Gender, Race and Philosophy: The Blog

Article on "Same-Sex Marriage and Equality"

Reginald Williams, Same-Sex Marriage and Equality.  

Some argue that same-sex marriage is not an equal rights issue because, where same-sex marriage is illegal, heterosexuals and homosexuals have the exact same right to marry—i.e., the right to marry one adult of the opposite sex. I dispute this argument by pointing out that while societies that prohibit same-sex marriage equally permit individual heterosexuals and homosexuals to marry one adult of the opposite sex, same-sex couples in such societies are denied an important right that opposite-sex couples enjoy—i.e., the right (...) to marry. I argue that the right to marry is fundamentally, not an individual right, but a couple’s collective right, analogous to assembly rights.

Article on "Social Freedom and Commitment"

Shay Welch, Social Freedom and Commitment.

Much of feminist theory takes issue with traditional, liberal theories of consent and obligation. Though none have proposed abandoning obligation outright, there has been a general shift among feminists towards a responsibility paradigm. Responsibility models acknowledge given relationships and interdependence, and so posit responsibilities as given, regardless of whether they are voluntary. But in theories that take freedom as a principal value, a move from a socially unembedded voluntarism to socially embedded responsibility leaves something missing. Constructive accounts of and prescriptions (...) for freedom must consider the reality of social life; yet acknowledging that relations are given need not require subordinating the role of voluntarism and consent in most relationships. In this paper I offer a commitment framework that seeks to supplant obligation while also reconciling relational given-ness and voluntarism. I propose an analysis of commitment that takes relations as the starting point and then show how the concept can: 1. guide actions 2. account for responsibilities 3. enhance freedom and 4. avoid a large share of coercive forces that are believed as necessary for reinforcing obligation and responsibility fulfillment.

Article on "Biological Racial Realism"

Quayshawn Spencer (forthcoming). What 'Biological Racial Realism' Should Mean. Philosophical Studies. 

A curious ambiguity has arisen in the race debate in recent years. That ambiguity is what is actually meant by ‘biological racial realism’. Some philosophers mean that ‘race is a natural kind in biology’, while others mean that ‘race is a real biological kind’. However, there is no agreement about what a natural kind or a real biological kind should be in the race debate. In this article, I will argue that the best interpretation of ‘biological racial realism’ is one (...) that interprets ‘biological racial realism’ as ‘race is a genuine kind in biology’, where a genuine kind is a valid kind in a well-ordered scientific research program. I begin by reviewing previous interpretations of ‘biological racial realism’ in the race debate. Second, I introduce the idea of a genuine kind and compare it to various notions of natural and real biological kinds used in the race debate. Third, I present and defend an argument for my view. Fourth, I provide a few interesting consequences of my view for the race debate. Last, I provide a summary of the article.

Article on "Luck and Oppression"

Mark Navin, Luck and Oppression. 

Oppression can be unjust from a luck egalitarian point of view even when it is the consequence of choices for which it is reasonable to hold persons responsible. This is for two reasons. First, people who have not been oppressed are unlikely to anticipate the ways in which their choices may lead them into oppressive conditions. Facts about systematic phenomena (like oppression) are often beyond the epistemic reach of persons who are not currently subject to such conditions, even when they (...) possess adequate information about the particular consequences of their choices. Second, people may be (much) less responsible for remaining in oppressive conditions, even if they are responsible for entering circumstances of oppression. Oppression that results from a person’s choice may cause or contribute to dramatic changes in that person, and these changes may be sufficient to undermine the person’s responsibility for the results of her earlier choice. (shrink)

Journal Articles forthcoming in Hypatia

New articles:

1. Daniel Hicks (forthcoming). Is Longino's Conception of Objectivity Feminist? Hypatia. 
   Helen Longino's account of objectivity has been highly regarded by both feminist and mainstream philosophers of science. However, I have encountered three feminist philosophers who have all offered one especially compelling feminist critique of Longino's view: far from vindicating or privileging the work of feminist scientists, Longino's account actually requires the active cultivation of anti-feminist and misogynist scientists to balance out the possibility of feminist bias. I call this objection the Nazi problem, for the particular version that claims that her (...) view requires even the active cultivation of Nazi scientists in objective inquiry. In this paper I consider one response to the Nazi problem, which I call the good faith argument. I show that the good faith argument itself is just as objectionable, on feminist grounds, as the Nazi problem it is meant to address. (shrink)
2. Jacqui Poltera (forthcoming). Women and the Ethos of Philosophy: Shedding Light on Mentoring and Competition. Hypatia. 
3. Dawn Rae Davis (forthcoming). Power Lines: On the Subject of Feminist Alliances. By Aimee Carrillo Rowe. Hypatia. 

Journal Articles: Holiday reading?

From Phil Papers (further details there):

A. Pasternak (forthcoming). Sharing the Costs of Political Injustices. Politics, Philosophy and Economics.   It is commonly thought that when democratic states act wrongly, they should bear the costs of the harm they cause. However, since states are collective agents, their financial burdens pass on to their individual citizens. This fact raises important questions about the proper distribution of the state’s collective responsibility for its unjust policies. This article identifies two opposing models for sharing this collective responsibility in democracies: first, in proportion to citizens’ personal association with the unjust policy; second, by giving each (...) citizen an equal share of the costs. Proportional distribution is compatible with the principle of fairness. And yet, both in the literature and in political praxis we find many supporters for the equal sharing of the costs of unjust policies in democracies. How can equal distribution be defended on normative grounds? This article develops a defense that is grounded in citizens’ associative obligations. I argue that, at least in some democracies, one of the intrinsic values of the civic bond revolves around the joint formation and execution of worthy political goals. This social good generates the political associative obligation to accept an equal distribution of the costs of unjust policies.

Emanuela Bianchi (2010). Sexual Topologies in the Aristotelian Cosmos: Revisiting Irigaray's Physics of Sexual Difference. Continental Philosophy Review 43 (3):373-389.  Irigaray’s engagement with Aristotelian physics provides a specific diagnosis of women’s ontological and ethical situation under Western metaphysics: Women provide place and containership to men, but have no place of their own, rendering them uncontained and abyssal. She calls for a reconfiguration of this topological imaginary as a precondition for an ethics of sexual difference. This paper returns to Aristotelian cosmological texts to further investigate the topologies of sexual difference suggested there. In an analysis both psychoanalytic and phenomenological, the paper (...) rigorously traces a teleological and oedipal narrative implicit in the structure of the Aristotelian cosmos, in which desire for the mother is superseded by love for the father. Further, the paper argues that this narrative is complicated by certain other elements in the Aristotelian text—aporias involving the notion of boundary and the relationship between space and time, the fallenness of the feminine, and the ineliminably aleatory qualities of matter. The paper concludes that such elements may provide material for disrupting this teleology of gender, opening onto not merely an ethics of sexual difference, but providing space and place for a proliferation of non-normative, queer, transgender and intersex modes of sexed and gendered subjectivity.

Catharine A. MacKinnon (2010). Gender – The Future. Constellations 17 (4):504-511. 

Robert Gooding-Williams (2010). After Identity: Rethinking Race, Sex, and Gender by Georgia Warnke. Constellations 17 (4):589-594.  

Deborah Cameron (2010). Gender, Language, and the New Biologism. Constellations 17 (4):526-539. 

Lois McNay (2010). Feminism and Post-Identity Politics: The Problem of Agency. Constellations 17 (4):512-525.

Recent article on ordinary conceptions of race

Not too long ago Ann Morning (Sociology, NYU) published an article that is relevant for philosophers (and others) interested in empirical studies on ordinarily conceptions of race in America: Morning, Ann. 2009. "Toward a Sociology of Racial Conceptualization for the 21st Century." Social Forces 87(3): 1167-1192.  Abstract:

Despite their longstanding interest in race, American sociologists have conducted little empirical research on sociodemographic patterns or longitudinal trends in “racial conceptualization” – that is, notions of what race is, how races differ, and the origins of race. This article outlines key empirical, methodological and theoretical considerations for a research agenda on racial conceptualization. Drawing on in-depth interviews with more than 50 college students, I describe the variety of race concepts among respondents, illustrate the importance of using multiple measures of conceptualization, and demonstrate the malleability of conceptualization, linking it to demographic context and thereby raising the question of its future evolution in the changing United States of the 21st century.

New Articles on ethnicity and globalization

1. John Speir & Farhad Rassekh (2010). Can Economic Globalization Lead to a More Just Society? Journal of Global Ethics 6 (1):27-43. 
   We briefly review the recent literature on globalization, and present empirical evidence showing that economic globalization has been correlated with higher economic growth and lower poverty rates. We then evaluate the consequences of economic globalization in light of standards of commutative justice as Smith articulated, distributive justice as Rawls presented, and practical justice as Kolm explicated. This essay argues that economic globalization fulfills the requirements of all three species of justice.
2. Irene Oh (2010). A Response to David Hollenbach and Sohail H. Hashmi. Journal of Religious Ethics 38 (3):594-597. 
   Irene Oh affirms that religious freedom, faith, and reason, as David Hollenbach suggests, are subject matters that offer promising platforms for interreligious dialogue between Christians and Muslims. The need for cross-cultural understanding is imperative especially given the current political climate, in which world leaders can easily exacerbate existing tensions through the misapplication of such terms. Sohail H. Hashmi addresses the need to discuss women's rights as part of a larger discussion on human rights in Islam. Oh concurs and notes that (...) Sayyid Qutb's remarks on women in the United States serve as a starting point for clarifying women's agency in Islam. (shrink)
3. David Hollenbach (2010). Book Discussion Section: Comparative Ethics, Islam, and Human Rights: Internal Pluralism and the Possible Development of Tradition. Journal of Religious Ethics 38 (3):580-587. 
   Dialogue with three major Muslim authors shows that Islam can take a positive stance toward human rights while also presenting differing interpretations of the meaning and scope of rights. Because of their subordination of norms reached through reason to those drawn from faith, as well as negative experiences of the impact of Western colonization of parts of the Muslim world, Abul A‘la Maududi and Sayyid Qutb place significant restrictions on rights of conscience. 'Abdolkarim Soroush's positive support for the role of (...) reason in Islamic faith and his less-negative assessment of the West lead him to more vigorous support for the human rights agenda. This study raises the question of whether the humility needed in comparative ethics and the respect for others at the root of human rights are necessarily linked. (shrink)

New Articles forthcoming in Hypatia

1. Cynthia A. Stark (forthcoming). Abstraction and Justification in Moral Theory. Hypatia.  
2. Susan Dieleman (forthcoming). Revisiting Rorty: Contributions to a Pragmatist Feminism. Hypatia.  
3. Kelly Oliver (forthcoming). Motherhood, Sexuality, and Pregnant Embodiment: Twenty-Five Years of Gestation. Hypatia. 
4. Helen Longino (forthcoming). Feminist Epistemology at Hypatia's 25th Anniversary. Hypatia.  
5. Kristen Intemann, Emily S. Lee, Kristin Mccartney, Shireen Roshanravan & Alexa Schriempf (forthcoming). MUSINGS: What Lies Ahead: Envisioning New Futures for Feminist Philosophy. Hypatia. 
6. Margaret Simons (forthcoming). Confronting an Impasse: Reflections on the Past and Future of Beauvoir Scholarship. Hypatia. 

Recent Article: Race Theory in American Philosophy

Tommy J. Curry (2010). Concerning the Underspecialization of Race Theory in American Philosophy: How the Exclusion of Black Sources Affects the Field. The Pluralist 5 (1).

Despite the recent rise in articles by American philosophers willing to deal with race, the sophistication of American philosophy's conceptualizations of American racism continues to lag behind other liberal arts fields committed to similar endeavors. Whereas other fields like American studies, history, sociology, and Black studies have found the foundational works of Black scholars essential to "truly" understanding the complexities of racism, American philosophy-driven by the refusal of white philosophers to acknowledge and incorporate the foundational works of Black scholars at the turn of the century, as well as the relevant insights of contemporary race theorists-remains in a very real sense underdeveloped ..