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Gender, Disposition, and Gender Identity: Towards a Phenomenal Powers View
- Introduction
In her “A dispositional account of gender,” McKitrick argues that to have a gender is to have a certain disposition. In this paper, I argue that, if McKitrick is right to say that to have a gender is to have a certain disposition, there is a reason to believe that gender identity determines gender. I argue that (1) if gender is a disposition, there is a categorical basis by virtue of which a person has a gender (i.e. there is a non-dispositional property that determines gender), and (2) there is a reason to believe that such a categorical basis is gender identity. With these results combined, it follows that, if to have a gender is to have a disposition, there is a reason to believe that gender identity determines gender.
I. McKitrick’s Dispositional Analysis
What is gender? It is increasingly common to say that gender is different from sex. While sex is a biological property that is determined by various features like chromosomes, hormones, penis, etc., gender is a psycho-social property that is determined by one’s gender identity, social norms, etc. Thus, it is possible that S has the sex of male while having the gender of woman, if S has an XY-chromosome with a penis and certain hormones while identifying themselves as woman and playing the role of woman. As McKitrick puts it, there can be cases of “the non-co-extensiveness of sex and gender” (McKitrick 2576).
McKitrick begins her analysis of gender with Butler’s view that gender is a pattern of behavior. As McKitrick puts it, “according to Butler, patterns of dress, posture, and speech are not expressions of an inner gender identity, but are instead constitutive of being gendered. By exhibiting a certain pattern of behavior, one thereby makes it so that one is feminine or masculine” (McKitrick 2577). This view, McKitrick says, is attractive because “it offers an alternative to a conception of gender as an essential, innate truth about a person and gendered behavior as an outward expression of an inner gendered self. Butler turns this notion on its head and construes this inner self as a consequence of, or a construction out of, these behaviors rather than their cause” (McKitrick 2580). Unlike the view that gender identity determines gender regardless of how they behave and what gender they are identified as, Butler’s point is that gender is determined by how they behave and how they are identified as. Butler ‘externalizes’ gender.
Although McKitrick finds Butler’s view attractive, she points out that Butler’s view has a disadvantage in that some people have genders but might not behave in gendered ways. For example, if someone has a term paper due tomorrow, they will write their term papers; writing their term papers is not a gendered behavior. But if Butler is right to say that gender is nothing over and above the pattern of gendered behaviors, it follows that they cease to have their gender. But since it is implausible that they ceased to have gender, Butler’s view is problematic. McKitrick thinks that this problem can be solved once gender is analyzed in terms of dispositions to behave in a certain way. As McKitrick sees it, to have gender is not to have a pattern of gendered behaviors; it is to have a certain disposition. This dispositional analysis can solve the problem from Butler’s view: one’s disposition to F need not always be exercised. Consider, for example, a rubber ball that is disposed to bounce. What it means for the rubber ball to have a disposition to bounce does not mean that it will bounce all the time; it means that it will bounce if it is in certain circumstances. Or consider a fragile vase, i.e. the vase with a disposition to shatter. That the vase has a disposition to shatter does not mean that the vase shatters all the time; again, it means that it will shatter in certain circumstances. Similarly, if gender is analyzed in terms of dispositions, one need not act in a gendered way all the time; one just needs to act in a gendered way in certain circumstances. Thus, McKitrick can avoid the problem that Butler faces: that one does not act in a gendered way all the time doesn’t mean that one’s gender has ceased to be.
McKitrick then anticipates an objection that McKitrick, in revising Butler’s view, has re-internalized gender. Butler’s attempt was to externalize gender, but by revising Butler’s view in terms of dispositions, McKitrick has thereby re-internalized gender. McKitrick responds to this objection by asserting that “I do not think my suggestion is as antithetical to Butler's view as it may seem… Saying ‘to be feminine is to be disposed to behave in certain ways’ says nothing about the origin, strength, or stability of that disposition” (McKitrick 2580). Is McKitrick’s assertion reasonable? In the next section, I argue that, as McKitrick revises Butler’s view of gender, she has at least weakened Butler’s attempt to externalize gender by leaving open the possibility that gender identity determines gender.
II. Dispositions, Categorical Bases, and Phenomenal Properties
It is widely accepted that dispositions have categorical bases, i.e. non-dispositional properties that are the causal bases for dispositions. Consider, for example, a rubber ball that is disposed to bounce. It is intuitive to say that the rubber ball is disposed to bounce because of its microphysical structure (i.e. its non-dispositional property). It is because the rubber ball has this microphysical structure as opposed to other microphysical structures that it is disposed to bounce; if it had a totally different microphysical structure, it will not be disposed to bounce. Or consider a wheel that is disposed to roll. Again, it is intuitive that it is disposed to roll because of its circular shape; if it were not circular, it would not be disposed to roll. Now, it is controversial whether all dispositions have causal bases, and I cannot engage with the discussion. What is important, however, is that it is uncontroversial whether some dispositions have causal bases. As Choi puts it, "philosophers in wide agreement with respect to a weaker thesis that at least some dispositions have distinct causal bases” (Choi 36). Thus, some dispositions have causal bases, and we shall see whether there is a good reason to believe that human dispositions have causal bases, and if so, what the causal bases are.
Consider human dispositions, e.g. dispositions to avoid, dispositions to look for food, dispositions to work hard, etc. What are the causal bases for these dispositions? One physicalist answer is that the causal bases of these dispositions are some brain states of the subject. If one has a brain state S, then one will have a disposition to work hard, for example. But if we don’t take the physicalist (or any other relevant) route, we can say that it is by virtue of our phenomenal properties that we have the disposition we have. Consider, for example, a person who has an ambition to succeed in philosophy, i.e. they have the phenomenal property of being ambitious. Because they have the phenomenal property of being ambitious, they are disposed to work hard in philosophy classes. They might sometimes not work hard in philosophy classes, e.g. they are exhausted, but their ambition is the causal basis for their disposition to work hard, i.e. they will work hard in certain circumstances. Or consider the phenomenal property of pain. If someone has a disposition to avoid things that are thrown to them, it is because of their phenomenal property having pain that they have such a disposition. If we are not committed to physicalism (or other relevant views), it is plausible that it is by virtue of the phenomenal properties that we have the disposition we have, i.e. the causal bases for human dispositions are phenomenal properties.
I find this proposal intuitive. It is because of our ambition that we are disposed to work hard; it is because of our pain that we are disposed to avoid whatever causes pain; it is because of our feeling of love that we are disposed to want to spend time with the significant other, etc. But we can also argue for this proposal without appealing to our intuitions. Consider, for example, Hume’s argument against causation:
Now nothing is more evident, than that the human mind cannot form such an idea of two objects, as to conceive any connexion betwixt them, or comprehend distinctly that power or efficacy, by which they are united ... If any one is of a contrary opinion, and thinks he has attain’d a notion of power in any particular object, I desire he may point out to me that object. (Treatise, 1.3.14.13)
Consider, for example, sphere A striking sphere B at rest, such that B is set in motion afterwards. In this case, we are inclined to say that A’s striking B is the cause of B’s motion; however, Hume’s point is that it is still conceivable that B does not move in spite of A’s striking. We assume that B will be in motion from our experiences of regularities, yet since it is still conceivable that B is not set in motion, we cannot say that A’s sticking B is the cause of B’s motion; A’s striking B and the B being in motion are merely successive. But one can argue that it is inconceivable that person S has the phenomenal property F that is the casual basis of the disposition D. Consider, for example, the phenomenal property of being ambitious. If someone is ambitious, it is hard to think of the cases when they don’t work hard in certain circumstances. They might not work hard in some circumstances, e.g. they are exhausted, but if they are not exhausted, they have time, etc., then it seems like they will work hard. If they don’t work hard while motivated with time, then they are probably not ambitious; it is mistaken to think that the person is ambitious. As Morch puts it, “it is not conceivable that pain makes a subject try to pursue it, remain indifferent to it or do anything else than avoid it (again, in the absence of interfering motives), when making is understood as exertion of (non-Humean) causal powers.” (Morch 132). Thus, it is inconceivable that a person has a phenomenal property and not have a relevant disposition; phenomenal properties necessitate the corresponding dispositions. Phenomenal properties being the causal bases for the dispositions can solve the Humean puzzle that there are no necessary causes. There are reasons to believe that it is by virtue of our phenomenal properties that we have certain human dispositions.
Now, recall McKitrick’s argument that to have a gender is to have a certain disposition. Given my proposal that it is because of our phenomenal properties that we have certain human disposition, there is a reason to believe that it is because of our phenomenal properties that we have gender. If S is disposed to behave in a ‘woman-way,’ then it is because they identify themselves as a woman that they behave so. Because S thinks that S is someone who fulfills a certain gender role, S is disposed to fulfill the gender role S identifies themselves as. This view is also compatible with that gender identity is inconceivable without gender. Although someone might behave in a gendered way that doesn’t correspond with their own identity, if someone identifies themselves as a certain gender means that they will have a disposition to act in the gendered way. If someone does not have a disposition to act in the relevantly gendered way, then they have not identified themselves as having such a gender.
This result is significant. For recall that McKitrick’s point was to revise Butler’s analysis to externalize gender. For Butler, this attempt to externalize gender was successful, because the pattern of behaviors determines gender. For Butler, it is hard to pin down what the causal basis of the pattern of behaviors was, because gender identity cannot be the causal basis for the pattern of behaviors. Unlike the phenomenal causal basis that necessitates one to have a relevant disposition, one can have gender identity while the relevant gender gets ‘masked’ by other factors, e.g. S identifies themselves as having gender G and also have the pattern of behaviors that are not relevant to G. But as McKitrick revises Butler’s view via dispositions, McKitrick leaves open the possibility that there is a phenomenal causal basis for gender. As I argued, gender identity is a phenomenal causal basis that necessitates one to have a relevant disposition. Thus, McKitrick leaves open the possibility that gender identity determines gender. In spite of her assertion that “to be feminine is to be disposed to behave in certain ways’ says nothing about the origin, strength, or stability of that disposition” (McKitrick 2580), she has weakened Butler’s insight. Although McKitrick is right to revise Butler via dispositions, she is wrong to say that her revision says nothing about the origin of the disposition. To sum, Butler attempts to externalize gender by appealing to the repeated pattern of behavior, and as McKitrick (rightly) tries to revise Butler’s view by appealing to dispositions, she thereby allows gender identity to determine gender. Before I conclude, I will reply to possible objections.
III. Objections and Replies
Objection 1. It is clear that some people obtain their genders from social norms, not their gender identity.
Reply: I argued that gender identity determines gender, but I have not argued that gender identity is the sole cause of one’s own gender. I think it is possible to obtain a gendered disposition without having to identify oneself as having the relevant gender. What I am arguing for is that gender identity is a sufficient condition for the relevant gender, not that it is a necessary condition.
Objection 2. It is possible that person S identifies themselves as one gender, say G, and still has a disposition of the opposing gender, say G’. This is problematic, because S’s identification of themselves as G determines S to have gender G, not G’.
Reply: I can reply in two different ways. First, I can follow Jenkins (2018) and say that person S has thereby failed to recognize S’s own gender identity. Second, if to have gender is to have a certain disposition, it is conceivable that S has a ‘man-disposition’ and a ‘woman-disposition.’ Once gender is analyzed as a disposition, there is nothing wrong with having multiple dispositions whose resulting effects are incompatible. They might be incompatible and only one of them might be exercised at a time, yet S will have the ‘man-disposition’ and the ‘woman-disposition’ at the same time (for, as we have seen, McKitrick’s insight was that dispositions need not always be exercised). Once we allow that S can have multiple genders, there is no problem of saying that S identifies themselves as gender G yet still has the disposition of another gender, say, G’. For example, S might have once identified themselves as gender G’ such that S has the disposition G’ and has not lost the disposition when S identifies themselves as gender G. Or, S might obtain gender G from social norms (to say that gender identity is the causal basis doesn’t mean that gender identity is the sole cause for gender) and still identify themselves as gender G’, in which case, S will have G and G’ as their dispositions. Thus, identifying oneself as gender G yet having the disposition of gender G’ is not problematic.
IV. Conclusion
In this paper, I argued that McKitrick’s dispositional analysis gives us a reason to believe that gender identity determines gender. While McKitrick asserts that her dispositional revision of Butler’s view says nothing about the origin of disposition, I argued that there is a reason to believe that gender identity is a phenomenal causal basis for gender, if to have gender is to have a certain disposition. I then anticipated some objections and argued that they fail.
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