The phrase comes up all the time. I've always maintained MGTOW is a lifestyle choice, and many call it a philosophy, especially on YouTube but also here.

I think it's a lifestyle choice, and doesn't rate as a philosophy.

The reason I even say that is because my education and one of my degrees is in philosophy and we navel gazers are really anal on the subject.

Philosophy is largely an academic pursuit. There are schools and disciplines of philosophy, say, philosophy of science, where you discuss theories of what makes something a science or following, and what is, a scientific method.

Philosophy of Art would ask if a painting art because an artist says it is, or because the audience says it is. A parent shaking their fist at the ceiling saying "shut down that noise!" when a teen is playing loud music, means they don't see it as art, but the teen may see it as artistic musical expression, and the band sees it as art. Who is right?

These are the kind of dumb things philosopher babble about after we take a lot of hallucinogenic mushrooms or a good lung full of hash.

Philosophy of Morality can be about metaethics, normative ethics, and applied ethics depending on what your arguments are about.

It may discus Deontological or Utilitarian theories, these are different premises and guides to those subjects.

Epistemology is the investigation of what distinguishes justified belief from opinion.

Different philosophies attempts to explain how the universe works, or how knowledge is attained, or what it even is.

MGTOW, in my opinion, is not a philosophy. It is an idea that "no" is an acceptable answer.

It has ideas, that from a wide range of various legal, biological, cultural, and logical issues, marriage and cohabitation are not well thought out lifestyles. It can look at a government contract and cultural expectation and say, "nope, looks stupid" and walks away from that game. It can choose to look at a sexual marketplace and decide not to participate in it for whatever reason you decide to make up.

It can be about being "selfish" and focus on the self rather than piss all your work and years away supporting other people who resemble parasites.

A particular philosophy may help form an underlying basis for a personal belief, but going or living MGTOW is not going along with current cultural assumptions.

MGTOW is descriptive, the same way evolution is descriptive. There is not "philosophy" of evolution, it's just descriptive of how biology changes over time in living things.

MGTOW also just describes a series of ideas you choose to follow, or more accurately, larger societal ideas you choose not to follow.

For that reason I believe MGTOW is more a lifestyle counter to the collective, and to label it a "philosophy" is wrong, as it doesn't really have the qualities that would make it one. Nor lead to any great change in the understanding of the nature of reality. Saying women are hypergamous is descriptive, not a great philosophical break through.

But hey I could be wrong, I woke up to warm beer.