After publishing this story, I shared it on my personal social media. I anticipated various responses to my argument, some of which I addressed in the article proper, hoping to strengthen it as much as possible. I was, however, certainly expecting some criticism. In particular, I have an acquaintance with very different beliefs to mine in many areas who has challenged me quite a few times on Facebook over the years (admittedly, often with my own attempts at provocation initiating the conversation). He responded with a rather detailed and salient comment, and he gave me permission to share it. Below is his initial comment in its entirety, unedited:

I read the entirety, you’re a very good writer, I enjoyed it!

I think there are a few issues where premises are assumed de facto and it makes it difficult to come to the same conclusion when the foundation hasn’t properly been established.

For example, you talked about moral and ethical wrongs, but you never defined how something is morally or ethically wrong in an objective sense. You said that Jeff didn’t prefer to be called Andrew, but it does not then follow that it is either wrong (technically) or evil (morally) or illegal (ethically) that he is called so. Rather it was assumed that whatever Jeff wanted to be called was appropriate as long as it was sincere (in good faith). You backed this up by saying that nobody reasonable would be expected to be called the king of pludonia acting in good faith, therefor we should expect that anyone who makes any claim about their own identity to be trusted, unless it crosses a line you’ve drawn where it is absurd and burdensome. But you never established that line, is it at the length or unpronounceability of a name? Which many people of different languages already have.

I would draw the line at the disconnect from reality; the assumption of a descriptor rather than the assumption of a moniker.

A person’s name doesn’t describe anything about them, while gender is a description of some objective reality of a person, animal, or even type of word (depending on the language). So for there to be a disagreement about names is not a disagreement about objective identity, but rather a semantic difference in what words people want to use to describe the same thing. “Jeff” or “Andrew” both refer to the exact same subject, the change in name does not indicate a change of the individual.

“I am a boy” or “I am a girl” is a description of an objective reality. Andrew is Jeff, but a boy is not a girl. Andrew and Jeff can both be used equally accurately to refer to the same person, and even new monikers and nicknames can be established, but “Jeff is a boy” or “Jeff is a girl” is an objective description of an objective reality. Since those terms are mutually exclusive, at least one of them is incorrect.

But all objective truth aside, the principle you stated was this:

“ if Person A, acting in good faith, makes clear a preference regarding their identity, other people ought to respect that preference, regardless of A’s reasons for having that preference and the feelings of other people with regards to that preference.”

The interesting word you used was “ought”. This is a moral word, not a technical or legal word, and it assumes an objective morality. If you said “I would prefer that they did this” it would be subjective preference, but you used the word “ought”. So it begs the question: “Why?”

At this point you would need to establish or already have established why Jeff’s desire translates into objective moral law. If Jeff had a preference, is that preference something that everyone is obligated to cater to, no matter what? Only if he is sincere? Only if he really really wants it? Only if it isn’t too hard to remember?

TL;DR
1. There is a distinction between a moniker and a descriptor.

2. A claim about an “ought” is a claim about an objective moral truth. The objective moral laws and their origin should be described, what are they, where do they come from, how are they enforced, etc.

I actually really enjoyed reading this response. For one thing, it made clear for me some areas where I hadn’t communicated as effectively as I had wanted to. This, I can only attribute to my relative inexperience in terms of writing philosophical arguments. I had some people proofread my piece before I published it, but you’ll never be able to fully anticipate issue and every ambiguity. I brought this and my other contentions with this (once again, complete and unedited) response (including an unresolved question that I feel may, in fact, be necessary to examine more closely in future versions of this argument):

Thanks for the reply. This has helped me recognize, in retrospect, some areas where I could have been clearer, as well as certain areas in which my ideas may have been underdeveloped.

I did take some time to think about your response. I believe some of your points come as a result of a misunderstanding of my argument.

First, I want to clarify something about the structure of my argument. It’s true that I didn’t establish an ethical framework to underpin my argument, but that was quite intentional. I was attempting to write to a general audience, not an audience of people well-versed in ethics. Had I begun by, say, laying the foundations of my personal (still very much developing) meta-ethical views and then arguing from that perspective, I would have failed on at least two counts:
1. I would probably have alienated anyone reading who didn’t have at least some familiarity with philosophy.
2. It would have attached the argument to a particular ethical system, which I feel would be completely unnecessary.

Rather, my appeal was to the ethical *intuitions* of the reader. Basically, I wanted to say, “You probably agree that X is wrong. What conclusion does this lead us to?” rather than “Because what is right and what is wrong is based on Y, we can therefore conclude Z”. This way, not only does the reader not need to have any familiarity with moral philosophy besides surface-level concepts that everyone is familiar with, it also doesn’t rely on me convincing the reader that some particular meta-ethical system is the correct one. I use what I reasonably suspected would be agreed upon by my readers, and worked for there. This is why, for instance, the argument doesn’t work if the reader actually has no qualms with Travis’ behavior in the first two stories. I freely admit that if the reader does not accept that Travis is in the wrong (in at least the first story) based on their own moral beliefs (whether those are based on intuition or some developed moral philosophy), then they don’t stand a chance of being convinced by the rest of the argument.

It would also be quite burdensome for everyone to first establish a meta-ethical framework every time they made a moral argument. Certainly, I could appeal to Mill or Kant or Aristotle (I think, with some adjustments, my conclusion could be more or less supported by all of their systems), but it’s much easier to begin with a moral principle that the reader will likely agree with (“Travis did something wrong”), then reason based on that initial agreement (“Here is the thing Travis did wrong”). I even left open in one paragraph the nature of Travis’ wrongdoing; it simply doesn’t matter for the argument so long as one accepts that he did indeed commit a wrongdoing.

Next, I want to address this particular line: “You backed this up by saying that nobody reasonable would be expected to be called the king of pludonia acting in good faith, therefor we should expect that anyone who makes any claim about their own identity to be trusted, unless it crosses a line you’ve drawn where it is absurd and burdensome. But you never established that line, is it at the length or unpronounceability of a name? Which many people of different languages already have.”

This was not exactly my reasoning, but I assume this misunderstanding is my own fault for a lack of clarity. I think what you’re referring to is the part where I established good faith as the morally relevant factor when distinguishing whether we ought to respect identity claims (again, reasoning not from a pre-established meta-ethical framework, but from the acceptance by the reader of a particular moral stance). The way you’ve characterized my argument would have been a nonsequitur, so I do apologize if I wasn’t clear here. So, my point about King Zorquaxigon Blementhius IV of Pludonia is that such a moniker would rarely, if ever, be likely to be desired by a person acting in good faith. Now, in that *particular* case, the plain absurdness and burden imposed by this name is one way that we are able determine that it is unlikely that it is being requested in good faith. However, I did not (in fact, in my estimation, I *could* not) establish a universal litmus test for good faith vs bad faith. I said specifically that, under normal circumstances, we ought to assume good faith. This follows the same principle that we should assume innocence until guilt is proven. It is certainly possible for the presumption of innocence to be overcome by evidence of guilt, but there is no universal standard of exactly how much evidence of what kind is required. Similarly, I don’t think there’s a way to establish a universal standard of how much evidence of what kind we would need to be swayed to believe that a person is making a request in bad faith. In some cases, it’s fairly obvious: context clues, in my experience, have universally shown that nobody who claims to identify as an attack helicopter seriously expects me to refer to them in that way. In other cases, it may be less obvious. So, yes, I have not actually established the good faith/bad faith line, but that is because I don’t think there is a single “line”. There is, perhaps, more of a weighted checklist, where if enough weight is added, one can reasonably ascertain that a request is being made in bad faith rather than good faith.

I am confused, though, at your next line, “I would draw the line at the disconnect from reality; the assumption of a descriptor rather than the assumption of a moniker.”, because this seems wholly unrelated to the good faith/bad faith distinction, and may even violate the idea that Travis’ behavior was wrong regardless of Jeff’s reasoning for assuming that identity. Perhaps I am misunderstanding, or perhaps you disagree with that point.

As far as the moniker/descriptor distinction, though, I am not certain whether this is, in actual fact, a morally relevant distinction (though it may well be). If that is the case, you may well have poked a hole in my argument. Although, on the other hand, while it may be a morally relevant factor whether someone desires others to use a moniker or a descriptor, I might still argue that Jeff’s case in the final story holds. For instance, “he”, “him”, and “mister” are all, arguably, monikers rather than descriptors. And I recognize that you will likely argue that they are, in fact, descriptors. This, to me, indicates one of two things: First, it may be the case that the distinction between moniker and descriptor is not quite as clear-cut as it seems. Secondly, it may simply be the case that we have different understandings of the meanings and usage of these words. Semantics, unfortunately, seems to invade every philosophical discussion. As for “boy” and “girl”, I would actually be inclined to agree that these are descriptors rather than monikers, though I suspect you and I have different definitions of these concepts, which, again, leaves us in the horrifying realm of semantics.

TL;DR
1. I much appreciate the thoughts. This did help me to clarify some of my views, both in terms of stating them more clearly and understanding them better myself.

2. While I understand your objection that I did not build the argument upon an established moral framework, this was never my intention. My goal was to reason based on getting moral agreement from the reader on a particular point, then examining the consequences of accepting that point on our broader moral beliefs. This works regardless of one’s particular moral foundation, so long as there is agreement on that point and the subsequent reasoning.

3. I think you misunderstood my answer to the King of Pludonia objection, but essentially, I feel that *good faith* is the morally relevant factor, and while I did establish that that specific example could be seen to be unlikely to be a result of good faith, I did not intend for this to be generalized into a universal test of good vs bad faith.

4. Finally, I think your moniker/descriptor distinction may legitimately constitute a morally relevant distinction that I failed to consider in my article (I will need to consider this more thoroughly), but I do think that the boundaries of what constitutes a moniker vs a descriptor may not always be so clear in practice, and I think the specific case of Jeff 3 would still hold.

So, what can we learn from this? Well, I’m not totally sure yet. Certainly we can learn that a new perspective will often be helpful, both in ways intended and unintended by the bearer of that perspective. We can consider the nuances of our beliefs and the arguments we make for them, and where we might be going wrong. Personally, I do think my argument holds up pretty well (though it absolutely could and, I think, will be refined, both by me and, if I may engage in wishful thinking, by others who adopt it), though I legitimately do need to consider how the moniker/descriptor distinction may or may not factor in, and how this might affect specific and general cases. There is a lot to learn by dialogue.