Philosophy 304, Philosophy of Sex and Love
Fall 2000; Prof. J.W. Powell, ph. 5753
Office hours 11-12 Tues & Thurs, 3-4 W and by appointment in 110 UANX;
Your odds are good of catching me anytime I'm not teaching. email: jwp2@humboldt.edu
Description: We'll take a problems approach to questions in philosophy of sex and love while we work with a
selection of classic and influential readings on the subject. The goals for the course include philosophical goals--we'll
work to make clear what doing philosophy is, as well as think about the particular problems. I list some of the questions
or problems of interest to me. Interests of class members will help us decide what to work on from, or what to add to,
this list.
1. Sex and Morality. Why does morality get so tangled up in sex? What is natural or normal sex, and when, if ever, does normal mean healthy and good, and deviant mean sick and bad? And what you mean, deviant or unnatural?
2. What is love? Is it (let's make this multiple choice) a feeling? a way of acting? a kind of wanting? a sadistic joke played on us by God? an attitude toward persons? a good thing or a disaster? Is love about commitment? Does love require or give you a reason for fidelity? Related to this problem is a philosophical question about the status of definitions--if we can answer the question, what is love, by giving a definition, what have we accomplished, and what does that do to help us with examples (for instance, when you or I fall head over heels)?
3. Women. Men. What's THAT about? What's the big deal about women? Why do so many men have to either hate women or turn them into deities?--And the mirror side of this, what's the big deal about men? That is, how come men so often get to be the main participants in decisionmaking about who gets to be counted as human beings? There is some history to be done here, and some psychology, but some philosophy as well when we try to get at the roots of this. Is there something sexist in our concept of argument, our concept of logic, our concept of ethics or morality? If we find there is, can our concepts be cured? How deep does the war between men and women go? How deep does it have to go?
4. Is love a lie? There are problems both about the arguments and the problem here (though some writers say yes and a few hopeless idiots and Welshmen say no) and the class will help sort them out.
5. Violence. What is the relationship between sex and violence, and the relationship between love and violence? To what extent are we doomed by the imperfect love we got from our parents? Is violence always pathological, always the result of some lack of or unmet need for love? Why are some tempted to think it is?
6. What is the relationship between psychological health and love? between love and time? (Beginnings are terrific, but as Tom Robbins asks, Why won't love stay?) Is it true you have to love yourself before you can really love another?
7. Shifting perspectives, and where are WE standing? There is a messy group of related problems I think of as problems locating, defining, or seeing the subject. Some of these have to do with what differing points of view do to our thinking about sex and love. For instance, among some philosophers, one of the main questions has resulted from the fact that feminists have raised our consciousnesses about male stupidity and female exploitation; one way to express the question is, how come the oppression of women and the profundity of sex and the body have escaped philosophers? That is, why don't philosophers get it? Further, fiction writers and poets seem to articulate a different subject than philosophers work at, so perhaps they are seeing what philosophers don't get. A related problem has to do with how the subject changes if approached from the viewpoint of scientists, or the viewpoint of therapists. Is sex, or is love, something which can be scientifically studied without putting on blinders or, using Wordsworth's phrase, murdering it to dissect it? I recently stumbled on the controversy about whether addictions to sex exist, which can be used to raise these questions.
8. Archaeology of thinking about Men and Women. What is behind our thinking about the differences between men and women? To what extent is the dichotomy, male vs. female, a sound one? In other words, What about the question, how are men and women different?--note that we are interested not only in the differences between the sexes/genders but also in the thinking behind the question.
9. Subjectivity and Ineffability of Sex and Love. Are there important things about sex and love which cannot be spoken or put into words? That is, is language inadequate to express important truths or experiences of sex or love?
10. So?? What are our odds (your odds, my odds) of finding a good love, and why is that? Is it possible, even?
11. Now, about those earlier questions: what makes those philosophy?
Several of these overlap. Several tempt us to jump the fence between philosophy and psychology or
anthropology. For some of these questions, it is difficult to find helpful readings. We will continue looking during the
semester. Sometimes we may have to make it up ourselves.
A warning: this course is not about fucking or making love, but rather about how we think. The goal is not
arousal but self-awareness and clarity. As the instructor, I will model a fairly stuffy kind of discussion. Those students
who are sex-starved might find parts of the course more racy than most college courses, but, after all, that's not saying
much, and many students are more likely to think the course prudish or dry. It is a more important part of my agenda
that you are exposed to and come to understand what philosophers do than it is that you get it on or that you understand
sex.
Texts and Materials: You don't have to buy anything. The readings will be handed out in class or placed on reserve in
the library. Some of the questions will involve more writing than reading, some more discussion and lectures than reading. Handouts in
class will be covered on the exams. The reading load is not large in number of pages, but some of the reading is quite
difficult. Sometimes we have to get along with no reading at all. Studenst will be asked to hunt up and provide to the class quotes regarding love and sex. The emphasis throughout is on clarification of issues
and description and evaluation of arguments, and we will spend some time on method early on. The materials
are important, but reading them is not a substitute for attending class--the crucial part of this course is what happens in
the classroom in lecture and discussion, and in your writing. Don't skip class.
Grading: You can expect on an average to write about twenty to twenty-five pages of essays over the semester. There will be a first
ungraded essay assignment, two midterms and a final, each exam counting 30 % and the other 10 % based on that first
essay, any pop quizzes, optional assignments, extra research, outstanding discussion. Exams will consist for the most
part of three or four essay questions from twice that many distributed at least a week ahead, doable by you as either a
take-home or in class. Missed midterms will not be made up, except that there may be some optional assignments
available late in the term. Students who miss classes are responsible to get notes from other students and to come to my
office hours to get handouts and information. Students may substitute for the final a project they like better if they get a written proposal
approved. The goal of such a project is to show a high level of insight, agony, and hard work. Suggestions will be
offered in class. Students who elect to do a final project but miss the deadline will take the final exam. I do not give
Incompletes.
Added Opportunity for Discussion: I'll set up for students in my sections of this course a way for you to write and get
e-mail (related to the course) to each other. I'll also provide materials for those of you who want to use e-mail but don't
know how to begin. There is no requirement you participate in this. In the past there have been some lively and
interesting and insightful discussions in these e-mail exchanges, as well as people revealing their thoughtlessness or
ignorance. I'll sometimes bring some of these messages to class to share.
Schedule: (This is really tentative, it will be revised as we go, and students will help choose topics and sequence.)
Weeks Topic and readings . Exams
1. Intro and methods;
2 and 3. Sex, natural and unnatural. The readings are brief and will be handed out in class. What is natural or
unnatural in sex? How does the question change when we work with it philosophically? Morality and moral judgements
about sex. How should we justify our moral judgments about sex?
4 and 5. Plato's Symposium. What is love? what's it for, where'd it come from, what would a philosophical theory of
love do? Martha Nussbaum on Plato; Firestone's essay attacking love; Solomon's essay; C.G. Jung. First writing assignment.
6 and 7. Is love a lie? Emma Goldman on marriage; Freud's "Notes on Transference Love;" various poetry; Marilyn
French. Midterm I.
8 and 9. Differences between men and women. Dichotomies generally. Foucault, from A History of Sexuality, and
deconstructionism. French, from Beyond Power. The possibility of some other consciousness regarding dichotomies. What's at stake with this question?
10 and 11. Sex, violence, love, and health. Taboos, e.g. the incest taboo. Alice Miller. Sociology of sex offenders.
Philosophy of sex offenders. Parent-child love as model for adult love. Midterm.
12 and 13. Abortion. Essays by Thomson, Jaggar, Hare; Human lives handout. Henry Miller.
Ineffability and love. Wm. James; various poetry again. Language theories. Ineffability exercises and handout.
14 and 15. Final Projects Due; Possibility and Impossibility of love. Exams are the week of 18-22 December.
On goals: The University and the College of Arts and Humanities asks faculty to review courses in the light of General
Education Goals. Some of the adopted goals turn out to fit or even to be shaping ideas for this course. Indeed, I have
many moments where I think the philosophy department is the only place in higher education competent to address them; here they are.
--We will develop an understanding of how humanistic approaches are important to an overall understanding of human
experience. For instance, a scientist may work away at discovery of the causes of AIDS or homosexuality or sexual
violence, but it is a philosopher, working within the humanities, who works to make us aware of what counts as a cause,
how our concept of cause is structured. We will see many instances of these distinctions in this course.
--We will understand how scholarly questions and writing in the humanities are different from scholarship in other fields,
and how those other fields may connect with philosophical or other humanistic s to read works about sex and love by some long-dead philosophers and then point out how our interest in their arguments
and issues is different from the interest of a historian.
--We will become able to question the relationships between generalizations and examples, especially in connection with
our work on general philosophical questions. For example, our work on the question of what is natural and unnatural in
sex will first concentrate on putting together possible answers, but then will shift to the question of how general we are
requiring each answer to be, and what kinds of assumptions underlie those answers. Understanding the status of
exceptions in our work is a part of understanding what philosophy is. General cl for in ways which are not addressed by, say, anthropologists.
--We will be working consistently through the semester to identify our own resources for providing good answers to the
philosophical problems. That is, we are not going to limit our possible answers to those provided by dead white
European males--instead we will stretch to imagine other alternatives. We will regard ourselves and our own
imaginations as important resources in our work.
--We will increase our awareness of, and come to terms with, the environment of ideas around us which shapes
possibilities we might otherwise take for granted. We will also look in the mirror--note our own reactions to this
environment of ideas. For instance, in our work on the question of whether love is a lie, we will read works by people
who disagree with each other profoundly, and our reactions of agreement and disagreement, or of scorn or admiration,
our wanting the answer to turn out one way rather than another, may help or hind about the question.
There are some by-the-way parts of meeting those goals. Accordingly, we are going to also work on the following:
--We will learn the lingo. We will learn the vocabulary of argument, and clarify those terms we use everyday which are
philosophically loaded. Philosophy is one place where clarity of language is absolutely necessary, and our work to show
what words do and how they mark distinctions from each other helps to clarify how crucial clear thinking, writing, and
speaking are to the humanities.
--We will be active. This does not mean students have to talk out every class, but it means passivity and memorization
which might work in other disciplines don't here. Worse, passivity shows you don't get it. We will worry and take the
stakes seriously and find cause for enthusiasm and feel attacked and feel as though what we have to say on these matters,
matters.
--We will raise our standards of discussion. We will pay attention to how arguments fail and how they could be made
better. We will watch ourselves fail and do better. We will become enlightened about the possibilities of doing better
and failing. We will become more demanding--this comes with being educated.
--We will keep paying attention to how people have been unfairly robbed of their voices by others with more power. We
do this in order to take arguments seriously no matter who gives them voice. We will insist that arguments work not
because the arguer has the right number of limbs, the right skin color or sexual plumbing or money, but because they are
good arguments. We will note arguments which have been discounted unfairly because they came from women or
minorities or otherwise marginalized people.
I have been thinking recently about what higher education is for, and have written more on this subject I'd be glad to share if you ask.
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