical contingency, blind spots, and assumptions brought with them. Now phenomenology is the only appropriate method for doing feminist philosophy?

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  39. Philosophet

    Yeah, I love how Kukla rushes in and castigates another white liberal for not knowing the term "Becky," suggesting that her ignorance is due to willfully isolating herself from towering figures in Black Culture (like Sir Mix-A-Lot!), but when two actual black people point out that they only recently learned the meaning of the term, Kukla goes silent.

    Here's a tip for well meaning white liberal academics: if you want to make grand proclamations about Black Culture and Black Lived Experience and what is or is not threatening to it, it might be helpful if you befriended some actual black people. No, Beyonce doesn't count. It would save you from much embarrassment.

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  40. Anon PhD

    Holly Lawford-Smith, at Crooked Timber, attempts a defense of Hypatia. (http://crookedtimber.org/2017/05/06/thoughts-on-the-hypatia-affair/)

    1. The defense begins with the cant that is now typical of so much (il)liberal discourse, namely, establishing just where the relevant party stands in the hierarchy of marginalized groups. (pre-tenure woman in philosophy: good!; but pre-tenure white woman in the world at large: bad!). No real reason is given for this exercise, other than "protecting the vulnerable means different things" in different circumstances. As if defenders of Tuvel are suggesting otherwise.

    2. According to Lawford-Smith black people might worry that Tuvel’s conclusion will legitimize more Dolezal-type cases, which “they” find problematic “for a whole host of reasons.” She doesn’t give us any numbers here; she says she’s “taking others’ words for it on the demographics of those initially angry and the open letter’s signatories.”

    The black folks who signed the letter, regardless of their number, obviously do not represent the views of all black folks. LK McPherson, at Daily Nous, a black individual who has written much on the philosophy of race, suggests that Tuvel has done nothing wrong in her paper. Black individuals I’ve spoken with privately have also criticized the reaction to Tuvel.

    Obviously the question is: if black folks (and other individuals) find Tuvel’s arguments “problematic,” do they have sound reasons for doing so? Maybe, but maybe not. Finding out would require the presentation of such reasons, perhaps in a forum like Hypatia; but this has been effectively thwarted by the mob outcry.

    Let me also note that Lawford-Smith is not herself black and is every bit as privileged as Tuvel. This is also typical of contemporary (il)liberal discourse. Somehow the privileged “allies” find a way to take up all the air in the room in their expression of concern for the marginalized, even though the marginalized themselves often disagree as to whether or not this concern is warranted. As a trans person of color writes at Daily Nous: “we are not babies who need to be protected from the harms of disagreement.” How unfortunate that Lawford-Smith silences these voices.

    3. Another argument Lawford-Smith presents, as noted above, is that the transracial case might, to some, constitute a reductio of the transgender case. She writes: “Many people find ‘transracial’ claims absurd, so drawing a parallel between the two might have the effect of weakening the former rather than strengthening the latter.”

    Any philosopher any moral common sense can see that discriminating against an individual on the basis of their trans identity is morally impermissible. The question, as Tuvel raised, is whether or not these same reasons apply to so-called transracial individuals. If a philosopher finds ‘transracial’ claims absurd, but not transgender claims, then they need to articulate why, which, again, is the sort of thing one does in a philosopher paper.

    Lawford-Smith’s concern, however, seems to be not so much with philosophers as with the public at large. Of course, the public at large does not read philosophy journals. To that point, she writes: “Somewhat ironically, the probabilities [of the paper being widely read] were incredibly low before all of this blew up online. They’re probably a lot higher now. Perhaps it’s too quick to suggest that the correct response to an offensive paper is to ignore it, rather than to draw attention to it.”

    Of course, she misses the true irony, which is that this “blew up” online because of the hyperventilation of the signatories to the open letter. But more to the point: if philosophy papers now must be written such that no member of the public will misconstrue the arguments involved and act foolishly, then philosophy will cease to exist as an intellectually worthwhile enterprise.

    Let’s take just war theory as an example: just war theorists have considered whether or not terrorism is ever permissible, with some arguing that it is. Other just war theorists have considered whether torture is ever permissible, with some arguing that it is. Still other just war theorists have defended the claim that ‘fragging’ (or murdering one’s military superiors) is sometimes morally permitted. None of these arguments should have been presented if we are supposed to worry about how members of the public at large might misunderstand them.

    And that’s just within just war theory. As has been noted above on this blog, there are many, many arguments that philosophers have considered that might cause offense, disgust, or misunderstanding. The only philosophically relevant standard is whether or not such arguments generate intellectual progress.

    4. The bulk of the rest of Lawford-Smith’s is, essentially, “Hypatia is different.” I believe this is a point on which all can agree. Hypatia *is* different, and especially more so after this controversy: it is not a philosophy journal. Accordingly, I would hope that philosophers who wish to do cutting edge feminist work will refrain from submitting work to Hypatia. I would also hope that hiring committees take this fact about Hypatia into account.

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  41. Ophelia Benson

    And a fairly gruesome one here

    http://crookedtimber.org/2017/05/06/thoughts-on-the-hypatia-affair/

    There's an excellent comment by Jimmy Lenman.

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  42. Sean Matthews

    Beside all the analysis I am genuinely astonished that no-one, as far as I can see, at least, either here or elsewhere, has yet observed on the irony that Hypatia (the original: of Alexandria) was torn to pieces by a mob of fanatics.

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  43. Anonymous Here

    This notion of "emotional upset" needs, I think, to be clarified. The comparison apparently has to be to a group that is clearly "disgusting," that acts in ways "not at all like [your] own behavior," and that is generally seen as not "entitled to as much consideration, deference." The "harm" to you is that you would be considered "like" the member of the other group.

    The problem is that the point of the comparison may not necessarily be to cause you "harm" through the "false equivalence" but to assist members of the other group in securing your levels of consideration and deference by showing, inter alia, that the members of the other group are in fact not "disgusting," acting in dissimilar ways, nor lacking entitlement to consideration and deference.

    Let us add another level to your bus. A person sits down and loudly explains her argument why arguments for recognizing same sex marriages would also favor recognizing plural marriages. We can imagine that a listener may be genuinely offended, assuming that the speaker is echoing remarks made by Chief Justice John Roberts in his Obergefell dissent and arguing against same sex marriages through "false equivalence." But the speaker is instead arguing, rightly or wrongly, that the fundamental right to marriage includes plural marriages.

    That seems to be analogous to the situation with Rebecca Tuvel, no?

    The question then becomes whether members of the first group are still "harmed" if members of the other group secure the same level of consideration and deference as them, and, if so, why? The "harm," in this case, presupposes that there is a limited amount of consideration and deference. I am not sure if there needs to be a limited amount of consideration and deference. But, certainly, there is a limited number of resources that society may award to those it sees as due a certain sort of consideration and deference.

    In that case, the members of the first group may consider themselves "harmed" if members of the other group secure the same level of consideration and deference if this threatens the first group's access to scarce resources. The question is whether the first group can rightly consider itself "harmed."

    I think not.

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  44. Aspiring feminist philosopher

    I haven't read the article, but isn't this Tuvel's point? I'm not sure where you're seeing the conflict here. And there has been a lot of philosophical work done, by Anthony Appiah, Tommie Shelby, Sally Haslanger, and others, on the metaphysics of social categories Iike race, so there's no reason why her article can't be seen as positing a test case against those philosophical definitions (much like the examples you cite challenge prevailing concepts of personhood). Perhaps she didn't frame the paper that way, but I don't see why the thesis of the article should be rejected off-hand.

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  45. Graham Oddie

    Thank you Cecile.

    Reply
  46. Not a PhD

    Anonymous Here, you are mixing types of harm. A person may feel offended, his feelings may be hurt, he may feel misunderstood, by being compared to a bigamist, a pedophile, or a bestialist. Or for that matter a Nazi, a fascist, a terrorist, or a communist. That sense of offense has nothing to do with whether the political system is set up in a zero-sum way as between the person and the comparison groups.

    To the critics of Tuvel, comparing transgenderism to transracialism seems as hurtful and insulting as it being compared to something truly awful, like pedophilism, because they think of transracialists as shameful fakes with unworthy claims. Not like polyamory, which some people do out in the open. So, I think the second deck of the bus is the one we are on.

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  47. Anonymous Here

    How do we (or the critics of Tuvel) know that all transracialists are "shameful fakes with unworthy claims?"

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  48. Brian Ogilvie

    See my comment above, #16…

    Reply
  49. John Gardner

    A footnote to Brian's point: The reason why it is not a harm recognized in American law is that it is not a harm. That something offends you, or more generally makes you feel bad, does not show that it does you any harm. We all feel bad about something most days and come out of it unscathed, just as we come out of most physical pain unscathed. Of course there may be harms that are consequences of offence and pain. Torture harms people by the use of pain. Upset may turn to depression and may then be disabling. I have yet to see any evidence that anything Rebecca Tuvel said had any such consequences. Whereas people are certainly inflicting such consequences on her.

    Do the philosophers who claim that Tuvel harmed people know nothing about the concept of harm? There is a vast, mature literature on this and it seems from recent discussions that many are unware of it. I wonder if they have written things that need to be retracted for their lack of attention to relevant literature …?!!

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  50. anon

    Please check out the article in the Chronicle, "A Journal Article Provoked a Schism in Philosophy. Now the Rifts Are Deepening." This article makes it clear that the journal Hypatia has not itself defamed or repudiated Tuvel; "a majority of the associate editors", that is, six to nine people from one corner of Hypatia's sprawling org chart, have done so, while the editor stands firmly behind Tuvel's article. Ownership of the facebook site seems to be contested.

    This makes the affair even more shocking. As far as I can tell, issues were raised with Tuvel's article and, within a day or two, a member of Hypatia's editorial board had put forward an open letter and started soliciting signatures. This would have happened far more quickly than such a large and collaborative (read: unwieldy) management structure could be expected to settle on a response, especially over a weekend. It seems likely that this tactic was designed to pressure the rest of the various editors to get on board with the open letter author's position–in other words, to marshal an angry mob to undermine the journal's governance structure.

    Oddly, a few of the signatories to this open letter are themselves members of the boards in question! I don't have an analysis of this, but I am really amused by the idea of signing a petition to oneself.

    The "open letter" apparently resulted in the release of the Associate Editors' response, which was published by "a majority of AEs". But there are only 10 AEs at Hypatia. Why would the 6-9 people who approved this letter not do so under their own names? I can think of a couple of interesting possibilities. Obviously publishing as "the majority of AEs" gave a strong impression that the statement was official, which a list of six names wouldn't. So this may be mere manipulation. I also notice that the Open Letter was purged of names after a few days, around the same time some signatories began to indicate that they had second thoughts. Have people un-signed themselves from the open letter or AE statement? Another intriguing possibility: there are several members of the AE board (Alcoff, Ortega, Yancy) with serious credibility on race issues. If one or more of them wouldn't sign the AE statement, the letter's (anemic) race analysis would look a lot less authoritative.

    I sincerely hope that the names of these AEs will be published, and I want to thank Brian for linking to the original open letter, which includes the name of its author. These shadowy power plays within the journal structure have obviously backfired spectacularly (except, I suppose, to those "accelerate the contradictions" types who take pleasure in chaos and destruction) and as a member of the community, I don't think those who have been manipulating public outrage to undermine the journal's peer review and governance ought to be in power there.

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