Feminist Ethics

This chapter is about micro-inequities and their connection to the problem of implicit bias. It begins by defining micro-inequities, goes on to discuss what makes them wrong and what solutions might be appropriate given the institutional context in which they occur.

‘Gender disappointment’ is regularly reported by those whose child’s sex does not match the sex that they, the parent, desired. With symptoms ranging from mere fleeting sadness to documented cases of serious depression, alienation from one’s child, and emotional suffering, it is clear that so-called ‘gender disappointment’ is a serious issue, that has, as yet, seen little philosophical attention (though see Hendl and Browne 2020). In this chapter I explore gender disappointment, not from the perspective of a parent who ended (...) up with the child of the wrong sex at birth, but rather, from the perspective of a different kind of gender disappointment: the transgender person who grew up and only then disappointed their parents by turning out to be the ‘wrong’ gender. This perspective, I argue, reveals a great deal about the shared gender essentialism at the heart of patriarchal and cissexist ideology. Moreover, I will argue that it reveals the underlying propertarian relationship of parents to their children under contemporary capitalism – a troubling relationship that legitimates the treatment of children as objects to be designed and controlled as commodities at the whims of parents. In this way I disagree with Whyman when he writes that “a preference for having a child of one sex over the other should be considered one of those irrational things of which some sense can nevertheless be made – like aesthetic taste” (Whyman 2021, 113-114). I argue, to the contrary, that the desire for a child of one particular gender is not akin to a mere unproblematic aesthetic preference. Instead, and following the rich feminist tradition of thinking about the patriarchal origins of sexual desire, I argue that we must see these desires as troubling reflections of dominant patriarchal and cissexist ideology, underwritten by a particular neoliberal capitalist mode of production. Moreover, we can seek to change those desires. (shrink)

This article challenges the prevailing notion of feminist freedom rooted in individual choice, influenced by neoliberal ideology. While choice is integral, it argues for a broader perspective acknowledging systemic inequalities shaping women's options. Highlighting the flawed promises of neoliberalism, it discusses how economic disparities and workplace discrimination hinder genuine choice. It advocates for policies promoting economic justice, workplace equality, and reproductive rights as essential for feminist freedom. Ultimately, it calls for collective action to dismantle barriers and create a society where (...) all women have the genuine power to shape their lives. (shrink)

This book begins with an unexplored and unanswered question that Martin Heidegger raises in a 1923 Freiburg course: "Problem: What is woman?" Yet, why should we care that Heidegger raises this "problem"? What could he, a member of the National Socialist Party, help feminists understand about responding to "the woman question"? How can Heidegger help us understand our own historical climate in which this question continues to hold significance? Jill Drouillard divides Heidegger's thought into two categories to think about the (...) sexed/gendered experiences that coordinate our birth: (1) the one that suspends "the woman question" and that provides useful resources for thinking the fluidity of sex/gender, and (2) the one that provides a totalized reply to this query by manipulating tropes of the feminine to advance a politico-poetic project of Nazi politics. She uses Heidegger as a cautionary tale to demonstrate the harm that occurs when society tries to define the being (or "what is") of woman in any definite sense. In some chapters, she teases apart how Heidegger may have offered a reply to "the woman question" and, in others, shows what happens in today's society when law, bioethics, politics, and pedagogy reckon with this query. (shrink)

In this paper, we locate a general rhetorical strategy employed in theoretical discourse wherein philosophers argue from the mere existence of internalized oppression to some kind of epistemic, moral, political, or cognitive deficiency of oppressed people. We argue that this strategy has harmful consequences for oppressed people, breaking down our analysis in terms of individual and structural harms within both epistemic and moral domains. These harms include attempting to undermine the self-trust of oppressed people, reinforcing unjust epistemic power hierarchies, undermining (...) the moral agency of oppressed people, and obscuring real issues of oppression. In light of these many harms, we conclude that there are pro tanto reasons not to employ this strategy, and instead offer a series of suggestions for those considering adopting such a rhetorical move. (shrink)

Consent theory in sexual ethics, Jonathan Ichikawa argues, has a Euthyphro problem. -/- It is widely held that sexual violations are explicable in terms of nonconsensual sexual contact. But a notion of consent adequate to explain many moral judgments typical of sexual ethics — a notion that vindicates the idea that consent cannot be coerced, that it must be sober, that children cannot consent to sex with adults, etc. — cannot, Ichikawa argues, be articulated, motivated, or explained in a way (...) independently of moral judgments about sexual wrongs. Consequently, if there is as tight a connection between consent and sexual violation as many people think there is, there is good reason to suppose that that connection must ultimately explain consent in terms of sexual wronging, rather than vice versa. The paper highlights some costs and drawbacks to this horn of the Euthyphro dilemma in sexual ethics. One central upshot of the argument will be that mainstream accounts of sexual ethics fail in their explanatory ambitions. Consent cannot play its canonical explanatory role. (shrink)

Effective altruists (EAs) seek to persuade the globally wealthy to donate a proportion of their income to do good, and specifically to donate it to those charit.

The assumption that animal experimentation is necessary for the advancement of science creates a tension between our desire for scientific progress and the need to respect the rights of animals. However, the necessity of animal experimentation for scientific progress is not well- founded. Also this tension is an extension of a false dichotomy that implies our values and objective science contradict each other. In recent years, the view that better care for animals will provide more reliable scientific data and will (...) reduce ethical concerns regarding animal experimentation has become widespread. However, the developments in the recently emerging care literature do not offer a new ethical perspective, but only acknowledge the suffering of animals as a factor that should be taken into account within utilitarian ethics. In this article, we will try to show that a feminist ethics of care perspective that is not based on utilitarianism can lead both to a methodologically better science and an ethically acceptable scientific practice. (shrink)

Why is it more violating to grab a stranger’s thigh or stroke their face than it is to grab their forearm? Why is it worse to read someone’s dream journal without permission than it is to read their bird watching field notes? Why are gestation mandates so incredibly intrusive? Intimacy is key to understanding these cases, and to explaining many of our most stringent rights. -/- I present two ways of thinking about intimacy, Relationship-First Accounts and the Intimate Zones Account. (...) I argue that only the Intimate Zones Account lets us cohesively understand intimacy’s importance, and the scope of our intimate rights. I characterize our intimate zones as meeting the Hiddenness and Importance Conditions. A feature’s meeting these conditions makes it a locus of special vulnerability by which our persons can be fundamentally altered. This special vulnerability explains why our duties to respect the intimate boundaries of others are so strict. (shrink)

***This paper will be published along with Professor Amy Coplan's commentary, "Response to 'Empathy, Timeliness, and Virtuous Hearing'." *** This paper aims to demonstrate how the notion of timeliness enriches our understanding of empathy and its associated virtuous hearing as discussed in liberatory virtue epistemology. I begin by showing how timeliness is relevant to empathy. Next, I apply this insight to the idea of virtuous hearing, in which empathy plays a significant role. I thus broaden the liberatory-epistemological conception of virtuous (...) hearing as a corrective to timing-related injustice. Finally, I connect virtuous hearing with the ancient Greek concept of kairos, clarifying the conditions under which virtuous hearers must be sensitive to another’s opportune timing to testify. (shrink)

Consent, on a standard theoretical framework, is a way of giving permission or waiving a right. Dougherty’s book is about the ‘scope’ of consent: which acts are permitted by a given act of consent? Along the way, Dougherty offers a view about what consent consists in and why it does its morally transformative work. The book is an exemplar of careful analytic philosophy. Philosophers working on consent in that tradition will find it essential reading. Following are more specific reactions that (...) will, I hope, convey a more specific sense of the book, and also engage and critique it and the tradition it exemplifies. (shrink)

This paper sketches an emotion-aware model of environmental ethics education. The proposal draws on insights from feminists scholars, moral sentimentalism, as well as work in the pedagogy of discomfort traditions. It identifies and defends four core elements of climate change ethic, noting how they shed new light on the aims and challenges of environmental ethics education.

Ethical extensionism is a common argument pattern in environmental and animal ethics, which takes a morally valuable trait already recognized in us and argues that we should recognize that value in other entities such as nonhuman animals. I exposit ethical extensionism’s core argument, argue for its validity and soundness, and trace its history to 18th century progressivist calls to expand the moral community and legal franchise. However, ethical extensionism has its critics. The bulk of the paper responds to recent criticisms, (...) including (1) environmental ethicists’ objection against its austere conception of moral value (2), feminist ethicists’ claim that extensionism fails to account for the moral significance of difference, (3) disability theorists’ concern that ethical extensionist arguments are offensive, and (4) animal rights theorists’ lament that extensionism is a practical failure. While something is to be gained from each criticism, I argue that they ultimately fail and that extensionism remains compelling. (shrink)

One of the key insights of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is the idea that gender-based subordination is not just something done to women, but also something women do to themselves. This raises a question about ethical responsibility: if women are complicit, or actively implicated in their own oppression, are they at fault? Recent Beauvoir scholarship remains divided on this point. Here, I argue that Beauvoir did, in fact, ethically criticize many women for their complicity, as a sign of (...) what she called “bad faith”. I challenge recent accounts by Nancy Bauer and Manon Garcia, who both read Beauvoir as exonerating complicit women. According to this reading, women emerge as human “freedoms” within a social world where a “destiny” of inferiority is already prepared for them. Their self-subordination is then an inevitable product of acting in a patriarchal world. I argue, however, that this interpretation generates a crucial tension, leading Bauer and Garcia to call on women to stop being complicit, while also claiming they cannot avoid complicity. I propose instead a different interpretation, on which feminine complicity is often fueled by criticizable ethical attitudes that are far from inevitable. By revisiting Beauvoir’s notion of “bad faith”, I show that this account is compatible with recognizing the limitations imposed on women’s agency and I show that this feminist ethical criticism is itself an important part of a collective project of social transformation. (shrink)

This chapter explores a case study in contemporary fanaticism. We adopt Katsafanas’s conceptualization of fanaticism to make possible an in-depth discussion of and evaluation of a diffuse but important social movement — the anglophone manosphere. According to Katsafanas, fanatics are fruitfully understood as members of a group that adopts sacred values which they hold unconditionally to preserve their own psychic unity, and who feel that those values are threatened by those who do not accept them. The manosphere includes several social (...) movements, including incels, men’s rights activists, and men-going-their-own-way. We show that many members of these groups are well-characterized by Katsafanas’s theory of fanaticism, and that they have forged their fanatical group identity using tools that philosophers have tended to associate with more benign social movements and the task of “conceptual engineering.” Indeed, we think that manosphere groups have in many cases been more successful than more palatable liberationist movements, and that this case study in the dark side of conceptual engineering may be both sobering and informative. (shrink)

RésuméEn réponse à l'article de D. C. Matthew, « Racial Integration and the Problem of Relational Devaluation », j'examine la politique de la beauté physique à l'intersection entre les catégories de race et de genre. J’évalue et je rejette l'affirmation de Matthew selon laquelle être perçu comme physiquement attrayant se traduit à coup sûr soit par un bon traitement, soit par une haute estime de soi. Je soutiens que, au contraire, le genre peut fonctionner comme un moyen de contrôle social, (...) dans lequel le désir du corps des femmes n'apporte aucun bon traitement ni n'améliore leur estime de soi. Ce problème peut persister au sein des communautés raciales intragroupes autoségréguées. (shrink)

Feminists have always been concerned with how the clothes women wear can reinforce and reproduce gender hierarchy. However, they have strongly disagreed about what to do in response: some have suggested that the key to feminist liberation is to stop caring about how one dresses; others have replied that the solution is to give women increased choices. In this paper, we argue that neither of these dominant approaches is satisfactory and that, ultimately, they have led to an impasse that pervades (...) the contemporary feminist debate. The problem is that both sides of the debate understand women’s complicity in patriarchal subordination as a matter of what women wear and do. Instead, we propose a phenomenological analysis that understands complicity as based in our relations to our clothes. Starting from this phenomenological perspective, we sketch a new relational feminist ethics of dressing. This alternative ethical paradigm cannot yield a simple recipe for how to dress or tell us what garments are off-limits. But it can offer a way to make critical feminist judgements about clothes without veering into a stifling new prescriptivism. (shrink)

By re-examining Nietzsche's notion of the “eternal-feminine” and his views on women and feminism, this volume offers new perspectives on some of his key ideas. It brings together a diverse group of scholars to critically engage with Nietzsche's use of late-19th-century gender stereotypes and the ways in which they served his critique of values, including his use of “woman” as a trope for truth. -/- Among other subjects, the contributors consider the role of psychology in Nietzsche's thought, his concern with (...) style, self-creation, and advocacy of perfectionism, his views on romantic love and marriage, and his aim of revaluing all values to instigate a distant philosophy of the future. They investigate parallels between Nietzsche's thought and Shaktism, his relation to Goethe and Stendahl, and his influence on Beauvoir, Butler, and Dohm. With the inclusion of two seminal essays on Nietzsche and women by Lawrence J. Hatab and Kelly Oliver, the volume also illustrates some of the ways in which scholarship on these subjects has evolved over the last four decades. -/- Providing fresh insights into these inter-related subjects, Nietzsche on Women and the Eternal-Feminine highlights the enduring relevance of his thought and its still-underappreciated potential for re-thinking both the bases for and aims of feminism and other emancipatory movements. (shrink)

Nietzsche appears antithetical to care ethics. He often mocks human dependency, for instance, sometimes in ways that appear sexist, and he famously challenges the legitimacy of compassion. Nietzsche’s positive ethical position is arguably some form of anti-egalitarian perfectionism which holds that goodness is constituted by individual human excellence. Perfectionism, however, coupled with a rejection of the ethical significance of dependency and virtues like compassion, can seem dangerous to modern sensibilities—especially to those in the care tradition. I think we should put (...) Nietzsche’s perfectionism to the test. In this chapter, I briefly explore whether Nietzsche’s perfectionism might not only be consistent with but possibly even support several core features of care ethics. (shrink)

The sacrifices of nurses in hard-hit cities during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and of family caregivers for people with late-stage Alzheimer’s disease present two puzzles. First, traditional accounts of supererogation cannot allow for the possibility of making enormous sacrifices that make one’s actions supererogatory simply to do what morality requires. These caregivers, however, are doing their moral duty, yet their actions also seem to be paradigmatic cases of supererogation. I argue that Dale Dorsey’s new account of supererogation (...) can solve this puzzle. Second, these caregivers often deny that they are heroic, but standard explanations of these assertions either diminish their sacrifice, say they are confused, or attribute to them a vice. If we want to understand them without diminishing them, we should instead see their denials as a response to what Beth DeVolder calls compulsory heroism. Compulsory heroism occurs when someone is foisted into the role of hero for doing their moral duty as a distraction from the social realities that make doing their duty involve inordinate sacrifice. (shrink)

Anger, far from being only a personal emotion, often signals a breakdown in existing societal structures like the justice system. This does not mean we should uncritically submit to our angry impulses, but it does mean that anger can reveal larger issues in the world worthy of attention. If we banish anger from the socio-political landscape, we risk losing its insights. To defend that claim, I turn to a range of sources from ancient China and Greece—philosophy, poetry, drama, and political (...) theory—that depict and analyze anger in a variety of situations and people. My basic claim is not that anger is simply “good” or “bad” but rather that it helps reveal and clarify our values, often pointing us towards real situations deserving of our ethical scrutiny. I situate the project amidst ongoing debates in analytic philosophy of emotions and feminist philosophy, joining the conceptual precision and clarity of the former with the latter’s attention to lived experience. Such cross-cultural, multidisciplinary conceptual analysis of anger parochializes Aristotelian understandings of anger by introducing different types and functions of anger. What role does anger play, for example, in a minister rebuking the king in an ancient Chinese court? How do Greek sources depict female anger differently than male anger, and why? By using ancient and comparative sources, I show how deeply anger is shaped by particular cultural and social structures, whilst remaining recognizably anger. (shrink)

Helen Frowe (2014) depicts the following fictional case: Fran is being raped by Eric and can’t stop him with violent resistance. Nevertheless, she resists and breaks Eric’s wrist. The infliction of defensive harm on Eric is intuitively permissible, yet it runs counter to the dominant view that defensive harms must stand a reasonable chance of success. Call this the Success Condition (SC). To solve this problem, Daniel Statman (2008) contends that even if Victim’s defensive harms fail to prevent her rape, (...) they do prevent the destruction of another good, her honor, and thus SC is satisfied. Recently, Joseph Bowen (2016) has critiqued Statman’s proposal by showing that honor-based justifications for defensive harming are too permissive. In this paper, I contend that Statman’s proposal is too restrictive. First, I review Statman’s accounts of honor, dishonor, and non-honor. Second, I argue that Statman’s account requires Fran’s honor to be lost or damaged if she doesn’t resist—a highly offensive conclusion about rape victims. Third, I explain why the best alternative to this (i.e., allowing Fran’s honor to be maintained either way) satisfies SC but not the necessity condition. I conclude that we ought to reject Statman’s solution. (shrink)

We are currently experiencing a planetary crisis that will lead, if worst comes to worst, to the end of the entire world as we know it. Several feminist scholars have suggested that if the Earth is to stay livable for humans and nonhumans alike, the ways in which many human beings – particularly in the wealthy parts of the world, infested with Eurocentrism, colonialism, neoliberalism, and capitalism – inhabit this planet requires radical, ethical, and political transformation. In this article, we (...) propose that feminist theory, particularly feminist posthumanities, and Black feminist and decolonial thought, together with creative practices such as writing, have much to contribute to transformative planetary activism that imagines different and other kinds of worlds and futures based on an ethical consideration of nonhuman others and collective caring for the planet. (shrink)

Ascribing autonomous status to agents is a valuable practice. As such, we ought to care about how we engage in practices of autonomy ascription. However, disagreement between first-personal experiences of an agent's autonomy and third-personal determinations of their autonomy presents challenges of ethical and epistemic concern. My view is that insights from a dialogical rather than nondialogical account of autonomy give us the resources to combat the challenges associated with autonomy ascription. I draw on Andrea Westlund's account of dialogical autonomy—on (...) which autonomy requires a dialogical disposition to hold oneself answerable to external critical perspectives—to make my case. (shrink)

Natalie Stoljar posits that those who have internalized oppressive norms lack normative competence, which requires true beliefs and critical reflection. A lack of normative competence makes agents nonautonomous, according to Stoljar. This framework is thereby meant to address what she calls the “feminist intuition”—the intuition that oppressive norms are incompatible with autonomy. On my view, however, Stoljar’s normative competence account of autonomy is subject to a worrying problem. Her account misattributes nonautonomy to those who perpetrate the oppression, making those who (...) are oppressed and those who oppress count as equally nonautonomous. I argue that this is implausible and demonstrate in this paper that we can establish an asymmetry of autonomy between those who oppress others and those who are made the target of oppression. (shrink)

This essay discusses short-circuited trans care by focusing on failures of t4t as an ethos both interpersonally and within particular trans scenes. The author begins by recounting an experience working at a bar/restaurant that appealed to its identity as a caring trans community space as part of its exploitation of trans workers. This dynamic inspires the main argument, that t4t can become an ethos of scenes and institutions beyond the interpersonal while short-circuiting practices of trans care. Short-circuited trans care is (...) then traced to t4t by drawing from Hil Malatino's work on trans care and t4t, Kai Cheng Thom's work on community dynamics, and trans literature to argue that practices of t4t often include abuse, expulsion, and assumptive care. This short-circuited trans care is linked to trans scenes by discussing the ethos of t4t in the history of Topside Press and trans cultural production. The author does not condemn t4t and to this effect offers a critique of tethering trans cultural production to prestige instead of care. Rather, the goal of this essay is to openly discuss aspects of t4t and trans care that are often obscured through the projection of a highly questionable “we” or universalized “trans community.”. (shrink)

This paper explores Ksenija Atanasijević's (1894 - 1981) understanding of the ethical basis of feminism. It highlights her understanding that feminism as such has an ethical basis. Her criticism of the degrading position of women which, according to her, has its origins in a family based on the male violence against women is also pointed out. The paper also points to Ksenija Atanasijević's understanding of the universal goals of feminism, goals that are not directed only at women. The author points (...) out that despite the explicit distancing of Ksenija Atanasijević in relation to Marxism, especially the Marxist conception of class hatred, some of her positions are similar to the positions which Karl Marx presented criticizing Hegel. The author notes that at the time when she wrote her works, these views of Marx could not have been known to her. In conclusion, the author points out that for Ksenija Atanasijević the freedom of the individual forms the ethical basis of feminism. (shrink)

The paper takes as its starting point John Rawls’s claim that the social bases of self-respect is perhaps the most important primary good the distribution of which is governed by his principles of justice. There has been some debate about this claim in the literature and this debate has included important clarifications regarding the concept(s) involved. However, I think this discussion hasn’t gone deep enough and this – relative – lack of depth has or at least might have important implications (...) for our theory of distributive justice. To show this, I begin with Rawls’s admittedly sketchy remarks about the significance of self-respect in his theory. After this I briefly describe the debate that followed: what emerges here is a distinction between two kinds of self-respect. While I think this distinction is in good order, I also think and subsequently argue, building on the work of Robin Dillon and Anna Bortolan, that it only scratches the surface of the complex phenomenon of self-respect. In particular, as these authors show, the self-respect complex is, in fact, a multi-layered phenomenon and the distinction as used misses its fundamental level: basal self-respect (Dillon) or self-esteem (Bortolan). In the finishing part of the paper I discuss these two proposals to show that Bortolan’s version is the better one. All this then has clear relevance for the adjoining debate in political philosophy: all those who want to give an important role to self-respect in their theory of justice have potentially focused on the wrong target so far. This, I conclude, might well give rise to a new feminist critique of liberal egalitarian justice. (shrink)

This paper offers a reading of Beauvoir’s Second Sex as a genealogy of ‘morality’: the patriarchal system of values that maintains a moral distinction between men and women. This value system construes many of women’s experiences under oppression as evidence of women’s immorality, obscuring the agential role of those who provoke such experiences. Beauvoir’s examination of the origin for this value system provides an important counterexample to the prevailing debate over whether genealogical method functions to debunk or to vindicate: while (...) the currently dominant moral system may have been historically necessary at certain stages in human development, Beauvoir nevertheless debunks it; only the value system itself now remains, without its precipitating needs. Thus, Beauvoir’s critique reveals what I call the moral unintelligibility of women’s experiences of oppression: women encounter difficulty in making sense of the harms wrought against them because the operative value system obscures them as harms in the first place, instead construing women themselves as immoral. Against the prevailing construction of moral blame and responsibility, Beauvoir’s solution is the political virtue of moral invention, a virtue epistemic as well as moral, collective as well as individual. (shrink)

For nearly two decades, ethicists have expressed concerns that the further development and use of memory modification technologies (MMTs)—techniques allowing to intentionally and selectively alter memories—may threaten the very foundations of who we are, our personal identity, and thus pose a threat to our well-being, or even undermine our “humaneness.” This paper examines the potential ramifications of memory-modifying interventions such as changing the valence of targeted memories and selective deactivation of a particular memory as these interventions appear to be at (...) the same time potentially both most promising clinically as well as menacing to identity. However, unlike previous works discussing the potential consequences of MMTs, this article analyzes them in the context of the narrative relational approach to personal identity and potential issues related to autonomy. I argue that such a perspective brings to light the ethical aspects and moral issues arising from the use of MMTs that have been hidden from previously adopted approaches. In particular, this perspective demonstrates how important the social context in which an individual lives is for the ethical evaluation of a given memory-modifying intervention. I conclude by suggesting that undertaking memory modifications without taking into account the social dimension of a person’s life creates the risk that she will not be able to meet one of the basic human needs—the autonomous construction and maintenance of personal identity. Based on this conclusion, I offer some reflections on the permissibility and advisability of MMTs and what these considerations suggest for the future. (shrink)

An important question confronting feminist philosophers is why women are sometimes complicit in their own subordination. The dominant view holds that complicity is best understood in terms of adaptive preferences. This view assumes that agents will naturally gravitate away from subordination and towards flourishing as long as they do not have things imposed on them that disrupt this trajectory. However, there is reason to believe that ‘impositions’ do not explain all of the ways in which complicity can arise. This paper (...) defends a phenomenological account of complicity, which offers an alternative explanation. (shrink)

Understanding the ethical concerns of paid and altruistic surrogacy requires a knowledge of reproductive freedom and procreative autonomy. An accurate approach must be sensitive enough of the nature of sexual oppression, specifically in its influence in women’s choices, self-identity and personal relationships. The aim of this essay is to stand up for the prominence of radical feminism in questioning reproductive liberalism, which overfocus the interests of the so-called intended parents. Having in mind what egalitarian philosophers have put forward from a (...) social-relational autonomy view to allow surrogacy contracts under certain circumstances —particularly, they suggest that legalization could be compatible with women’s reproductive autonomy following an altruistic fashion under protective measures and supportive to the surrogate’s revocation of consent—, I uphold that radical feminists properly make clear how oppression remains in the cultural environment that endorses surrogacy contracts. A macroscopic methodology, based on American philosopher’s Marilyn Frye metaphor of the caged bird, is a helpful tool to comprehend why surrogacy contracts do not enhance women’s reproductive autonomy, even if they enable some surrogate mothers to gain an income enough to endure tough economic pressure. (shrink)

This article defends an account of collective hope that arises through solidarity in the pursuit of justice. I begin by reviewing recent literature on the nature of hope. I then explore the relationship between hope and solidarity to demonstrate the ways in which solidarity can give rise to hope. I suggest that the hope born of solidarity is collective when it is shared by at least some others, when it is caused or strengthened by activity in a collective action setting, (...) and when the reciprocal hopeful expressions of individual group members result in an emotional atmosphere of hope that extends across the group. In the context of social movements, collective hope emerges alongside the collective intentions and actions of the solidarity group; namely, in the pursuit of a form of social justice that inspires the movement. I then suggest that the object of collective hope born of solidarity is the guiding ideal of justice and reflect on what it might mean to hope well for justice. (shrink)

The querelle des femmes was an intellectual debate over the status of women that occurred in the early modern period, between the 1400s and 1700s. A common argument for the superiority of men and inferiority of women that appeared during the debate is that women are less physically strong than men, and are therefore inferior. In response, two distinct argumentative strategies were developed by defenders of women. First, some argued that men and women did not in fact differ in physical (...) strength. A second strategy was to deny that physical strength is relevant to the question of superiority. In this case, one would argue that a difference in strength is not normatively relevant to evaluations of worth. I argue that this second strategy was the more effective response to the argument that women were inferior because of their alleged physical weakness compared to men. (shrink)

Among various views concerning the nature of womanhood, one kind of divergence between the materialist and the pluralist account centres on whether a woman should be defined or identified based on her typical female biological features. The former treats “woman” as the social meaning of the biological female, while the latter insists that one can be a woman in virtue of their internal identity without also having the normatively associated biological features. In this paper, I argue against the latter view (...) that the inclusion or demarginalization of transwomen requires more than self-identification and that it demands the recognition of the role of “misogyny”. (shrink)

In this paper we show that being blameworthy for not blaming and being blameworthy for victim blaming are structurally similar. Each involve the two traditional contours of moral responsibility: a knowledge condition and a control condition. But interestingly, in these cases knowledge and control are importantly interrelated. Being in a relationship with another person affords us varying degrees of knowledge about them. This knowledge in turn affords agents in relationships varying degrees of influence over one another. Cases where an agent (...) is especially blameworthy for failing to blame a friend, a close colleague, or a spouse highlight this. The interdependence of these two conditions in interpersonal relationships sheds (partial) light on why victim blaming is morally wrong. We argue that victim blamers suffer from a kind of moral myopia by only focusing on what the victim could do, in virtue of their being in a relationship of some sort with their abuser, to avoid abuse. We focus specifically on cases where such moral myopia is fueled by misogynistic and hierarchical gender schema and scripts. (shrink)

Howard’s moral fortification theory of criminal punishment lends itself to justifying correction for children in schools that is supportive. There are good reasons to include other students in the learning opportunity occasioned by doing right in response to wrong, which need not exploit the wrongdoing student as a mere means. Care ethics can facilitate restorative and problem-solving approaches to correction. However, there are overriding reasons against doing so when this stigmatises the wrongdoing student, since this inhibits their learning. Responses that (...) avoidably stigmatise students impermissibly undermine both the developmental ethos of education, and students’ recognition and respect for each other as equals. (shrink)

Creepiness and the emotion of the creeps have been overlooked in the moral philosophy and moral psychology literatures. We argue that the creeps is a morally significant emotion in its own right, and not simply a type of fear, disgust, or anger (though it shares features with those emotions). Reflecting on cases, we defend a novel account of the creeps as felt in response to creepy people. According to our moral insensitivity account, the creeps is fitting just when its object (...) is agential activity that is insensitive to basic moral considerations. When, only when, and insofar as someone is disposed to such insensitivity, they are a creep. Such insensitivity, especially in extreme forms, raises doubts about creeps’ moral agency. We distinguish multiple types of insensitivity, respond to concerns that feeling the creeps is itself objectionable, and conclude with a discussion of epistemic issues relating to the creeps. (shrink)

Reflections on the role and position of maternal relations within philosophy as a practical discipline, as a metaphor for philosophical practice, and as a subject of philosophical investigation.

This essay develops a concept of curiotization, through which people are reduced to a curio for the fascination of others. I argue that trans people as they have appeared in media, philosophy, and narratives of history are curiotized as forever fascinating, new, titillating, and controversial. In contrast to the narrative of momentous trans progress in the mid-2010s, I point out that frameworks such as the "Transgender Tipping Point" worked to position its "trans moment" as unprecedented and always on the threshold (...) of arrival. To work through a specific example, I point to decades of renewed fascination over trans women being capable of breastfeeding and the long history of trans fascination in popular music. I conclude by emphasizing the obscured world-historical presence of transsexuality as it coincides with the history of pharmaceuticals, hormone technologies, and birth control. In contrast to a "goldfish memory optics" through which trans people become eternally new, fascinating, and debatable, I stress the importance of restoring the complexity of "trans" and its histories back into an understanding of the present. (shrink)

The author analyzes the origin and meaning of the expression ‘Ethics of Sexual Difference’ (ESD), contextualising it in the paradigm ‘thought of Sexual Difference’, in which the potentiality and aporias arising from the debate within the feminist movement are highlighted. Possible interpretations of these ethics, developed in the Italian philosophical context, are illustrated and evaluated. The author proposes a critical comparison with other models, for example, the queer theories, and attempts to show how the ‘Thought of Sexual Difference’ (TSD) opens (...) itself to destabilization produced by the emergence of new subjects (gay and lesbian, transgender, intersex) and their corresponding scientific knowledge. The author therefore proposes an update to the plural, ‘Ethics of Sexual Differences’ (ESDs), listing the possible methodological and content assumptions (including the development of a relational model in all scientific disciplines) and the disciplinary implications (also in the psychoanalytic field) of an ethics so defined. A reference is made to the discussion of socalled "gender ideology", in which the protagonists have often showed a certain difficulty in implementing an ESDs. (shrink)

The debate regarding the role of conscientious objection in healthcare has been protracted, with increasing demands for curbs on conscientious objection. There is a growing body of evidence that indicates that in some cases, high rates of conscientious objection can affect access to legal medical services such as abortion—a major concern of critics of conscientious objection. Moreover, few solutions have been put forward that aim to satisfy both this concern and that of defenders of conscientious objection—being expected to participate in (...) the provision of services that compromise their moral integrity. Here we attempt to bring some resolution to the debate by proposing a pragmatic, long-term solution offering what we believe to be an acceptable compromise—a quota system for medical trainees in specialties where a conscientious objection can be exercised, and is known to cause conflict. We envisage two main objectives of the quota system we propose. First, as a means to introduce conscientious objection into countries where this is not presently permitted. Second, to minimise or eliminate the effects of high rates of conscientious objection in countries such as Italy, where access to legal abortion provision can be negatively affected. (shrink)

Throughout her work, Audre Lorde maintains that her self-preservation in the face of oppression depends on acting from the recognition and valorization of her feelings as a deep source of knowledge. This claim, taken as a portrayal of agency, poses challenges to standard positions in ethics, epistemology, and moral psychology. This article examines the oppositional agency articulated by Lorde’s thought, locating feeling, poetry, and the power she calls “the erotic” within her avowed project of self-preservation. It then explores the implications (...) of taking seriously Lorde’s account, particularly for theorists examining ethics and epistemology under nonideal social conditions. For situations of sexual intimacy, for example, Lorde’s account unsettles prevailing assumptions about the role of consent in responsibility between sexual partners. I argue that obligations to solicit consent and respect refusal are not sufficient to acknowledge the value of agency in intimate encounters when agency is oppositional in the way Lorde describes. (shrink)

Suppose that you are engaging with someone who is your oppressor, or someone who espouses a heinous view like Nazism or a ridiculous view like flat-earthism. In contexts like these, there is a disparity between you and your interlocutor, a dramatic normative difference across which you are in the right and they are in the wrong. As theorists of humility, we find these contexts puzzling. Humility seems like the *last* thing oppressed people need and the *last* thing we need in (...) dealing with those whose views are heinous or ridiculous. Responding to such people via humility seems uncalled for, even inappropriate. But how could this be, given that humility is a *virtue*? The purpose of the paper is to explore this puzzle. We explain what the puzzle is and then attempt to draw some lessons from it: first, the lesson that the importance of humility is limited in several ways, and second, the lesson that humility nonetheless has several important roles to play, even for people who are in the right in contexts of disparity. (shrink)

This book examines the central role that language plays in understanding and human flourishing. The book begins by exploring Heidegger's idea that language is an essential element of how we dwell in the world and is, for the most part, ready-to-hand for us. With Gadamer, I then begin to explore phenomena where language is not ready-to-hand but calls for interpretation. The latter half of the book explores distinct ways in which language can become unready-to-hand for individuals (e.g., in cases of (...) trauma, depression, and social subordination) and examines the way that such situations have been analyzed by twentieth-century Continental thinkers (e.g., Blanchot, Kristeva, Derrida). (shrink)

The article examines the following interpretive hypothesis: from the formulation of the concept of “precariousness” in Precarious Life (2004), Judith Butler's thought undergoes a inflection towards a ethical-political foundation normatively understood and previously rejected by the author as evidenced in her debate with Nancy Fraser and Seyla Benhabib in the 1990s. It is therefore a matter of questioning the impact of this theoretical mutation on the notions of universal and subject that are embedded in the argumentative lines of the author’s (...) texts, thus establishing “precariousness” and “co-dependence” as ethical-political conditions that should guide political guidelines aimed at making life possible and viable. The article is divided into three moments: 1) the universal denied in form and content; 2) The universal affirmed in its form, but denied in its content; 3) the universal materially and formally affirmed. It will also address the different notions of subject that emerge from each of these three understandings of universal. (shrink)

How should we react to the development of sexbot technology? Taking their cue from anti-porn feminism, several academic critics lament the development of sexbot technology, arguing that it objectifies and subordinates women, is likely to promote misogynistic attitudes toward sex, and may need to be banned or restricted. In this chapter I argue for an alternative response. Taking my cue from the sex positive ‘feminist porn’ movement, I argue that the best response to the development of ‘bad’ sexbots is to (...) make better ones. This will require changes to the content, process and context of sexbot development. Doing so will acknowledge the valuable role that technology can play in human sexuality, and allow us to challenge gendered norms and assumptions about male and female sexual desire. This will not be a panacea to the social problems that could arise from sexbot development, but it offers a more realistic and hopeful vision for the future of this technology in a pluralistic and progressive society. (shrink)

I introduce the concept pathophobia, to capture the range of morally objectionable forms of treatment to which somatically ill persons are subjected. After distinguishing this concept from sanism and ableism, I argue that the moral wrongs of pathophobia are best analysed using a framework of vice ethics. To that end I describe five clusters of pathophobic vices and failings, illustrating each with examples from three influential illness narratives.

The intersection between virtue and care ethics is underexplored in contemporary moral philosophy. This thesis approaches care ethics from a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical perspective, comparing the two frameworks and drawing on recent work on care to develop a theory thereof. It is split into seven substantive chapters serving three major argumentative purposes, namely the establishment of significant intertheoretical agreement, the compilation and analysis of extant and new distinctions between the two theories, and the synthesis of care ethical insights with neo-Aristotelianism (...) to generate a virtue ethical theory of care. In the first two chapters, I outline virtue ethics and care ethics, and argue for considerable agreement over central premises. Chapter 2 summarises the foundational commitments of care ethics, focusing particularly on their relational ontology and its links to the other ethical claims care ethicists universally ascribe to, namely particularism, partialism, the moral salience of emotions, and the rejection of hard public/private distinctions. Chapter 3 lays out the central concepts in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, including eudaimonism, virtue, and character traits, and drawing a number of comparisons between virtue and care ethics specifically with regard to relational ontology and the meta-ethical commitments it underpins. In addition to doing the necessary expository work for the remainder of the thesis, Chapters 2 and 3 also argue that care ethics and virtue ethics have much more in common than is typically acknowledged – the first major contribution of this thesis to the literature. Chapters 2 and 3 to provide at least a prima facie justification for pursuit of the questions I confront in the remainder of the thesis. In Chapter 4, I ask what differentiates these two ethical theories. I survey some of the differences which philosophers in either camp have identified and offer some of my own. I suggest that several of those differences either rest on misunderstandings of one ethic or the other, or that in erecting a divide between virtue and care ethics they also disunify ethics of care. I do, however, identify two differences which seem defensible. Specifically, they are that virtue ethics seems to lack an account of care, which I define minimally as a response or responsiveness to need, and that virtue and care ethics organise their meta-ethical and normative concepts differently. This chapter thus presents a second contribution to the literature: a study of the differences between virtue ethics and care ethics. It also serves to set the trajectory for the remaining chapters, where I respond to the claim that virtue ethics lack an account of care. I spend the remainder of the thesis constructing what I take to be a satisfying foundation for a virtue ethical theory of care. In Chapter 5, I offer three initially viable means of incorporating care into virtue ethics, all of which treat care as a virtue. These are the analogical approach, according to which care is analogous to an existing virtue; the additive approach, according to which care is a novel virtue; and the bundling approach, according to which care is a bundle of virtues. I also offer and evaluate reasons to reject the claim that care is a virtue, concluding that the claim is indeed a viable one so long as the concept of care is sufficiently thick, and I contend that analogical approaches, and particularly analogies with charity, outperform the others. Chapter 5 therefore serves two ends. First, it proffers a novel meta-analysis of concepts of care as a virtue, and thus makes a third contribution to the literature. In doing so, it makes an inroad into the second: the development of a neo-Aristotelian theory of care. Chapter 6 continues this project. I attempt to show how care can be construed as an act-type and a practice. I argue in this chapter that practices are a subcategory of actions, and that care qualifies as an Anscombean act-type which aims at the meeting of needs relating to the care-recipient’s flourishing. I go on to consider the implications of this account for ethics which deploy care as a moral concept, maintaining that it not only offers a better account of consequences than theories of care which include success criteria, but also that it affords us interesting insights into the distinction between ‘caring about’ and ‘caring for’ which allow us to make sense of certain tenets of neo-Aristotelianism. This represents a contribution to both discourses, since neither care nor virtue ethicists working at the intersection of their respective normative theories have delved very deeply into the philosophy of action. Chapter 7 discusses caring relations, suggesting that a virtue ethical theory of caring relations can lean on the work care ethicists have done, and adding some necessary refinements, such as a distinction between ideal and non-ideal caring relations, and a theory of caring relations as reasons for action. This final chapter also draws these three concepts of care together by arguing that virtuous caregivers who are invested in the flourishing of those for whom they care are also sensitive to the relations those care-recipients bear to their institutional environment. I argue that because they are caring participants in caring relations, virtuous agents are characteristically motivated by states of need and dependency to engage in certain sorts of conventionally political practices. In other words, the virtue or virtues of caring characteristically manifest in certain sorts of political or social practices, relating specifically to those areas of moral life. This allows us to build upon recent work in feminist virtue ethics of the sort offered by Tessman and Friedman. I also offer a novel analysis of migration, suggesting that the account of care presenting here is analytically useful both when it comes to historical cases of migration such as the underground railroads and escapes from Nazi-occupied Europe, but also for contemporary issues such as the migrations occurring in the Southern United States and in much of Europe. I thus conclude not only that virtue ethicists ought to incorporate care into their normative framework, and that the theory of care presented here is a coherent one, but that this leads us naturally into applied topics such as virtue politics. I conclude the thesis by considering some its implications and by identifying some further avenues for research. (shrink)