Sex, Reason, and a Taste for the Absurd

Like much of Richard Posner\u27s best work, Sex and Reason does many things, and for that reason will no doubt attract a large and diverse readership. This heavily footnoted, exhaustively researched, and imminently accessible book is a welcome introduction to the interdisciplinary study of sex. For the lay reader it presents an arresting set of speculations about human sexuality, drawn from the author\u27s evident familiarity with a sizeable library of studies representing at least half a dozen scientific and social scientific disciplines, assembled in a readable and lively way. Of more interest, perhaps, to academicians and social scientists familiar with the literature, the book also proposes an ambitious, counter-intuitive, and sure to be controversial sociobiological argument about the essential nature of sexuality. This argument aims to account for both the universality of some sexual behaviors, on the one hand, and the extraordinary diversity of sexual customs, beliefs, and practices, on the other. Sex and Reason is an attempt by our most prominent rationalist to prove the absolute universality of economic reasoning in human choice and behavior by showing the rationality of our presumably most irrational choices and behaviors: those driven by our sexual urges. Thus, as the author states in his opening remarks, the large purpose of this book is to explain the rationality of our sexual behavior, and thereby limit, if not disprove the Aristotelian dictum, quoted in the book\u27s opening epigram, that [Sexual] pleasures are an impediment to rational deliberation, . . . it is impossible to think about anything while absorbed in them. The author\u27s main target, in other words, is neither liberal nor conservative moralism, but rather the widespread intuition, shared by academicians, legislators, and the lay public alike, that whatever the value of economic reasoning in commercial and maybe even some noncommercial spheres of life, it certainly has no relevance -- no explanatory power -- in controlling behavior and choices so thoroughly irrational -- so emotional, instinctive, biological -- as our sexual inclinations and drives. On the contrary, Posner insists, although forces beyond our control heavily determine our sexual preferences, this hardly distinguishes them from other preferences that are similarly given rather than chosen. Accordingly, the determinism of our sexual preferences hardly disqualifies them from the benefit of dispassionate study and control by the trained economist\u27s eye. I argue in this review that although Posner\u27s descriptive claim about the rationality of our sexual behavior does indeed have an odd ring to it, it is Posner\u27s normative claims -- his rigid insistence on dispassion and neutrality in the study and regulation of sexual choice -- that is ultimately the Achilles\u27 heel of this book. It becomes quickly apparent on even a casual reading that Posner\u27s insistence on moral neutrality goes well beyond his liberal sounding tolerance of deviant sexual preferences and practices. Rather, the moral neutrality Posner advocates requires a studied moral apathy toward a bewildering array of practices, customs, habits, and inclinations that cause inestimable amounts of human suffering and reveal the existence of manifest unjust subordination of large groups of persons -- primarily, women. I suggest that moral neutrality is not the attitude we ought to take toward such behaviors, as either scientists or legislators

Defence of Absurd Theories in Economics

Theories that involve plainly false and even bizarre assumptions are argued to have an important role in bundling empirical facts in a way that allows these to be understood, handled and used as modules in the construction of mechanisms by economists with human cognitive limits. Absurd theories are subcomponents used in a valid explanatory strategy as long as the mechanisms only derive the implications of the facts summarised. This provides a defence and explanation of many economic theories, but also imposes hard limits on such theorising.As-if theory; Economic methodology; welfare economics

Husserl, the absolute flow, and temporal experience

Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological analysis of internal time consciousness has a reputation for being complex, occasionally to the point of approaching impenetrability. The latter applies in particular to his remarks about what he calls the ‘absolute time-constituting flow’,1 some of which Husserl himself describes as ‘‘shocking (when not initially even absurd)’’ (Husserl, 1991, p. 84). [...

The Burden of Knowing: Camus, Qohelet, and the Limitations of Human Reason

In one of the most influential works of the twentieth century, The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus writes this: “This heart within me I can feel, and I judge that it exists. This world I can touch, and I likewise judge that it exists. There ends all my knowledge, and the rest is construction.” Here, Camus addresses what he believes to be one of the main sources of the absurd: the limitations of human reason. He claims that his inability to fully understand human reality creates a gap between his existence and its meaning, and, in effect, renders the whole of human experience as absurd. Because Camus makes these conclusions from a purely atheistic position, it would seem that his notion of the absurd is incompatible with a theistic understanding of the human condition. Interestingly, however, the main speaker of the ancient Hebrew wisdom book Ecclesiastes, Qohelet, also concludes that the limits of human knowledge give life a sense of absurdity. Although Camus (an atheist) and Qohelet (a theist) begin with different assumptions regarding the existence of God—the very Being who gives meaning and clarity to his creation—their similar conclusions reveal an unlikely compatibility between atheistic and theistic attitudes towards the human predicament. While Camus and Qohelet recognize that the world cannot be explained by human reasoning, and is therefore absurd, they each conclude that uncertainty and human limitations may prompt a certain liberation and solace that allows them to move beyond the absurd. This curious parallel between Camus’s modern existential attitudes in The Myth of Sisyphus and the ancient Hebraic wisdom of Ecclesiastes show that the awareness of the limitation of human reason may compel man to live authentically and passionately despite the seeming unreasonableness of his life

Moore's Paradox and Assertion

If I were to say, “Agnes does not know that it is raining, but it is,” this seems like a perfectly coherent way of describing Agnes’s epistemic position. If I were to add, “And I don’t know if it is, either,” this seems quite strange. In this chapter, we shall look at some statements that seem, in some sense, contradictory, even though it seems that these statements can express propositions that are contingently true or false. Moore thought it was paradoxical that statements that can express true propositions or contingently false propositions should nevertheless seem absurd like this. If we can account for the absurdity, we shall solve Moore’s Paradox. In this chapter, we shall look at Moore’s proposals and more recent discussions of Moorean absurd thought and speech

This May Mean Doing Things a Bit Differently from Here on Out

OccupyPennHall failed. Embittered by a failed election and its hateful aftermath, students parked themselves in protest. The act precluded and followed an irruption of a faculty meeting. Therein, sitting professors tuned into pleas for student-teacher solidarity. Protesters then took to the campus fulcrum and braced themselves for a sneak-peak of winter. The supposed movement was spur-of-the-moment: a visceral stillness in the wake of an absurd, precarious life. [excerpt

Powers opposed and intrinsic finks

Philosophers disagree over whether dispositions can be intrinsically finked or masked. Choi suggests that there are no clear, relevant differences between cases where intrinsic finks would be absurd and those where they seem plausible, and as a result rejects them wholesale. Here, I highlight two features of dispositional properties which, when considered together, provide a plausible explanation for when dispositions can be subject to intrinsic finks and when not