Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T08:24:26.977Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Sex, Vagueness, and the Olympics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Helen L. Daly
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Sex determines much about one's life, but what determines one's sex? The answer is complicated and incomplete: on close examination, ordinary notions of female and male are vague. In 2012, the International Olympic Committee further specified what they mean by woman in response to questions about who, exactly, is eligible to compete in women's Olympic events. I argue, first, that their stipulation is evidence that the use of vague terms is better described by semantic approaches to vagueness than by epistemic approaches. In addition, the IOC's 2012 stipulation was made with sensitivity to its practical consequences. Linguistic actions often have morally relevant consequences, and I contend that, other things equal, we should adopt theories about language that acknowledge the responsibility we bear for what we say. Taking vagueness to be an epistemic phenomenon precludes the sense of agency needed for moral responsibility; taking it to be semantic does not. Thus I advance two arguments for semantic approaches to vagueness, as against epistemic approaches: one descriptive and one normative.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 30 , Issue 4 , Fall 2015 , pp. 708 - 724
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bem, Sandra Lipsitz. 1995. Dismantling gender polarization and compulsory heterosexuality: Should we turn the volume down or up? Journal of Sex Research 32 (4): 329–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clarey, Christopher. 2010. As Semenya returns, so do questions. The New York Times, August 23.Google Scholar
Cobreros, Pablo. 2011. Paraconsistent vagueness: A positive argument. Synthese 183 (2): 211–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Crouch, N. S., Minto, C. L., Laio, L. M., Woodhouse, C. R., and Creighton, S. M. 2004. Genital sensation after feminizing genitoplasty for congenital adrenal hyperplasia: A pilot study. BJU International 93 (1): 135–38.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
DeVun, Leah. Forthcoming. Erecting sex: Hermaphrodites and the medieval science of surgery. Osiris 30.Google Scholar
Dreger, Alice. 2011. Redefining the sexes in unequal terms. The New York Times, April 24.Google Scholar
Fara, Delia Graff. 2000. Shifting sands: An interest‐relative theory of vagueness. Philosophical Topics 28 (1): 45–81.Google Scholar
Fausto‐Sterling, Anne. 2000. The five sexes, revisited. The Sciences, July/August: 18‐23.Google ScholarPubMed
Fine, Kit. 1975. Vagueness, truth and logic. Synthese 54: 235–59. Reprinted in Vagueness: A reader, ed. Rosanna Keefe and Peter Smith. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press. 1997.Google Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 1991. Reclaiming the sex/gender distinction. Noûs 25 (2): 200–01.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hart, H. L. A. 1958. Positivism and the separation of law and morals. Harvard Law Review 71 (4): 593–629.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horgan, Terry. 1994. Robust vagueness and the forced‐march sorites paradox. Philosophical Perspectives 8: 159–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hyde, Dominic, and Colyvan, Mark. 2008. Paraconsistent vagueness: Why not? Australasian Journal of Logic 6: 107–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Olympic Committee (IOC). 2012. IOC Regulations on Female Hyperandrogenism. http://www.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf (accessed June 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Jordan‐Young, Rebecca, and Karkazis, Katrina. 2012. Sex verification: You say you're a woman? That should be enough. New York Times, June 18.Google Scholar
Karkazis, Katrina. 2008. Fixing sex: Intersex, medical authority, and lived experience. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Karkazis, Katrina, Jordan‐Young, Rebecca, Davis, Georgann, and Camporesi, Sylvia. 2012. Out of bounds? A critique of the new policies on hyperandrogenism in elite female athletes. American Journal of Bioethics 12 (7): 3–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Longino, Helen. 2015. The social dimensions of scientific knowledge. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2015 Edition), ed. Zalta, Edward N. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/scientific-knowledge-social/ (accessed June 18, 2015).Google Scholar
Machamer, Peter, and Wolters, Gereon. 2004. Science, values, and objectivity. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O'Connor, Dan, and Dasgupta, Ishan. 2012. Sport is arbitrary, and that's OK. American Journal of Bioethics 12 (7): 30–31.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Quine, Willard Van Orman. 1948. On what there is. Review of Metaphysics 2 (5): 21–36.Google Scholar
Quinn, Carol Viola Ann. 2013. Intersexuality and the demand for heterosexual normalcy. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Central Division of the American Philosophical Association. February 21.Google Scholar
Raffman, Diana. 1996. Vagueness and context‐relativity. Philosophical Studies 81 (2–3): 175–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raffman, Diana. 2010. Demoting higher‐order vagueness. In Cuts and clouds: Vagueness, its nature and its logic, ed. Dietz, R. and Moruzzi, S. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Russell, Bertrand. 1905. On denoting. Mind 14 (56): 479–93.Google Scholar
Shapiro, Stewart. 2006. Vagueness in context. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soames, Scott. 2012. Vagueness in the law. In The Routledge companion to philosophy of law, ed. Marmor, Andrei. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sorenson, Roy. 2001. Vagueness and contradiction. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sorenson, Roy. 2013. Vagueness. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2013 edition), ed. Zalta, Edward N. http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2013/entries/vagueness/ (accessed June 18, 2015).Google Scholar
Topiwala, Shehzad. 2012. Testosterone: MedlinePlus medical encyclopedia. US National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/ency/article/003707.htm (accessed March 22, 2012).Google Scholar
Vilain, Eric. 2012. Gender testing for athletes remains a tough call. The New York Times, June 18.Google Scholar
Wahlert, Lance, and Fiester, Autumn. 2012. Gender transports: Privileging the “natural” in gender testing debates for intersex and transgender athletes. American Journal of Bioethics 12 (7): 19–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williamson, Timothy. 1994. Vagueness. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 1996. Wright on the epistemic conception of vagueness. Analysis 56 (1): 39–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, Timothy. 1999. Schiffer on the epistemic theory of vagueness. Philosophical Perspectives 13 (s13): 505–17.Google Scholar
Witt, Charlotte, ed. 2011. Feminist metaphysics: Explorations in the ontology of sex, gender, and the self. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar