MrBillwulf's thoughts and tangents on philosophy, the Internet, current events, video games, and superheroes. I also write microstories, prose-poems, and dialogues.
According to young earth creationists, people in the time of Jesus rode around on dinosaurs, right? Actually, no. Young earth creationists believe that the dinosaurs were killed in the flood, an event that takes place in Genesis, which, we might recall, is the first book of the Bible. They do believe that dinosaurs and humans existed at some point in history, but they believe that this point is before the flood.
Anita Sarkeesian is a feminist writer best known for the blog and YouTube channel Feminist Frequency, at which she discusses pop culture from a feminist perspective. In particular, she looks at ways in which women are portrayed in movies and television. In May 2012, Sarkeesian started a kickstarter fund to support a series of videos on how women are portrayed in video games. She asked for $6,000 and received nearly $160,000. On March 7, she released the first video in the series, “Damsel in Distress: Part 1 - Tropes vs Women in Video Games.”
In “Damsel,” Sarkeesian looks at the damsel in distress trope, unearthing interesting facts about female characters in video game history. For example, Crystal of Starfox Adventures was initially meant to be one of the game’s playable protagonists, but instead ended up becoming a mute damsel in distress and an object of Fox McCloud’s rather salacious desires. Sarkeesian explores the trope from its relatively innocuous use in Super Mario to its rather lurid appearance in Double Dragon, in which a female character is punched and abducted.
Sarkeesian’s thesis is that the damsel in distress trope is a pernicious way of portraying women:
The reality is that this trope is being used in a real-world context where backwards sexist attitudes are already rampant. It’s a sad fact that a large percentage of the world’s population still clings to the deeply sexist belief that women as a group need to be sheltered, protected and taken care of by men.
The belief that women are somehow a “naturally weaker gender” is a deeply ingrained socially constructed myth, which of course is completely false—but the notion is reinforced and perpetuated when women are continuously portrayed as frail, fragile, and vulnerable creatures.
I agree with Sarkeesian—and many others—that women are overly sexualized and objectified in video games and popular culture, but I think she goes awry in endorsing radical feminism over classical feminism. Like it or not, historically, women have required protection by men, not because they are weak and fragile, but because they are vulnerable. Let me make this crystal clear, lest one think I’m a sexist ogre: women are not weak and fragile. Rather, women, by virtue of having less testosterone and being our species’ childbearers have historically been vulnerable. Has this fact been exploited to justify sexism and to deny rights to women? Of course it has. But it’s no less true. The reason that the damsel in distress trope is so common is that it reflects an historical and biological truth. To be sure, the trope can be abused to represent women as objects instead of subjects, but it doesn’t have to be.
There are two errors that need to be avoided here. One is the notion that the differences between men and women justify sexism. The other is the notion that the differences between men and women are socially constructed myths. Sarkeesian commits the second error. For example, she suggests that the distinction between toys for boys and toys for girls is socially constructed. However, the empirical evidence shows that boys naturally prefer traditional toys for boys and that girls prefer traditional toys for girls. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t unisex toys and that boys and girls can’t play together; it just means that there are natural tendencies that can’t be dismissed as social constructs.
Sarkeesian’s contribution to feminist thought it to apply it to pop culture, which tends to be ignored by academia. She’s adept at unearthing facts about how women are portrayed in pop culture and at presenting these facts in a clear and engaging format. Where I take issue with Sarkeesian is with her philosophical assumptions about the social construction of gender. Not every trope is merely a social construct.
Here’s an argument against the moral permissibility of induced fetal abortion:
The first premise is based on this argument:
The key premise here is the first one. When a fetus leaves the womb alive, it’s a newborn infant. Hence, killing it is an act of infanticide, and thus is morally impermissible.
Let’s return to the first argument. The key premise, and the one most likely to be objected to, is the second one: there is no moral distinction between feticide inside of the womb and outside of the womb. Prima facie, there seems to be no essential distinction between the moral status of killing a fetus inside of the womb and killing a fetus outside of the womb. The only difference is the location of the fetus, but location seems to be a non-moral property of an action. For instance, whether a sailor is killed on the deck of a ship or inside his or her quarters does not matter in regards to the morality of killing the sailor.
One possible objection is that a fetus inside the womb is using the woman’s biological resources and thus does not have a right to use them. This is not the case, however, when a fetus is outside of the womb. Thus, there is a moral difference between a fetus in the womb and a fetus outside of the womb. In “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith-Jarvis Thompson argues that a fetus has no right to use a woman’s body. Imagine, for example, that an alien parasite abducts you, attaches itself to your body, and uses your organs and circulatory system to stay alive for nine months. Does is it have a right to do this? Would it be wrong to detach yourself from the alien, even knowing that the alien would die? Thompson would suggest that it is morally permissible to detach yourself from the alien. Likewise, Thompson would suggest that it is morally permissible for a woman to detach herself from a fetus.
There are two ways to respond to Thompson’s argument. First, we could argue that it is not morally permissible to detach ourselves from the alien. Second, we could deny that the analogy between the alien and the fetus holds. I will take this second approach. The alien scenario hinges upon being abducted and forced into biologically supporting the alien. Pregnancy, however, except in cases of rape, is not forced. It is a natural process that can often be prevented if desired. Moreover, the possibility of pregnancy is at least tacitly understood when a woman engages in sex. Hence, the notion that the fetus is an invader is dubious.
Another possible objection is that a woman has a right to control her own body and that when a fetus is inside the womb, it is part of her body. The problem here is that the fetus is not a part of her body; it is using her body and taking up space in her body, but it is not a part of her body. It is a separate entity that inhabits her body and uses its resources. Indeed, the fetus is her relative with a distinct genetic identity and its own body
It seems, then, there is no moral difference between killing a fetus in the womb and killing a fetus outside of the womb; and because one is morally impermissible, then the other is morally impermissible. Hence, induced abortion of a fetus is morally impermissible.
[My Internet friends who lean to the left might want to make a sandwich while I express classical liberal views on gun control. ]
Via barackobama.com, I received a heartfelt e-mail from Sami Rahamim, whose father was killed by a former employee in a mass shooting. I would like to respond.
Bill — When I last emailed you a few months ago, I told you about my dad, Reuven, who was killed this past September in a mass shooting in Minneapolis. Since then, I’ve been fighting every single day to reduce gun violence, so no one else ever has to grieve like I did.
Reducing gun violence is a noble goal.
When the Senate defeated a bill that would expand background checks last week, I just couldn’t believe it. Something that 90 percent of Americans support should be a slam dunk.
Not necessarily. We live in a Constitutional republic, not a democracy. That means that even if 90% of all Americans support X, they can’t have X if it violates the Constitution, or more importantly, my individual rights.
I can’t get over the fact that those 45 senators cast their votes against background checks while family members of the victims of Newtown, Tucson, and Virginia Tech watched from the Senate gallery.
I don’t want senators to cast their votes based on who is watching from the Senate gallery. That’s not a rational consideration.
Could those senators even look those families in the eye and explain themselves?
This is an emotional appeal. More to the point, I hope that they could enumerate the reasons they voted against the Manchin-Toomey bill, the chief reason being that the bill would not have prevented any of the shootings in question.
The truth I’m finding is that the gun lobby has got decades worth of money and organizing behind them, and they know how to stir their supporters into a frenzy.
So? Are you suggesting that the gun lobby paid off the senators? What is your point here?
This past weekend, thousands of OFA supporters got together at 45 targeted events across the country to thank the senators who stood up for us, and to tell the senators who caved to the special interests that we’re not about to give up this fight.
What does “caved to the special interests” mean? Do you think that the senators had no good faith objections to the Manchin-Toomey bill?
There is no evidence that expanded background checks would have stopped any of the recent mass shootings. Adam Lanza, for example, stole his guns from his mother, who failed to secure them properly, even though she knew that her son was less than stable. Hence, stronger background checks would not have stopped him.
Here’s an alternative approach to the problem. In regards to President Obama’s plan for reducing gun violence, I endorse his suggestion that we should raise awareness about gun safety. This would be accomplished easily through a bi-partisan media campaign promoting gun safety in general and safe gun storage in particular. More importantly, this approach doesn’t infringe upon anyone’s second amendment rights.
My second trip into the New 52 is Wonder Woman Vol. 1: Blood, written by Brian Azzarello and illustrated by Cliff Chiang. This is a re-boot of the Wonder Woman franchise, so it was bound to interpret the character in controversial ways. The most objective way to describe Azzarello’s approach is that he applies a modern gloss to the traditional themes of Greek mythology. (Warning: there be spoilers ahead, including a major one concerning WW herself.)
Indeed, the plot is grounded on one of the most traditional themes in Greek mythology: Zeus’ infidelity and siring of children out of wedlock. Although Zeus is missing and presumed to be dead, Hera is on the rampage and out to kill the unborn child of Zeus and Zola, a feisty country girl unaware that she’s bearing Zeus’ child. Hermes tries to protect Zola from a pair of assassin centaurs sent by Hera, but is badly wounded. He transports Zola to WW’s apartment, and WW becomes Zola’s protector.
The most controversial aspect of this series has to do with WW’s origins. In the traditional origin story, Hippolyta creates WW from clay that is given life by the gods. Thus, she has no male lineage. In this re-boot, however, WW is the offspring of Hippolyta and Zeus, thus making her a demi-goddess. The clay story turns out to be a cover story to protect Diana from Hera. Upon learning this, Diana becomes angry and leaves Paradise Island. Many fans had the same reaction, because her origin from clay is considered to be an integral part of her character, namely, the fact that she has no paternal heritage.
Also controversial is the way that the Greek gods are drawn. Hermes is a blue-skinned, humanoid bird, Ares an old Asian man, Apollo an ebony-skinned wearer of three-piece suits, and Hades a short boy in armor with burning candles on his head that drip wax over his face—he resembles a character from The Tick.
Overall, these first six issues are entertaining, albeit some people may have trouble getting beyond Diana’s new heritage as a daughter of Zeus. My main problem with the series is the sometimes confusing artwork, especially in regards to the climax of the story arc, in which Diana destroys Hera’s ability to see events on earth in her scrying pool on Olympus. The sequence of events leading up to that moment are confusing and left many readers puzzled. Nonetheless, I’m looking forward to the next six issues.
In 2011, DC re-booted (again) its entire line-up of comics. I’m wary of these re-boots, but when I saw that Barbara Gordon has returned to being Batgirl and that Gail Simone is writing the new Batgirl series, I decided to read Batgirl Vol. 1: The Darkest Reflection, which collects issues 1-6.
I knew Simone as the writer of “Double Date,” one of the best episodes of Justice League Unlimited, but had not read any of her comics. Simone is well-known for pointing out the stupid things that comics do to female characters, and that was another reason I decided to start with Batgirl as my introduction to the New 52, the name given to the re-boot .
The series begins three years after the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon through the stomach. She lives but is unable to walk. Gordon becomes Oracle, using her computer skills and knowledge to assist other Gotham-based heroes. After regaining her ability to walk, she becomes Batgirl again, and this is where the series begins. We’re not told directly how Barbara regains this ability, but there are hints that she received a neural implant at an experimental clinic. Interestingly, the seemingly miraculous nature of her recovery is part of the theme of the first story arc: a villain who calls himself the Mirror is killing people in Gotham who have miraculously escaped death in one way or another. The Mirror believes that they shouldn’t have escaped death, and Barbara is on his list.
Barbara is rusty as Batgirl and is still haunted by the shooting. At one point, she freezes when the Mirror points a gun at her stomach, and the consequences are fatal, albeit not to her. Barbara also struggles to be independent of the Bat family, rejecting help from Nightwing (aka Richard Grayson, the first Robin) in taking down the Mirror. Batman and Bruce Wayne also make an appearance in this series, and Bruce, not having seen Barbara for some time, tells her that she was always meant to be Batgirl.
Overall, this volume is well-written and does justice to the character. The only criticism I have of the story is the rather random and sudden appearance of Barbara’s mother, who abandoned her as a child. This plot thread seems tacked-on, although I suspect that not everything is as is seems.
X: If you’re against abortion, don’t have one. But don’t force your values on me.
Y: OK, but why should I subsidize abortion for other people?
X: Because it’s not fair for only rich women to have access to abortion services.
Y: So you don’t mind forcing your values on me?
X: Equal access to abortion is not just my personal value; it’s about universal justice.
Y: Well, why can’t I make the same claim about abortion being wrong?
X: Because your belief that abortion is wrong is based on your personal religious beliefs.
Y: First of all, that wouldn’t make it my “personal value.” If my religion says that it’s wrong to take innocent life, that’s not merely a personal value. Second, my opposition to abortion is based on the view that a fetus is a human life. I may be wrong about that, but it’s not merely a personal belief, and it’s not based on any religion. So I ask you again: why should I subsidize abortion?
X: Because I don’t mind imposing my progressive values on you.
Is it rational to take people of differing talents, intelligence, and temperament, force them into a highly artificial and often hostile social setting, expect them to sit still for eight hours a day, and demand that they pay attention and do well? What adult would allow himself to be forced by law into a setting such as this? How is it that non-totalitarian societies came to praise this form of slavery as a virtue? Education simpliciter is a good thing; yet should it not be tailored to each individual, taking into account his or her strengths and weaknesses, virtues and vices, needs and wants?
I’m sleep-deprived, drinking hazelnut coffee and Diet Dr Pepper Cherry, and listening to “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Apparently, this combination makes me want to give vent to subversive, politically incorrect thoughts. So let’s go.
That’ll do for now. Imma play some Skyrim now.
One way to argue for the moral permissibility of abortion is to argue that the fetus is not yet a human being or person. Thus the fetus has no rights, and killing it is morally insignificant. Another way to argue for the moral permissibility of abortion is to argue that even though the fetus is a human being, it does not have the right not to be killed. The philosopher Judith Jarvis-Thomson raised this latter argument in her famous 1971 paper “A Defense of Abortion.” Writer Mary Beth Williams recently put forward this position in a Slate article, “So what if abortion ends life?”
In this article, Williams rejects the notion that the fetus is not a human life but also rejects the notion that abortion is wrong. Her position is that the rights of the mother trump the rights of the fetus:
Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
She ends the article by saying:
[Abortion] saves lives not just in the most medically literal way, but in the roads that women who have choice then get to go down, in the possibilities for them and for their families. And I would put the life of a mother over the life of a fetus every single time—even if I still need to acknowledge my conviction that the fetus is indeed a life. A life worth sacrificing.
Unfortunately, that’s it. The rest of the article is devoted to convincing pro-choice people that the fetus is a human life and to attacking pro-life rhetoric. That doesn’t leave us with much of an argument for her belief that abortion is morally impermissible. But let’s try to construct an argument on her behalf. The first premise isn’t difficult to construct:
Indeed, Williams offers the following support for the first premise:
But we make choices about life all the time in our country. We make them about men and women in other nations. We make them about prisoners in our penal system. We make them about patients with terminal illnesses and accident victims. We still have passionate debates about the justifications of our actions as a society, but we don’t have to do it while being bullied around by the vague idea that if you say we’re talking about human life, then the jig is up, rights-wise.
I don’t know if these are convincing reasons for taking a human life, but here’s an obvious example of the the first premise: civil authorities and citizens alike have a right to use deadly force to stop someone from endangering the lives of others. So let’s grant the first premise that there are some circumstances in which it is morally permissible to take a human life.
The second premise is more difficult to construct; what is the set of circumstances that makes abortion permissible? It seems to lie within the passage quoted above:
Yet a fetus can be a human life without having the same rights as the woman in whose body it resides. She’s the boss. Her life and what is right for her circumstances and her health should automatically trump the rights of the non-autonomous entity inside of her. Always.
Ironically, even though she believes that the fetus is a human life, these are standard pro-choice positions, namely, (1) that the mother’s rights trump the rights of the fetus and (2) that the fetus is not an autonomous entity. Thus her position is more difficult to defend, because she has to defend the view that (1) and/or (2) make it morally permissible to take a human life. Before analyzing (1) and (2), let’s finish constructing the argument:
The conclusion follows from P1 and P2 alone or P1 and P3 alone, but I included P2 and P3 in the same argument for the sake of convenience. To raise problems for the soundness of the argument, then, we have to raise problems with both P2 and P3. Let’s start with P2.
The problem with P2 is that even assuming that X has more rights than Y, it doesn’t follow that Y doesn’t have a right not to be killed. I have more rights as an adult than a child does, but it doesn’t follow that the child doesn’t have a right not to be killed. Moreover, the right not to be killed seems to be a very basic right. What does it mean for a human life to have rights but not the right not to be killed? If a fetus is a human life but has fewer rights than the mother such that it can be aborted, exactly what rights does it have?
Maybe, then, it’s not the fact that the mother has more rights than the fetus, but that the fetus will have an impact on the life of the mother. Williams broaches this point:
“[Abortion] saves lives not just in the most medically literal way, but in the roads that women who have choice then get to go down, in the possibilities for them and for their families.”
This suggests that abortion is morally permissible on the grounds that it allows women to pursue goals they could not otherwise pursue. Note that if a fetus is not a human life then this justification is redundant, that is, if the killing of a fetus is morally insignificant, then there doesn’t need to be any further justification for abortion. However, because Williams thinks that the fetus is a human life, she needs to justify why it is morally permissible to kill it. The justification here seems to be that the difficulty of pursuing certain goals after bringing the fetus to term justifies abortion. But this raises a number of problems.
First, a newborn infant presents the same difficulties; so is it morally permissible to commit infanticide? Note that Williams rejects dividing-line arguments:
When we try to act like a pregnancy doesn’t involve human life, we wind up drawing stupid semantic lines in the sand: first trimester abortion vs. second trimester vs. late term, dancing around the issue trying to decide if there’s a single magic moment when a fetus becomes a person. Are you human only when you’re born? Only when you’re viable outside of the womb? Are you less of a human life when you look like a tadpole than when you can suck on your thumb?
Given this, Williams cannot make a hard-and-fast distinction between killing an infant and killing a fetus. Indeed, the pro-life position is that there isn’t such a distinction and given that it is morally impermissible to kill an infant, it is morally impermissible to kill a fetus. Williams, however, has to either bite the bullet and justify infanticide, or make a distinction between a fetus and an infant. (Oddly, Williams thinks that the inference from “X is a human life” to “X has a right not to be killed” is a rhetorical dirty-trick on the part of the “anti-choice lobby.”)
Second, suppose that a woman is concerned that having a child will slow or derail her plans for college and a career. How does this justify the taking of a human life? Is the woman’s future more important? If so, why? Killing a fetus deprives it entirely of a future, so it loses more than the woman does. Again, would it be permissible to kill an infant to prevent it from slowing or derailing the mother’s future plans? What’s wrong here is that pragmatic reasons for an action are being construed as moral justifications for that action. A prospective mother is indeed competent to determine whether or not a child will be a burden, but this has nothing to do with the morality of abortion.
Third, let’s assume that a woman decides that having a child is too much of a burden. How does this justify a doctor performing an abortion? A doctor is not competent to decide that a fetus will be too much of a burden for its mother, and a mother’s permission to kill the fetus is not enough to make it morally permissible to kill the fetus. The usual justification for involving the medical establishment is to ensure the safety of abortion. But again, this is a pragmatic justification, not a moral one. It may be safer for medical professionals to provide abortions, but this does not make abortion morally permissible.
Finally, if the fetus is a human life, but the mother does not want it, why not put it up for adoption? This preserves the autonomy of the woman without taking a human life. In fact, hasn’t Williams unwittingly made the case for adoption by acknowledging that the fetus is a human life?
Thus P2 seems to be very problematic. What about P3? Is the fact that a fetus is non-autonomous a justification to deprive it of its life? Let’s construct a separate argument for this:
P1 is the key premise. But why is it true? If S can’t make decisions for itself, is that sufficient to indicate that S has a right not to be killed? Note that S in this case is not in a vegetative state, but has a future. Moreover, it will not become autonomous even when it is born; yet infants have a right not to be killed. Hence, it looks as if autonomy is not a necessary condition for the right not to be killed. One can be non-autonomous and have a right not to be killed. Hence P1 is problematic.
Williams’ article is provocative, but she hasn’t thought through the logical implications of her position. If the fetus is a human life but can be killed, and if an infant is a human life but cannot be killed, then there has to be a distinction between the fetus and the infant such that killing the fetus is justified. The inference from “X is a human life” to “X has a right not to be killed” is not a dirty rhetorical trick cooked up by “anti-choicers,” and she has the burden of showing that the former does not follow from the latter.
