May 1, 2022

Organized Bodies? Sex and Vulgar Aristotelianism

In this post I want to explore whether an Aristotelian conception of life commits us to a biologist essentialism of sex. My claim is that self announced ‘Gender Criticals’ have an essentialist concept of sex that might look like it was Aristotelian but really is not. This vulgar Aristotelianism arises from the need to defend a biologist conception of sex in order to uphold a strict distinction of sex and gender. However, for every account of sex that refers to physiological constitution, it can be shown that it either excludes individuals one would not want to exclude or that it includes individuals one would not want to be included. If you define sex in terms of XX- and XY-chromosomes you are facing the problem that there are a lot of cases in which chromosomes and sex do not match. If you define sex in terms of reproductive capacities or organs, the question arises of how to deal with infertile individuals or those who had their reproductive organs removed.

From what I gather, ‘Gender Criticals’ have moved towards a teleological account of biology in order to accommodate for this problem. If your body is ‘organized around’ the production of large (small) gametes, you are a female (male). This teleological account allows to say that, under normal conditions, bodies are producing the respective gametes but those normal conditions might not always apply. Still, the body has the respective sex because, if those conditions applied, it would produce the respective gametes. So, it is the teleological structure of your physiology, regardless of whether or not your physiology succeeds in actualizing its telos, that determines your sex, and therefore sex is immutable. The physiological constitution of a person is supposed to be a decisive reason to sort them into one of the two sexes (there can only be two because there are only two types of gametes).

Aristotelianism can be credited with a teleological metaphysics of life. To be alive is to move towards the actualization of an internal telos that is determined by the species to which an individual belongs, and hence to be ‘organized around’ the actualization of this telos. To be a tree is to be ‘organized around’ blossoming in spring, growing seeds in summer and shed leaves in fall.1 Does this mean that an Aristotelian metaphysics of life commits us to an essentialist account of sex?

I do not think that either of the two possible readings of Aristotelian conceptions of human nature do so. Human nature is characterized by reason. Humans are, first and foremost, ‘organized around’ acquiring lógos, the capacity to act and reflect on reasons. There are two ways to spell out how lógos bears on a human life, the additive and the transformative conception.

On the additive conception, humans have all the features of living beings that plants and non-human animals have, and lógos is, so to speak, stacked on top of them. On this view, which seems to be the one Aristotle held himself, the physiological constitution of an individual cannot be a source of reasons for anything because we share it with other beings whose nature is not characterized by reason. So, on this version of Aristotelianism, the teleological structure of the reproductive system cannot be a reason to sort individuals into one of the two sexes because it simply is not the kind of thing that can be a reason for anything.

Modern Neo-Aristotelians gravitate towards the transformative model. On this view, manifestations of our embodied nature can provide us with reasons. For instance, if I come home and smell cake, I have a reason to believe that there is cake in the oven, and this reason is provided by the correct exercise of my bodily capacity to smell. Similarly, if I feel hungry, I have a reason to eat, because hunger is the result of a bodily process caused by a decline of the energy needed in order to maintain the functioning of my body.

For reasons that are too complicated to explain here, I think the transformative model is correct.2 Does it mean then that Neo-Aristotelians are committed to an essentialist view of sex? I do not think so. What is crucial here, is that the reasons provided by manifestations of our embodied nature are not decisive reasons. If I come home and smell cake, it might be because there is a cake in the oven, but it might also be because my neighbor is baking cake. And I need to exercise my rational capacity in order to judge whether or not I can trust my senses. Similarly, the decline of energy in my body might provide me with a reason to eat but additional circumstances might make it so that it is not a good reason. If I have a surgery upcoming, I might be forbidden to eat in the hours before. So, I need to reflect on whether I have good reason to eat. And I think the same holds for the physiological build-up with regard to reproduction. Usually it is a reason to sort a person into the categories ‘man’ or ‘woman’ but additional factors might give rise to doubt whether it is a good reason in a specific situation.

This is why I called the ‘Gender Critical’ account a vulgar Aristotelianism: it might look like relying on an Aristotelian metaphysics of life when it grounds sex in the teleological structure of reproductivity but closer inspection reveals that Aristotelian metaphysics of life does not support the ‘Gender Critical’ claim that sex is grounded in reproductivity and therefore immutable. We can say that a heart beats so that the blood flows, and we can say that a body produces gametes so that the person can procreate, but there is no reason to believe that this presupposes an external intention with regard to which the heart was ‘made’, and neither is there a reason to believe that someone is a man because their body is ‘organized around’ producing small gametes.