The harm principle - liberalism

[CocoaIsGone]

I thought it would be useful to highlight the so-called harm principle in liberal politics. Sorry I don’t have a better source than Wikipedia

[[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_principle harm principle]]

The point is that liberalism argues that ‘man’ is sovereign over ‘his’ body and autonomy aside from when it concerns others. There is nothing in liberal politics which supports self-identification at the expense of women’s rights and freedoms.

This is really a comment on the reply from Vince Cable to a poster on another thread. But it seems to me that the liberal position would be to support transgender rights, up to the point they do harm to non-transgender people. Hence I think it worth raising on its own thread.

The issue is evidencing where the harm lies, without denying support and accommodations to those who need it on the basis of gender dysphoria and intersex conditions.

However, the idea of self-identification beyond these conditions is predicated on the need to not be intrusive or impose intrusive medical and legal barriers on people who see themselves as trans. This is laudable, but not possible without dismantling existing protections for natal women which allow them to move freely in public space. You only need to look through history to recognise that same-sex bathroom space and changing space for sports has allowed women to participate socially and culturally, whilst same-sex support facilities provide much needed protective spaces for women experiencing intimate partner violence.

The question of the right to self-identification is problematic for liberals, or should be, therefore because of the harm principle. Therefore, it needs to be debated, not ignored.

[QuentinSummers]

Thanks cocoa.
The lib dems have a very strange position on these things, I don't really know what to do. I'm very uncomfortable with it because it's not evidence based or pragmatic but there aren't really any political parties I like at the moment.

[CocoaIsGone]

though I should add that I don't believe in willfully harming others emotionally either!

[CocoaIsGone]

Sorry, meant to put the quote in italics, it ends with the postcode, obviously!

[CocoaIsGone]

What Vince Cable (apparently) said was posted by busyboysmum on another thread, as follows:

^I have just received this from Vince Cable (apparently):

Thank you for your email.

As Liberal Democrats, Vince and the party believe that people should live as they want and that includes self-identifying.

Kind regards
Amy
Leader's Correspondence Team
8-10 Great George Street, London, SW1P 3AE

My point was then that the liberal position was never only that people should live as they want, but that they should do so for as long as it did not harm others. Harm in the 18th century sense relating to body and property, rather than to emotions, I think.

The interesting point is that Mill also was clear that state involvement was still needed to protect those who had not achieved maturity, that is, children. So, even if one accepts that people can self-identity (as the liberal position that people have rational autonomy, this still excludes children, who are not fully mature citizens and still deserve state protection.

Anyway, I am reading through, so I am happy to get back to the OP.

[QuentinSummers]

In fact can we SGB him and get back to the op?
I want to know what Vince Cable said. I'm a lib dem member but their rabid support of trans ideology is somewhat off putting as is their support of the decriminalization of the sex trade.

[QuentinSummers]

johns feeling confident to spout bollocks about what was said on the IDS thread because he knows no-one can be arsed to wade through pages of his derailing to find the posts and quote them in context.

[CocoaIsGone]

Well, I am still waiting for john to reply to my old name on another thread, when I asked him to give me some references for the feminists he says supported child-adult relations in the 1970s. My understanding being that feminists highlighted child abuse and the potential for child abuse evident in libertarian anti-authoritarian circles at that time.

But that was another thread, point being I would like an answer to that question before I engage too much with what john says.

I will, however, read the thread because there are lots of comments, thank you. As it happens, I received a book unsolicited in my work role which has a whole section about the harm principle. This seemed quite serendipitous, although I suspect it comes from a neoliberal think tank, and I have no idea why it landed on my desk. I am curious.

[jellyfrizz]

That would be john.

[CocoaIsGone]

I am jumping on at the end, and I need to read the whole thread, but how do women have power when 2 women a week are murdered by intimate partners, rape crisis helplines in England and Wales get about 4000 calls a week, 93% of service users are female, women are more likely to live in poverty, those are just a few points, there will be more. In what way is that power, as oppose to at greater risk because of sex-based inequality? Women do not have power in a system predicated on their subordinate position.

Which is very far from my original post, so I need to read the thread to see how the thread got to the point basic facts of inequality need pointed out.

[Gentlemanjohn]

No this is about me. This is my view of what things are. I mean personally I would quite like kids, but I don't think it's a bad thing that power is going to women. I think capitalism sucks but it is of no consequence whether women have more power within the system or men. The system is the same either way, and the overall level of dis-empowerment the same. I have a problem with feminism offering support to capitalism, but that, again, is a different argument.

[jellyfrizz]

feminists are now lees inclined to insist on that dissociation because the role of the care-giver is, in some ways, a greater source of existential power and what I would call 'identitarian capital' than full-time employment.

Oh, this is all about you being jealous of SAHMs again isn't it? We've been here before.

[Gentlemanjohn]

And also, it's not a blank slate; there are clearly some 'roles' predetermined by biology. I trust you don't need me to list

Sorry how do you mean?

[AssignedPerfectAtBirth]

Agreed Jelly & Beyond

Care to quote where John? I think you would be shit on from a great height, en masse and quite rightly too, if you were to say this in FWR

And also, it's not a blank slate; there are clearly some 'roles' predetermined by biology. I trust you don't need me to list

[Gentlemanjohn]

I disagree. Thats feminism viewed through the perspective of a man. Men are perfectly capable of being nurturing.

Exactly, that's what I mean. Feminists have traditionally insisted that men can be just as nurturing as women and there's no innate distinction beyond our bits and bobs.

[DJBaggySmalls]

Traditionally, feminism has sought to disassociate women from the primary role of care giver and nurturer

I disagree. Thats feminism viewed through the perspective of a man. Men are perfectly capable of being nurturing.

[Gentlemanjohn]

Yeah, not going to do that.

Fair enough.

[Gentlemanjohn]

And that is why I think suddenly lots of men want to be women. Because their power is slipping away, and they see you have a power that they can't have.

And they hate you for it.

[jellyfrizz]

You'll just have to take my word.

Yeah, not going to do that.

[Gentlemanjohn]

I can't be hassled to trawl through the IDS thread, but one poster said that women would be better in power because they're less given to violence. On another occasion some time back a couple of posters were saying that testosterone predisposed men to aggressive behaviour, and that this is one of the reasons why they should not be entrusted with positions of authority. Someone also said that women were 'inherently better people' if I remember rightly. There's a general shift, sometimes expressed very subtly, back towards essentialist ideas of gender but this time with traditional female gender identity asserted as superior ('we care for babies, therefore we'd be better at caring for the world' kinda thing). You'll just have to take my word.

Traditionally, feminism has sought to disassociate women from the primary role of care giver and nurturer. I am saying that due to a shift in the nature of the commercial economy and capitalist culture, feminists are now lees inclined to insist on that dissociation because the role of the care-giver is, in some ways, a greater source of existential power and what I would call 'identitarian capital' than full-time employment.

To put it in Marxist terminology: you (women) once were the means of production that served another means of production - one owned by men.

Now you are just the means of production and it's owner.

[DJBaggySmalls]

Gentlemanjohn
OK, but does a gender distinction have to be hierarchical?

Not in the least, which is the actual position of feminism. If that position has 'destabilised traditional concepts', its because the traditional concepts are that men are better than women.

[BeyondNoone]

I have (honestly, not argumentative) not seen that in FWR either?

Even when I’ve seen it on the general site (yes - that I have seen) it has always been challenged.

[jellyfrizz]

Furthermore, I've noticed more people on FWR making very essentialist statements unchallenged - stuff like 'women are innately kinder or more nurturing than men because they give birth'

I haven't seen this. Can you link to some posts?

[Gentlemanjohn]

And I'm not saying it's a bad source of power - in fact it's good.

Who has the better source of power ultimately? Someone who can create another human being or Harvey Weinstein? Weinstein is in ruins.

You have more power than he does in the end.

So in essence, the gender binary will remain but the power differential will shift - possibly reverse. And men want in on this power women have.

This is why, all of a sudden, in the 21st century, a load of men have decided they want to be women.

What d ya reckon?

[Gentlemanjohn]

Typo meant to say:

'but because they don't like men appropriating their identity as gendered, female subjects.

[Gentlemanjohn]

Yes that would be a controversial argument to make. It only holds true if you believe gender or biological sex place you on a hierarchy.

OK, but does a gender distinction have to be hierarchical?

You're gonna hate me here, but I don't mean this condescendingly; I just notice these things because I find gender politics fascinating.

On this forum for some time there has been a predominant focus on the trans issue. There are a billion and one issue affecting women but this gets top billing to the point where almost every other thread is related to trans stuff. And I do get why, as I'll explain. Furthermore, I've noticed more people on FWR making very essentialist statements unchallenged - stuff like 'women are innately kinder or more nurturing than men because they give birth' - the kind of stuff that would have had you shot to bits in fem circles in 1975. But suppose, for argument's sake, that they're right? Suppose men and women are different not just in terms of their reproductive CAPACITY or lack thereof, but are broadly different on a ore fundamental predispositionary level.

So, what I think (controversially) is that feminism has come full circle. What a lot feminists don't like (and justifiably) is men adopting the identity of women not just on the basis that women are different on a basic biological level, but because they don't like men appropriating their as gendered, female subjects.

Note: this is not meant to countenance bullshit to the affect of women can't do maths, but it is to say maybe you are more given to caring? Does that have to be a subordinate predisposition? Not necessarily anymore. As I say, men have lost a lot of their position in the world, but you still have yours - and you arguably want to defend it and keep it because in actual fact bringing people into the world and raising them is, in this post-industrial, (increasingly) post-patriarchal society when paid work is disappearing, an enormous source of power.

Discuss.