Ontological Inequality of Sexes
Adam Omelianchuck has a paper in Vol. 13, No. 1 of Philosophia Christi that discusses the ontological subordination of men and women. He argues that men and women are not ontologically equal. The basis for this, he argues, is on the function of men and women. Being familiar with natural law, this is comfortable ground for me. The function of women is to be a helper, and the function for man is to be a leader. There is a difference in role, and there is a hierarchy of subordination, but what he seems to draw out is that this entails there is an ontological inequality between men and women.
He presents a Hierarchy's Less Valuable Function Principle, which states,
Necessarily, given the two functions, F1 serving as a means to and end and F2 having authority to direct the end, if any person having F1 is, in virtue of having F1, essentially subordinate to a person having F2, then F1 is a less valuable function than F2.
Now, men and women have these functions, but since what helps determine what a thing is, or what its essence is, is function (pretty standard Natural Law), then really, these are essential ontological differences. These functions help us determine what it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, and since women have an essential function that is subordinate to man, women are ontologically unequal and inferior to men.
He doesn't mean to say that women are of less value, if by value we mean like moral worth or having dignity, but I don't think I'm convinced of that. It seems to be that one's dignity and moral worth is intrinsically tied to the type of metaphysical being one is. Our worth comes from being a rational animal. Though, I suppose, Omelianchuck will say that since men and women are both rational animals, they both have moral worth. But in this other metaphysical aspect, they are not equal. He says that such confusion might be expected since for Westerners since what we believe makes one an equal is equal opportunity and equal rights.
It's an interesting argument. It's my first time hearing an argument for the inequality of sexes. I usually do hear, and subscribe to the view, that men and women are equal in nature, but not equal in role, just like Jesus Christ is equal to God the Father in Nature, but not in role, since he is subordinate to the Father. I just want to bring attention to this since if one wants to say that men and women are equal in nature, they're going to have to deal with this argument. Comments welcome.
According to dictionary.com,
ReplyDeletethe subordinate is the one "controlled by or under the authority of another in an organization." Noun version
And, to subordinate is "to treat or regard of lesser importance than something else."
Yet, Jesus is not controlled by the Father. He freely chooses to offer Himself to us out of love for the Father.
He is not treated as having lesser importance than the Father. Indeed, He is regarded as an equal member of the Trinity.
I think that the word "subordinate" needs to be changed or redefined in a very specific way to embody the relationship of the Son to the Father. I like your analogy very much and this philosopher missed the wisdom of it.