There’s a classic thought experiment called The Trolley Problem. Briefly, it goes like this: You’re in the driver’s seat of a trolley without brakes. In front of you is a track that forks off from the main track. Beyond the fork, five people are tied to the main track, and one is tied to the side track. If you do nothing, the trolley will stay on the main track and kill the five. If you turn the wheel, the trolley will divert to the side track and kill the one. What do you do?
Thanks for the summary of utilitarian vs. Kantian ethics. My college philosophy class is far enough behind me that when you began to illustrate the trolley problem, I could intuit the moral difference between the possible outcomes but could not have articulated it.
Cannot agree with your thesis mapping these two kinds of morality onto the sexes however.
“We don’t ask men to sell themselves. Kantian ethics for them. Utilitarian ethics for us.
Men are free.”
From where I sit, men who have or want a wife and children have been always been asked to sell themselves in order to provide for their families; they just sell themselves to corporations rather than selling their bodies sexually. Over the decades, millions upon millions of men have spent their entire adult lives working long hours at jobs they hated so their families could have comfortable lives, which looks to me far more like duty & responsibility than like freedom. Millions more have literally sold their lives via military service for the greater good.
Beyond providing for their families, men’s work benefits society (as does women’s, of course). Just as one example, I’d argue that the long haul truckers who keep Target stores stocked are providing much more collective utility to the people (mostly women) who shop there than they are to themselves.
The only men who may truly be free are single men who don’t want a wife / partner or family (not a large group), or men in the top 1% of attractiveness who women are drawn to regardless of how he conducts himself. Otherwise, to attract women, men must acquire status, as judged by women, which generally means going to college and then getting a white collar job. This strikes me as a box, a pre-written life script, far more than as freedom. Note that the reverse does not typically hold; men, more often than not, care far less what prospective mates do for work (or if they even work at all), or where (or even whether) they went to college, etc.
None of this is to say or even imply that “ackshually, women have it better than men,” or don’t have difficulties that are specific to women. I’m just saying that, as a man, particularly one with a wife and kids but even before that, the notion that I am or have been “free” to do whatever I want while women have been forced to sacrifice themselves for my & everyone else’s benefit does not come close to matching what I observe, and I’m confident that most men would say the same.
My disagreement aside, you’re a talented writer and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of your Substack posts (and not just to argue with them 🙂).
Yep, I read the article. Apparently you didn’t read my comment. If you had, you’d realize I never said women didn’t work thankless jobs, or denied that some men leave their families (which some women do as well), and I specifically went out of my way to emphasize that I was not saying that women actually have it easier than men or anything along those lines.
My comment took issue with Shannon’s thesis (as I understood it) that men live freer, easier lives than women, and provided evidence that I believe weighs against that thesis. If you want to engage with what I actually wrote, have at it, but your touchy reply didn’t do so and merely indicated an emotional investment in identifying with the thrust of the article.
Thanks for the summary of utilitarian vs. Kantian ethics. My college philosophy class is far enough behind me that when you began to illustrate the trolley problem, I could intuit the moral difference between the possible outcomes but could not have articulated it.
Cannot agree with your thesis mapping these two kinds of morality onto the sexes however.
“We don’t ask men to sell themselves. Kantian ethics for them. Utilitarian ethics for us.
Men are free.”
From where I sit, men who have or want a wife and children have been always been asked to sell themselves in order to provide for their families; they just sell themselves to corporations rather than selling their bodies sexually. Over the decades, millions upon millions of men have spent their entire adult lives working long hours at jobs they hated so their families could have comfortable lives, which looks to me far more like duty & responsibility than like freedom. Millions more have literally sold their lives via military service for the greater good.
Beyond providing for their families, men’s work benefits society (as does women’s, of course). Just as one example, I’d argue that the long haul truckers who keep Target stores stocked are providing much more collective utility to the people (mostly women) who shop there than they are to themselves.
The only men who may truly be free are single men who don’t want a wife / partner or family (not a large group), or men in the top 1% of attractiveness who women are drawn to regardless of how he conducts himself. Otherwise, to attract women, men must acquire status, as judged by women, which generally means going to college and then getting a white collar job. This strikes me as a box, a pre-written life script, far more than as freedom. Note that the reverse does not typically hold; men, more often than not, care far less what prospective mates do for work (or if they even work at all), or where (or even whether) they went to college, etc.
None of this is to say or even imply that “ackshually, women have it better than men,” or don’t have difficulties that are specific to women. I’m just saying that, as a man, particularly one with a wife and kids but even before that, the notion that I am or have been “free” to do whatever I want while women have been forced to sacrifice themselves for my & everyone else’s benefit does not come close to matching what I observe, and I’m confident that most men would say the same.
My disagreement aside, you’re a talented writer and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of your Substack posts (and not just to argue with them 🙂).
You know that women work thankless jobs too right?
And that too many men just bugger off and leave their wife to raise their children on her own?
Like….did you read the article?
Yep, I read the article. Apparently you didn’t read my comment. If you had, you’d realize I never said women didn’t work thankless jobs, or denied that some men leave their families (which some women do as well), and I specifically went out of my way to emphasize that I was not saying that women actually have it easier than men or anything along those lines.
My comment took issue with Shannon’s thesis (as I understood it) that men live freer, easier lives than women, and provided evidence that I believe weighs against that thesis. If you want to engage with what I actually wrote, have at it, but your touchy reply didn’t do so and merely indicated an emotional investment in identifying with the thrust of the article.
"Shannon's thesis... that men live freer, easier lives than women"
I said freer, not easier. And I am objectively correct. Free is not a synonym for easy.
And even Kant himself was quite antisexual, and most likely an incel.