Comments on: ‘When the chips are down, the philosophers turn out to have been bluffing’

By: Benjamin Toth

Benjamin Toth — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 03:33:10 +0000

It looks as if you’ve hit on a very satisfactory way to be a conservative. To be serious for a moment, this debate is a sign of the dull reactionary time we live in.

By: Sidney

Sidney — Sat, 07 Oct 2023 02:18:41 +0000

Great article. I rather think it’s not that philosophers have gotten any worse in terms of cowardice, but that there hasn’t been a ‘stress test’ of this much power in recent times. Thanks you Alex and Free Thinker for this.

The ‘denying existence’ complaint makes absolutely no sense to those of us who don’t believe such a thing as a ‘gender identity’ exists…to counter is like arguing with a believer about god. Best let him hold on to his faith, so long as he doesn’t impose it on me.

By: Hector

Hector — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 18:52:22 +0000

It seems extremely disingenous to say that a book arguing that “woman” not only has and can but *should* be used to label all and only adult human females “does not take a stance on any social or political issues.”

By: Emily

Emily — Fri, 06 Oct 2023 03:14:00 +0000

In reply to Jolyon Wagg.

“The right not to be told by the literal Prime Minister of the country you live in that it’s common sense to deny your existence”

The power to dictate how others describe you is not a right you (or anyone else) possess – thankfully, because if it were, that would be the death of free expression.

Furthermore, if someone describes you in different words than you describe yourself, that does not mean they are denying your existence.

By: Jolyon Wagg

Jolyon Wagg — Thu, 05 Oct 2023 16:31:12 +0000

Stopped reading at this line because it made me laugh in such stunned disbelief: “because there is no particular right being demanded that trans people lack”! How about the right not to be told by the literal Prime Minister of the country you live in that it’s common sense to deny your existence?