[notice how I objectified her there, leaving behind the language of a unified self or person in favour of a collection of mechanical motivations and processes whose dynamics are partially determined by evolutionary pressures, and what a useful exercise this can be for making sense of reality]
I still don’t think you understand what feminists mean by objectification. It’s not the same thing as cognitive reductionism, which I think hardly anyone here would object to. I mean, yes, minds are causal systems made of parts embedded in the universal laws of physics and can be understood as such. Everyone knows that!---and given that everyone knows that, you should be able to deduce that whatever it is people really mean when they criticize this objectification-thing, it has to be something other than cognitive reductionism.
Let me explain what I understand by objectification. So, even though (as everyone here already knows) everything that exists, exists within physics, we still find it useful and necessary to distinguish structures within physics which we think are conscious and intelligent (whatever it is we refer to with those words), which we call minds or people, and structures that are not, which we call objects. So when we express the proposition that objectification is unethical, we mean that we have special ethical standards for dealing with physical-structures-deemed-people that do not apply when dealing with physical-structures-deemed-objects. For example, in matters of sexual relations, you shouldn’t deceive people into doing things that they wouldn’t on reflection want to do if they were better informed; rather, when dealing with a person, you should take into account the desires, beliefs, and autonomy of that person, even though (as everyone already knows) none of these things are ontologically fundamental.
Now, perhaps you don’t hold this ethical standard yourself. In light of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad truth, there’s probably not a whole lot feminists can do to talk you into it. But in order to have a sane discussion, you should at least understand what it is your fellow discussants actually believe. And I really don’t think you do.
I still don’t think you understand what feminists mean by objectification. It’s not the same thing as cognitive reductionism, which I think hardly anyone here would object to. I mean, yes, minds are causal systems made of parts embedded in the universal laws of physics and can be understood as such. Everyone knows that!---and given that everyone knows that, you should be able to deduce that whatever it is people really mean when they criticize this objectification-thing, it has to be something other than cognitive reductionism.
Let me explain what I understand by objectification. So, even though (as everyone here already knows) everything that exists, exists within physics, we still find it useful and necessary to distinguish structures within physics which we think are conscious and intelligent (whatever it is we refer to with those words), which we call minds or people, and structures that are not, which we call objects. So when we express the proposition that objectification is unethical, we mean that we have special ethical standards for dealing with physical-structures-deemed-people that do not apply when dealing with physical-structures-deemed-objects. For example, in matters of sexual relations, you shouldn’t deceive people into doing things that they wouldn’t on reflection want to do if they were better informed; rather, when dealing with a person, you should take into account the desires, beliefs, and autonomy of that person, even though (as everyone already knows) none of these things are ontologically fundamental.
Now, perhaps you don’t hold this ethical standard yourself. In light of the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad truth, there’s probably not a whole lot feminists can do to talk you into it. But in order to have a sane discussion, you should at least understand what it is your fellow discussants actually believe. And I really don’t think you do.