Motherhood is unfair to women in a way fatherhood most definitely is not. Not only are there the physical risks (pregnancy and childbirth puts a woman at risk for nausea, fatigue, backaches, headaches, skin rashes, changes in her sense of smell and taste, chemical imbalances, high blood pressure, diabetes, anemia, embolism, changes in vision, stroke, circulatory collapse, cardiopulmonary arrest, convulsions, and coma), there’s the permanent damage to one’s career: if she stays at home, the loss of at least six years’ experience and/or seniority; if she doesn’t, the loss of a significant portion of her income, that required to pay for full-time childcare. (And even if she can swing holding a full-time job and paying for full-time childcare, she probably won’t get promoted because she typically uses all ‘her’ sick days, she’s reluctant to stay past 5:00 or to come in before 9:00 or on weekends, and she occasionally has to leave in the middle of the day, perhaps even in the middle of an important meeting. In short, she can’t be counted on. Such a lack of commitment.) Continue reading
Science is the pursuit of knowledge according to the scientific method: hypotheses must be testable, and results must be verifiable by replication.Obviously, the more quantifiable something is, the more accurate and precise its measurement can be, and the more accurate and precise something is, the more testable and verifiable it is – it’s hard to test and then verify an uncertain or vague something-or-other.So the definition of science really comes down to quantification.Well, that and matter – only material things can be quantified.
Political science is the study of government organization and political systems.These things are not quantifiable.It would seem, then, that political science should have been named political art.
I used to think that the problem with rape was that women weren’t being explicit – they weren’t actually saying no, partly because men weren’t actually asking. Perhaps because there’s (still?) something shameful about sex that makes people reluctant to come right out and talk about it. Or maybe that would destroy the romance. Whatever.
“For guys who inexplicably want to do the thing that makes babies without wanting to support the inevitable babies, the obvious solution would be child support insurance — 0 to 18 plus college and professional school to say, age 30. They would have to sit down with their insurance agent and describe their sex lives in detail so that an appropriate premium could be calculated. Women could ask to see guys’ proof of insurance just as if they were Highway Patrol. In case of pregnancy women would receive regular monthly checks, without having to see chumpass motherfucker again. Letting his insurance company support his child would likely raise a guy’s rates into the stratosphere, however, making future intercourse prohibitively expensive.”
It’s not just an enthusiastic spillover of violence and aggression.The act of sexual intercourse is too specific, too far removed from the other acts of wartime violence and aggression.Shooting a person twenty-five times instead of once or twice would be such a spillover; forcing your penis or something else into a woman’s vagina is not.Furthermore, war rape is often not a spontaneous, occasional occurrence; apparently it’s quite premeditated and systematic. Continue reading
Could someone without a business degree become a marketing consultant?Then how is it that people without philosophy degrees are becoming ethics consultants? [1]Is it that people don’t know that Ethics is a branch of Philosophy just as Marketing is a branch of Business?Doubtful.Is it just the typical male overstatement of one’s expertise? [2]Perhaps.Is it that people think they already know right from wrong, they learned it as children, there’s really no need for any formal training in ethics?Possible.I have certainly met that attitude in business ethics classes and ethics committees. [3]Or is it that ethics consultants (advisors, officers, practitioners, and so on) don’t really act as consultants about ethics?They act as consultants about managing ethical behavior.No, not even that.Ethical consultants, practitioners, officers, focus on how to increase the likelihood that employees will follow some specific professional code of ethics or, more likely, the ethical rules the company’s elite want them to follow. [4] [5]
As far as I can see, business ethics taught by business faculty, ethics programs run by managers, and so on–any applied ethics taught by non-philosophers–is superficial at best.[6] First, following a code if just an appeal to custom, an appeal to tradition, which philosophers consider a weak basis, even an actual error in reasoning: just because it’s common to do it that way, doesn’t mean it’s right; just because you’ve always done it that way doesn’t mean it’s right.
Second, legal moralism is prevalent: if it’s legal, it’s right, and if it’s not illegal, it’s not wrong.Few philosophers (and I daresay few intelligent people) accept this equivalence of moral rightness and legality.After all, slavery was once legal, and even at that time many considered it wrong and had excellent arguments to support their position (which is, to some extent, why the law changed–ethics should determine law, not the other way around).
Third, the so-called ‘media test’ and ‘gut test’ are essentially nothing but appeals to intuition, which is nothing more than childhood conditioning that makes us say X ‘feels’ wrong.I think it far better to approach ethical issues with thought, to consider the many rational approaches to making decisions about right and wrong, such as an appraisal of values, principles, consequences, and so on.Continue reading
It’s Monday night basketball, an all-comers pick-up game, supposed to be fun and a good sweat.But week after week I steel myself against the anger, the frustration of not knowing how to correct the problem, and the despair of not being able to even begin to do just that.Eventually it happens: this time it’s Josh who yells at me to switch, to guard the new grade niner who’s just come onto the court to sub for the guy who’d been guarding Josh and Josh would guard the guy I’d been guarding.
I am distracted, as always, by the insult, the unwarranted assumption that I’m always the worst player there (even worse than the new grade niners) (although I’m thirty-five and played basketball for all of grade nine, and ten, eleven, twelve, and thirteen), and by the faulty logic that weak offensive players* are weak defensive players and should therefore guard other weak offensive players.Continue reading
At one time, bank tellers and secretaries had a certain prestige – the time when such positions were held by men.Schoolteachers used to be schoolmasters – before women entered the classroom.People who boast that many doctors in Russia are women fail to mention that doctoring in Russia, well, someone’s gotta do it.
The thing is this: whenever women enter an occupation, it becomes devalued.It loses glory.It loses funding.It loses media coverage.It becomes unpopular, even invisible.So if we were serious, really serious, about ending war, we’d fill the military ranks with women.When becoming a soldier has about as much appeal as becoming a waitress (another archetype of the service sector industry) –
An added bonus would be that if the enemy army were (still) male, they’d start killing themselves.Because better that than be killed by a woman.It would certainly save on ammunition.
On the other hand, if the enemy army were (also) female, well, more often than not, the wars would probably just sort of fizzle out into some sort of stalemate.We just don’t have the equipment for pissing contests.But since no one would really care, or even know, because it would be a woman thing, well, that’d be okay.We could live with that.
Thanks to genetic research, we may soon see people with the money to do so making sure their kids are born-to-succeed – parents paying to guarantee their kids have the right stuff.I’m not talking about a straightened spine or a functional optic nerve.I’m talking about designer kids: those made with healthy bodies, intelligent minds, and perhaps a certain specific ability to boot.Continue reading
"We License Plumbers and Pilots - Why Not Parents?"At Issue: Is Parenthood a Right or a Privilege? ed. Stefan Kiesbye (Greenhaven, 2009); Current Controversies: Child Abuse, ed. Lucinda Almond (Thomson/Gale, 2006); Seattle Post-Intelligencer (October 2004)
"A Humanist View of Animal Rights"New Humanist September 99; The New Zealand Rationalist and Humanist Winter 98; Humanist in Canada Winter 97
have been previously published in Canadian Woman Studies, Herizons, Humanist in Canada, The Humanist, and The Philosopher's Magazine - contact Peg for acknowledgement details.
ImpactAn extended confrontation between a sexual assault victim and her assailants, as part of an imagined slightly revised court process, in order to understand why they did what they did and, on that basis, to make a recommendation to the court regarding sentence does not go … as expected.
What Happened to TomTom, like many men, assumes that since pregnancy is a natural part of being a woman, it’s no big deal: a woman finds herself pregnant, she does or does not go through with it, end of story. But then …
Aiding the EnemyWhen Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.
Bang BangWhen a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?
ForeseeableAn awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?
Exile (full-length drama) Finalist, WriteMovies; Quarterfinalist, Fade-In.
LJ lives in a U . S. of A., with a new Three Strikes Law: first crime, rehab; second crime, prison; third crime, you’re simply kicked out – permanently exiled to a designated remote area, to fend for yourself without the benefits of society. At least he used to live in that new U. S. of A. He’s just committed his third crime.
What Happened to Tom (full-length drama) Semifinalist, Moondance.
This guy wakes up to find his body’s been hijacked and turned into a human kidney dialysis machine – for nine months.
Aiding the Enemy (short drama 15min)
When Private Ann Jones faces execution for “aiding the enemy,” she points to American weapons manufacturers who sell to whatever country is in the market.
Bang Bang (short drama 30min) Finalist, Gimme Credit; Quarter-finalist, American Gem.
When a young boy playing “Cops and Robbers” jumps out at a man passing by, the man shoots him, thinking the boy’s toy gun is real. Who’s to blame?
Foreseeable (short drama 30min)
An awful choice in a time of war. Whose choice was it really?
What is Wrong with this Picture?
Nothing. There’s no reason women can’t be the superordinates and men the subordinates. But life’s not like that (yet).
Minding Our Own Business A collection of skits (including “The Price is Not Quite Right,” “Singin’ in the (Acid) Rain,” “Adverse Reactions,” “The Band-Aid Solution,” and “See Jane. See Dick.”) with a not-so-subtle environmental message
Rot in Hell A soapbox zealot and an atheist face off…
