And, as it turns out, many philosophers are now prepared to put their names to this brief.
In the first instance, I wrote the brief in an attempt to do a bit of good with philosophy, by using philosophical ideas like those just sketched to strengthen the case for protecting women’s sports. But I had a second motivation as well: namely, to do some good for philosophy, by illustrating that philosophical ideas can be brought to bear in a rigorous way on current public concerns. In the past decade’s culture war, academia has not exactly covered itself in glory. In particular, tenured university professors—grown men and women, with some of the best job security in the world—have not. With a few honorable exceptions, they have acquiesced nearly to a person in fashionable taboos and dogmas, not least the taboo against recognizing the right of girls and women to their own spaces, services, and provisions. My long-standing impression has been that my colleagues in philosophy are more accurate on this question than their public track record may suggest. Their failure to speak out publicly is more for want of nerve and opportunity than sense.
The roster of names that the brief ended up attracting—on, it should be mentioned, quite short notice—provides some evidence for that conjecture. Indeed, though—like all but the most famous mathematicians and natural scientists—few of the signatories will be known to nonphilosophers, some of the philosophers who joined the brief are extremely well-known within the profession.…
In fact, to my knowledge, the brief represents the first time that so many senior academics in any discipline have put their name to an argument on what may be termed the sex-realist side of recent culture wars, according to which it is appropriate for at least some social practices to be organized around the biological line of sex. That is, although many academics have joined open letters supporting the right of their colleagues to express sex-realist views, very few have committed to the truth of such views, even as regards issues like sports, where the sex-based approach under challenge in the court cases enjoys supermajority support among the broader public. Against that background, the fact that leading figures in one profession have now joined an amicus brief advocating for a key sex-based right is a small but significant step in the right direction.
It would, of course, be naive to expect the ideological bias rife in many parts of academic life to be brought under control anytime soon. Such bias has rightly led to a rising tide of distrust in academia. Still, locked away in the ivory tower remain many intelligent and intellectually curious men and women, working hard on important and interesting questions. They must be incentivized to fight back against what many no doubt privately recognize to be a stifling and pernicious culture of complacence.
