Thread by @TomasBogardus

The Argument from Alien Women

1. We describe some non-humans as women, e.g. Galadriel, Ahsoka, and Shodan.

2. If so, then women are not adult HUMAN females.

3. So, women are not adult human females.

But premise 2 is false.

To see why, think about STONE LIONS...🧵

Think about a parallel argument concerning stone lions.

We do indeed describe some stone statues as "lions."

Yet it doesn't follow that lions are not biological organisms.

And it doesn't follow that the word "lion" is ambiguous.

Rather, "There's a stone lion" says there's a stone REPRESENTATION of a lion. The statue RESEMBLES a lion.

And by "lion" we really mean the familiar species, Panthera leo.

It's the same reason we call fool's gold "gold": it resembles gold. As "Table Rocks" resemble a table.

We may also speak of an "alien lion." What we'd convey is: there's an alien that RESEMBLES a lion.

Even there, "lion" continues to mean lion, that familiar terrestrial species, Panthera leo.

That there are "alien lions" does not disprove that lions are Panthera leo.

Back to women. The non-humans some call "women" have a commonality: they RESEMBLE women. They look, or at least sound, like women.

Yet there are adult female aliens (& adult female organisms here on Earth) that we are NOT inclined to call "women": those that don't resemble women

For example, some may call Galadriel an "elf woman." And I'm told that GLaDOS, Ahsoka, and Shodan are called "women."

Here's GLaDOS:

Yet we're NOT inclined to call adult female date plants "women."

Or the adult female xenomorph queen from Aliens.

So what's going on here? I think it's like the stone lion case. When we say, "Ahoska is a woman," what we convey is that Ahoska RESEMBLES a woman.

And, there, "woman" is used in its ordinary sense: adult human female.

Similarly, some call the Statue of Liberty, "Lady Liberty." But, of course, the statue is not literally a lady.

It does *look* like a lady, though. One sees the RESEMBLANCE.

So, again, if we say "Ahoska is a woman," what we convey is that Ahoska RESEMBLES a woman.

This may well be what's happening even in the case of GLaDOS, or Amazon's Alexa, when the resemblance is limited to a voice.

If that's right, then premise 2 in the original argument is false: the fact that we call these non-humans "women" does not imply that women are not adult human females...

...any more than the fact that we call some statues "lions" and some aliens "lions" implies that lionhood is not a biological, historical, terrestrial kind.

Rather, we're conveying information about *resemblance*.

In fact, the advocate of W=AHF may turn the tables here, and ask some awkward questions about e.g. the xenomorph queen from Aliens.

She's not a woman, right? (Right.)

In fact, she *could not* be a woman, right? (Riiiight...)

But. What if she IDENTIFIED as a woman?

Any reluctance you feel toward granting that she'd be a woman in that case tells against a self-ID conception of womanhood.

And you do feel some reluctance, don't you?

So, here's a Table-Turning Argument from Aliens

1. The xenomorph queen would not be a woman, even if she sincerely identified as a woman.

2. If so, then identifying as a woman is not sufficient to be a woman.

3. So, identifying as a woman is not sufficient to be a woman.

The general problem is a confusion of appearance and reality

Appearing to be gold doesn't guarantee it's gold.

Appearing to be water doesn't guarantee it's water.

Appearing to be a leaf doesn't guarantee it's a leaf.

Agent Smith appears as a man, but isn't really a man.

@gbspendlove Maybe a way to prove this is to think of a man, disfigured so that he's no longer humanoid.

If that's possible--a non-humanoid man--then "man" doesn't name adult male humanoids. Being an adult male human is enough.

(I think that is possible.)

@gbspendlove So whereas they'd think this is infelicitous,

(A) Yogi and Porky are boars

due to the ambiguity of "boar," they'd think this is fine:

(B) Ahoska and Jill Biden are women.

Because they think those two are "women" in the same sense.

@gbspendlove So, what I'm saying is, you might deny premise 2 in the Alien Woman objection by saying "woman" is ambiguous, like "doe." (Ahoska is a woman in one sense, Jill Biden in a different sense.) But I think your opponents will deny that, and insist that "woman" is univocal here.