Massimo Pigliucci
Gender norms? Are there members here who actually do believe that the APA can examine an issue like gender diversity, equality, justice etc., and provide mere mortals with the most rational assessment? Or, instead, philosophers or not, are attitudes about gender relationships [gay and straight] rooted more in ever evolving historical and cultural dynamics awash in contingency, chance and change. Political prejudices, in other words.Such tendency to self-examination, and even a good dose of self-criticism, is one of the first things I noticed moving (academically speaking) from science to philosophy, and it is a very refreshingly welcome one. A good example is a series of essays ran by the New York Times’ Stone blog focusing on whether the profession has an issue with gender diversity (it does, though I hardly think it is unique among academic fields, not to mention in society at large). In part as a response, the American Philosophical Association has stepped up its efforts to address the problem at an institutional level (a response that is still mostly in other fields).
Self-criticism regarding what particular behaviors? Who in regard to things like gender roles, abortion and gun control are the ones shooting themselves in the foot? Then those like Sam Harris making his own argument as though he could have freely opted to argue any other conclusion...and yet "somehow" his is, what, still the most rational frame of mind?Then again, self-criticism can become a fashionable attitude in and of itself, or can lead to shooting oneself in the (metaphorical) foot. That thought crossed my mind while reading an essay (also in the Stone) by Robert Frodeman and Adam Briggle, entitled “When philosophy lost its way” (it didn’t help that the link to the essay was immediately and thoughtlessly tweeted around by well known philosophy “critics,” such as author and expert-on-everything Sam Harris and “the world came from nothing as long as I get to define nothing in my own way” physicist Lawrence Krauss).