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[Music]
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[Music]
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hi my name's Abigail I've just been
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doing a little bit of body modification
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work welcome to philosophytube every now
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and again when I'm out and about in the
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world I'll see somebody say something
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and immediately think think that's got
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to be an episode of the show usually
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it's somebody very passionately
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defending a philosophical Viewpoint
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without necessarily realizing the depth
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of what they are saying and to me that's
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like the bat signal I grab my tools and
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I go to work I want to pop the hood on
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what they've said and take a look at all
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the philosophy inside and today I have
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found a doozy there's a British website
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called mset it's a forum for parents and
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a while ago there was a thread that
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started with mother is a social
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construct discuss and one lady wrote
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carrying and birthing my child was not a
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social construct and I saw that and I
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was like
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a philosophy tube time baby this lady
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was actually making a metaphysical claim
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metaphysics is the bit of philosophy
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that broadly looks at existence so if
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ethics is how do I be a good driver and
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Aesthetics is is how do I make my car
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look cool metaphysics is what are cars
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what are they made of how do they work
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if you were to take a class you might
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look at things like causation free will
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space and time I want had a metaphysics
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lecture where the professor argued that
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time does not exist which was very funny
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because no joke he turned up 10 minutes
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late so when I saw that comment I
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wondered two things firstly what is a
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social construct and secondly why do
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people sometimes have such strong
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feelings about
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them fasten your seat
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[Music]
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belts philosophers draw a useful
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distinction between an object and and
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its properties this car is silver it has
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the property being silver I could
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painted a different color take that
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property away give it a new one but it
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would still be the same object you might
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well wonder how many of the properties
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can we take away before the object is
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gone if I give this car new paint new
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engine new brakes new electricals is it
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still the same car that's the kind of
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question a metaphysician would think
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about for now though you understand this
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distinction between an object and its
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properties and there's different kinds
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of properties too some we would say are
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intrinsic that means you can't really
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separate the object from the property
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it's an intrinsic property of triangles
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that they have three sides if you take
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that away it's not a triangle anymore
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others we would say are relational this
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car has the property being next to me
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but if I move then it doesn't have that
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property anymore cuz it depends on my
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location if this car was my favorite we
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would say that it has the property being
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my favorite which is not only relational
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but depends on my feelings rather than
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my location and now here's the million
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dooll question what kind of property are
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things like being a woman being a man
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being black white gay straight whatever
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are they intrinsic are they relational
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are they something else what do they
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depend
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on they are pretty important
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I guarantee that properties like that
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have shaped your entire life they sure
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as hell shaped mine so what the heck are
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they in offering my theory of social
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categories the aim is to reveal the cogs
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and belts and Arrangements of parts in
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machines that often are oppressive to
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start solving this puzzle we can do
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something that philosophers love and if
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you enjoy this then you should
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absolutely study metaphysics cuz this is
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like half of it imagine another earth
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called Earth 2 and on Earth 2 they have
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all the same ideas we do about sex and
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race and gender all those same
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categories but they also have an extra
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one called schite schite is very simple
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there's two kinds of people on Earth too
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bigs and minis bigs is any adult over 5T
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tall and minis is anyone under and let's
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say that whether you're a big or a mini
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really affects your life on Earth too
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like if you're a big you can get a
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better job you can get a nicer house
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you're allowed to marry whoever you like
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if you're a mini life is hard suppose we
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were to meet the people of Earth too and
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we said schite is just a social
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construct being a big or being a mini
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those are clearly relational properties
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they depend on how other people feel
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about you they might say no it's not
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it's not about feelings it's objectively
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observable look I have a tape measure I
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can tell whether someone is a big or a
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reaching tall things on my shelf is not
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a social construct so we might come back
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and say okay yeah you can measure
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somebody's height nobody's denying that
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but what we're driving at
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is why do you
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care why have you constructed your
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social systems around this feature maybe
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you've got a good reason for it but on
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Earth one we don't do that we have the
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property being tall but we don't have
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the property being a big or being a mini
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so you guys must have invented them and
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all the Earth to people will be like you
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guys are weird meanwhile the people of
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Earth zero are looking at us going whoa
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what's all this stuff about race and
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sex we understand skin color and
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reproductive organs yeah we're not
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erasing anybody's biology or anything
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like that but you guys divided your
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whole population and you you based your
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whole society around this
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why and maybe we'd say well it's it's
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evolutionary psychology you know on
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Earth One some of us can carry children
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some of us can't so we evolve different
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societal roles and and we we make that
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distinction carrying and birthing a
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child is not a social construct and they
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might go okay yeah but what about
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Mother's Day cards when are you
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seriously telling me that you evolved to
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buy each other those get out of town
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there's definitely some aspects of being
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a mother that you've invented I mean
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there's
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you've got your natural properties yeah
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but then you guys you've added a whole
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bunch of stuff on top of that you're
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doing augmented reality like projecting
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extra properties onto the world on Earth
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zero we don't have any of that we've
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just got the natural properties no
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additives and then suddenly in come the
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people from Earth ne1 and they're like
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whoa hold on there what's all this stuff
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about natural
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properties the only reason that the
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people of Earth too bother to measure
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height the only reason they have a
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concept of height is because they care
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about schite the act of measuring
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someone's height isn't a neutral thing
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that happens before they get assigned
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big or mini when you measure something
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you're already assuming that there is
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something there worth measuring so these
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supposedly objective natural properties
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of yours are also social constructs it's
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not augmented reality it's full VR son
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on Earth negative one we don't have any
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of that we're all
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just just vibing presumably life on
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those other earths would look a little
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bit different if you were walking around
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Earth too you'd see signs with like bigs
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only and stuff cuz social constructs
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shape our environment suppose we took a
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whole city of people here on Earth one
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and we erased their memories so they
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didn't know about sex and race would
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they reinvent those categories when they
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saw their environment would they look at
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public toilets and go oh hey there's two
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different spaces here but in our homes
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we've only got one what's up with
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that would they go oh hey we've got
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darker skin and we all live on the bad
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side of town where the houses aren't as
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nice why our social constructs have
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shaped our environment which in turn
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reinforce our social
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constructs I think that was an episode
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of Star Trek actually so we've
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identified this whole layer of reality
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which really affects our lives but which
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we seem to be just inventing at least to
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some extent
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so what is going
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[Music]
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on if you ask Three Philosophers how
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social constructs work you'll get four
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theories so we're going to look at one
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by a philosopher called o she's
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Icelandic so Johnny has one name I chose
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it not because I have any particular
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attachment to it but because I think
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it's interesting and it'll give you a
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flavor for how philosophers tackle these
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questions it goes like this suppose that
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you're watching a game of baseball which
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if you've never heard of it is like
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Cricket but it's even worse the guy who
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throws the ball
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the bowler he throws it towards home
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Wicket where the batsman is and he hits
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it and the bowler has to throw the ball
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within a certain Zone and if he gets it
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in the zone and the batsman misses
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that's called a strike and if he get
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three strikes then you're out but it has
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to be in the zone if he throws it up
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here then it doesn't count and if it's
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very close to the Zone all the
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spectators go oh my God was that a
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strike and then the Umpire has to decide
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ASA says there are natural properties
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about the trajectory of the ball she
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calls them underlying Properties or base
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properties so she's thinking more
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augmented reality than full VR the
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Umpire is trying to keep track of those
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underlying properties and in order to do
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so he confers the social property being
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a strike onto the pitch when he says
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sterke one so according to ASA being a
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strike is a social construct that serves
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some purpose in the game by keeping
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track of the balls underlying properties
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similarly on Earth too being a big is a
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social construct that serves a purpose
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in a social game by keeping track of
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people's height each of us has a lot of
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features and only some of them matter
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socially in a particular context
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examples I'm 168 cm tall and have shoe
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size 39 I have short hair and I'm
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wearing black pants I speak English with
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an Icelandic accent I'm extremely
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nearsighted have moss green eyes and
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pale skin breast broad shoulders
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some of these features matter socially
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in a context others do not what is it
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for a feature of you or me to matter
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socially in a context the answer I give
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is a feature is socially significant in
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a context in which people taken to have
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the feature get conferred onto them a
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social status that last bit is important
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baseball is one thing people are another
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properties like being a woman being a
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man a mother black white that's not a
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game that's your life consider the
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property being cool in the context of a
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high school if you're cool you might be
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able to get away with stuff that other
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people can't but at the same time there
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could be expectations on you that might
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be stifling it's a lot of pressure being
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cool I imagine it's pretty clear how you
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get a strike in baseball it's less clear
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how you become cool cuz there aren't
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really any rules people just start
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treating you differently and you thereby
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acquire coolness nobody really decides
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it either there's no umpire at the
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school Gates going you're cool it's just
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the community decides to confer coolness
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on you or not maybe even unconsciously
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in baseball the Umpire was trying to
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keep track of the underlying properties
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of the balls trajectory on Earth too
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they were trying to keep track of the
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underlying property of height but what
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is is the underlying property of being
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cool well there probably isn't just one
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right it's probably like a vague bunch
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of things like wearing the right clothes
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and having the right attitude liking the
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right music it's not really a set list
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and you don't have to have all of them
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philosophers actually have a word for
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this vague Bunch it's called a
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homeostatic property cluster it comes
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from biology think about a word like
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mammals mammals have a whole bunch of
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properties we have warm blood we produce
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milk we give birth to live Offspring and
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if an animal has enough of those
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properties we say okay that's a mammal
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but it's not a hard and fast list the
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duck build platypus lays eggs but it's
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definitely a mammal who decided that is
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there a platypus
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umpire no sadly it's the community again
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the scientific Community the philosopher
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Richard Boyd says the whole point of
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classifying animals is to be able to
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predict and explain things about them
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that's the science game if you like and
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that's why homeostatic property clusters
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are so useful properties in the cluster
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tend to occur together in nature either
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because having one causes you to have
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the rest or because there's some
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underlying mechanism that causes them to
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occur side by side so if you know that
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an animal has warm blood and it gives
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birth to live Offspring you You can
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predict x y and Zed about it because the
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properties tend to occur together when
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European scientists first encountered
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the Platypus they were confused some
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people thought they were faking others
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thought they belonged in a category all
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their own until they realized they had
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so many of the other properties in the
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mammal cluster that if you want to win
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the science game you've got to classify
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them as mammals on Earth zero there are
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no mammals they know about warm-blooded
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animals yeah but mammal is a social
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construct that we use to keep track of
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certain underlying properties and on
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Earth zero they play the science game
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differently so they don't use that
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social construct on Earth negative one
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they don't even have the underlying
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properties they're all just
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like bro have you seen these PL
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pusses these things are adorable
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[Music]
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remember earlier on I was talking about
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how the high school Community confers
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the property of coolness on you or the
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scientific Community conferred the
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property of mammal on the
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Platypus what if communities
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disagree what if someone was like
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actually the only important an thing for
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deciding whether an animal is a mammal
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is whether or not it lays
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eggs what if the anime club think that
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you're really cool but the Quidditch
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team
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don't are you
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cool or not ASA
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says there is literally no answer to
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that
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there are underlying properties about
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you but the social property of coolness
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and what exactly is in the cluster we're
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attempting to track depends on the game
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we're trying to play which might not
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matter so much for being cool but there
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could be some other social properties
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where it might really affect your life
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if somebody refused to confer them on
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you we've been talking today about
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baseball and plat puses but obviously
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what we're really talking about is sex
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and race and gender and all that good
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stuff when I wrote the script I
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deliberately went a bit more abstract
00:17:05
with it because sometimes when we talk
00:17:07
about social constructs people get
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really angry like remember earlier on I
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talked about social construct being full
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VR rather than augmented reality that
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was a reference to a philosopher called
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Judith Butler they wrote a famous book
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in the '90s called gender trouble in
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which they argue that sex is a social
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construct as opposed to a biological
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natural property it's a pretty
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fascinating book it's spawned a lot of
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interesting philosophy maybe we could
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talk about it in detail another time but
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people get so angry about it even today
00:17:38
people protest Judith Butler which is
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wild I mean nobody ever protested
00:17:44
Socrates everybody loved
00:17:47
him unfortunately some of the people who
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get angry about social constructs aren't
00:17:52
really making a philosophical argument
00:17:53
so much as they are trying to
00:17:55
rationalize a dislike of trans people
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especially in my country the debate
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about who does and does not have the
00:18:01
property being a woman or being a man
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isn't really about metaphysics it's just
00:18:07
a kind of proxy way of deciding whether
00:18:09
people like me get Healthcare and human
00:18:10
rights which is a shame I mean I I think
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this philosophy is kind of interesting
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on its own I wish we could talk about it
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without that I said up top that social
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constructs are built into our
00:18:23
environment and the way we think about
00:18:25
our environment facilitates different
00:18:27
kinds of Engagement with it for instance
00:18:29
say you take your car in to have the
00:18:31
airbags replaced after they've gone off
00:18:33
and the mechanic says why did the
00:18:35
airbags go off and you say well an
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onboard sensor measured a deceleration
00:18:39
of greater than average braking speed
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and that sent an electrical current
00:18:43
along a circuit to a heating element
00:18:44
triggering a chemical reaction releasing
00:18:46
nitrogen gas the mechanic might
00:18:49
say okay but why did the airbags go off
00:18:54
and you say I had 19 points and crashed
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into a wall if you give that first
00:18:58
explanation about sensors in nitrogen
00:19:00
well then I guess we just have to fit
00:19:02
another airbag but if you give the
00:19:04
second explanation about drunk driving
00:19:06
well now we need to talk about your
00:19:08
insurance depending on how you explain
00:19:10
the problem different solutions present
00:19:13
themselves when we talk about social
00:19:14
constructs the implication is that the
00:19:16
constructs aren't fixed we could change
00:19:19
the stuff that we projected onto the
00:19:21
world if we wanted to at the very least
00:19:23
we could ask why are we projecting this
00:19:25
stuff whose interest does it serve
00:19:28
there's an inherent possibility of
00:19:30
changing Society here which is therefore
00:19:32
inherently political and that can be
00:19:35
pretty scary for instance consider that
00:19:38
the gay rights movement in my country
00:19:40
lent hard on the idea of Born This Way
00:19:43
the idea that homosexuality is innate
00:19:45
and therefore can't be right or wrong we
00:19:48
can imagine that on Earth three they
00:19:51
made a different argument more like uh
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whether it's innate or not it's not the
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government's business like a like a
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personal freedom line I'm not saying
00:19:59
either approach is better I'm just
00:20:00
saying we can imagine a world in which
00:20:03
the meaning of gay is socially
00:20:05
constructed differently but if you say
00:20:08
to a gay person hey you know
00:20:09
homosexuality that's just a social
00:20:11
construct we might be like whoa what are
00:20:14
you saying because the concept of gay
00:20:16
rights is built on top of it so it's
00:20:19
worth remembering that we aren't really
00:20:21
talking about baseball and platypuses
00:20:23
we're talking about people and therefore
00:20:26
questions of Justice arise in how we
00:20:28
should apply this metaphysics if Asha is
00:20:31
right and man and woman are socially
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constructed categories that we apply in
00:20:36
order to track some underlying cluster
00:20:38
of natural properties we might then ask
00:20:41
if we're playing the Justice game what
00:20:44
should be in that cluster and separate
00:20:48
but related question what should the law
00:20:50
say about it I deliberately chose
00:20:52
non-controversial examples today to help
00:20:54
you get a grasp of the metaphysics
00:20:56
without getting bogged down in questions
00:20:58
of Justice or pushing my own views but
00:21:01
it's worth remembering that that is an
00:21:03
artificial separation when you leave the
00:21:06
classroom politics and metaphysics will
00:21:09
come at you at the same time we're not
00:21:11
just doing Philosophy for the hell of it
00:21:14
we are tinkering with the engine of the
00:21:17
world
00:21:20
here so
00:21:22
drive I don't want to feel this good
00:21:25
just cuz you called last night I'm not
00:21:27
that girl
00:21:32
I don't want to dress up for you and be
00:21:35
a toy I'm not that girl no I'm not that
00:21:41
[Music]
00:21:43
girl
00:21:45
got just as as
00:21:53
I'm your
00:21:55
feel give that one side try that's my
00:21:59
high don't nothing
00:22:02
better put your feelings inside yourself
00:22:06
out in
00:22:07
[Music]
00:22:08
[Applause]
00:22:12
night break out of your sh Meet Me
00:22:16
Halfway I'm not that girl I'm not that
00:22:21
girl make a mess be a man if it's hard
00:22:25
pretend I'm not that girl no I'm not
00:22:29
that
00:22:31
[Music]
00:22:36
girl I don't give in till I'm
00:22:40
[Music]
00:22:46
[Applause]
00:22:51
[Music]
00:22:53
FL in the night
00:22:55
[Music]
00:22:56
let's let's High
00:23:04
[Music]
00:23:09
I want to be like you I don't want to do
00:23:12
the things you do come this
00:23:14
way
00:23:21
I R
00:23:23
me R me put your feelings
00:23:28
give that wild to try
00:23:30
[Music]
00:23:32
let
00:23:34
better your
00:23:37
feeling in
00:23:43
night I'm
00:23:45
[Music]
00:23:47
[Applause]
00:23:49
[Music]
00:23:56
[Applause]
00:24:02
[Music]
00:24:14
philosophy tube time baby
