Male Chauvinist Religion By Deborah Mathieu

Mathieu supposes that the best explanation of why women throughout history and in the present day accept a gender-based allocation of rights and responsibilities is because society in general, and religion in particular, has successfully brainwashed them. Mathieu claims that Christianity, Islam and Judaism are male-chauvinist and that they have been used as tools of subjugation and misogyny for millenia.

According to Mathieu, there is a simple deductive syllogism that argues for male supremacy is inherent in all three varieties of monotheis. It's referred to in philosophy as "modus ponens."

If P, then Q.
P
----
Therefore Q.

Do all monotheisms argue that God is male, and from that to the superiority of the male gender?

This is a valid form of argument, so if the premises are true then the conclusion MUST be true. But the premises are open to dispute, therefore the argument is valid but unsound. But Mathieu claims that women have not been smart enough to see this, because in addition to this intellectual brainwashing they have suffered they have also been subjected to emotional brainwashing.

Emotional brainwashing consists in society as a whole affirming the subjugation of women advocated within religion. Mathieu argues that males have used monotheism to advance their own interests and justify their position of control and to convince females to "acquiesce to their own destruction."

Is this true? How effective is 'brainwashing'? Is thought at odds with societal or cultural norms possible? Are all relationships between gender based on power? Is power a good thing to have? Is all power public and political?

Is gender a social construct? Is there anything that we could say is biological about gender? Why is it that in societies that have equal opportunity for men and women that some positions and activities end up being predominantly male or female?

Is male chauvinism an essential feature of the three major monotheistic religions? Mathieu acknowledges that she cannot prove that it is, but she says that there still remains enough male chauvinism within the religions that to hold onto religious tradition is to "embrace patriarchy."

The Ontological Argument

The ontological argumment claims to offer a priori proof of God's existence, meaning that the truth of its premises is independent of experience. Rather, the argument depends on deductions made from what it means to possess the concept of God.

Before tackling the argument, Rowe suggests helpfully that it is best to get a handle on some other concepts that are fundamental to making sense of Anselm's argument.

1. Contingency: Something is contingent if there is no logical absurdity, or in other words, contradiction, if that thing is or is not. Examples of contingent things are Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Dr. Foss, and cats.
   
2. Necessity: Something is necessary if it is logically impossible for it to not exist. Anselm argues that God is a necessary thing.
   
3. Possibility: Something is possible whether or not it exists, so long as it does not exceed the bounds of logical impossibility. A square circe, or squircle, is an example of something that is logically impossible. Every thing mentioned in (1) is a possible thing. Some suggest that our guide to possibility is our imagination. The limits of what we can conceive are the limits of what is logically possible.
   

An Important Distinction:

a)Existence in the understanding: In order for something to exist in the understanding we must merely possess the concept of it. Unicorns, griffons, and hobbits are examples of things that exist only in the understanding.

b)Existence in reality: These are things that we possess concepts of and which we know to exist through our perception of them, such as cups, cats, and Dr. Foss.

Anselm's argument discusses God as the being "than which none greater can be conceived." Rowe tries to make it easier to understand by altering it to the being "than which none greater is possible." Thus, Anselm's argument seeks to prove that the being than which nothing greater exists not only in our understanding, but in reality.

What does Anselm mean by greatness? He says that "I do not mean physically great, as a material object is great, but that which the greater it is, the better or more worthy--wisdom for instance."

The key assumption in Anselm's argument is that existence in reality is a great-making property. Anything that does not exist, but might have existed, according to Anselm, could have been greater than it is in our understanding, if it had existence.

1. God exists in the understanding.

2. God might have existed in reality. (God is a possible being).

3. If something exists only in the understanding and might have existed in reality, then it might have been greater than it is.

These premises from the basis of Anselm's argument for the existence of God. (1) and (2) are easily accepted, but most people take issue with (3), a premise that is not explicitly stated in Anselm's argument. The whole argument takes the form of a reductio ad absurdum. It shows that there are two possibilities, either God exists or God does not, and if we suppose that God does not exist, then we must conclude something that is logically impossible. Therefore, God must exist.

4. Suppose God only exists in the understanding.

5. God might have been greater than She is.

6. God is a being than which a greater is possible.

7. The being than which none greater is possible is a being than which a greater is possible.

8. It is false that God exists only in the understanding, because it results in a contradiction (7).

9. God exists in reality as well as the understanding.

Objections

Gaunilo's Island

Gaunilo's argument proceeds by analogy. He purports to offer an argument of the same form as Anselm's ontological proof and to show that it produces ridiculous results.

Rowe points ou thta there are two problems with Gaunilo's counterargument. The first is that Anselm's assumption that existence is a greater-making property applies to all beings that exist, not particular kinds of beings like islands or hockey players. So we do not run into an absurdity if we suppose that there is a greater thing possible than Gaunilo's island. A perfect man would obviously be greater than a perfect island. Secondly, Rowe suggest that applying the idea of infinite perfection to finite beings is vacuous, because we cannot really conceive of the "greatest possible hockey player" because it exceeds the abilities of our imagination.

Kant's 100 Possible Dollars Are No Greater Than 100 Real Dollars (see http://ghc.ctc.edu/HUMANITIES/DLARSON/kanto.htm)

Kant's objection is difficult to understand unless you know the difference between an analytic and synthetic propositions. An analytic proposition is true by virtue of its meanings alone, for example, 'all bachelors are unmarried.' We don't need to go check around for a married bachelor, the concept of unmarried is already part of our concept of what it is to be a bachelor. A synthetic proposition is one that requires confirmation from experience. 'Some swans are white' is an example of a sythetic proposition.

Kant says that if we follow Anselm and make existence part of our concept of God, the existence of God is already assumed as actual, before we even predicated existence of her. Kant says that reasonable people accept that all propositions making existential claims are synthetic propositions.

As for Anselm's claim that existence is a greater-making property, Kant rejects it on the grounds that a concept in the understanding alone has nothing added to it and does not change at all when that concept is applied to an object of the senses. A concept of something in the understanding alone is no different when we perceive its existence.

"Otherwise stated, the real contains no more than the merely possible. A hundred real thalers do not contain the least coin more than a hundred possible thalers. For as the latter signify the concept, and the former the object and the positing of the object, should the former contain more than the latter, my concept would not, in that case, express the whole object, and would not therefore be an adequate concept of it. My financial position is, however, affected very differently by a hundred real thalers than it is by the mere concept of them (that is, of their possibility)."

Suppose the logical impossibility of nonexistence is a perfection, like Malcom says, then...