Most contemporary accounts of dehumanization construe it either as a psychological phenomenon of seeing the other as non-human, or as as an interpersonal phenomenon of failing to treat the other as they are entitled qua moral agent. In this paper I offer an alternative way of thinking about dehumanization. Drawing on recent work in social metaphysics, I argue that we can productively think of the human as a social kind, and correspondingly of dehumanization as a process of excommunication from that (...) social kind. Such an approach, I show, is better equipped to explain the variety of phenomenon that constitute dehumanization, and the range of processes through which dehumanization can occur. (shrink)

The social categories to which we belong—Latino, disabled, American, woman— causally influence our lives in deep and unavoidable ways. One might be pulled over by police because one is Latino, or one might receive a COVID vaccine sooner because one is American. Membership in these social categories most often falls outside of our control. This paper argues that membership in social categories constitutes a restriction on human agency, creating a situation of non-ideal agency for many human individuals. -/- However, there (...) are ways to resist the causal influence of social categories, and certain socially marginalized groups can be understood as attempting to do just this. I discuss two instances of social category resistance: gender pronouns and the rights of trans individuals. I suggest that the intentional declaration of gender pronouns (“she/her” or “they/them”) can be understood as an attempt to resist the causal powers of nonconsensual social categorization. Similarly, one among many reasons to support the rights of trans individuals is that their self-declarations of gender identity can be viewed as a reclamation of agency in the face of causal constraints imposed by socially defined and imposed gender categories. This lesson can be generalized to people belonging to a broad range of marginalized groups. (shrink)

There are important similarities between moral thought and talk and thought and talk about gender: disagreements about gender, like disagreements about morality, seem to be intractable and to outstrip descriptive agreement; and it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be a woman in terms of particular social, biological, or other descriptive features, just as it seems coherent to reject any definition of what it is to be good or right in terms of any set of (...) descriptive properties. These similarities give us reason to investigate the idea that, like moral thought and talk, gender thought and talk is inherently normative. This paper proposes a normative account of gender thought and talk in terms of fitting treatment. On this fitting treatment account, to judge that A is gender G is just to judge that it is fitting to treat A as a G. This account is a descriptive or hermeneutical account of our gender thought and talk rather than an ameliorative account of our gender concepts or a metaphysical account of gender properties in social metaphysics. This paper argues that other descriptive accounts of gender thought and talk face problems that the fitting treatment account overcomes. (shrink)

According to Sider, a question is metaphysically substantive just in case it has a single most natural answer. Recently, Barnes and Mikkola have argued that, given this notion of substantivity, many of the central questions in the metaphysics of gender are nonsubstantive. Specifically, it is plausible that gender pluralism—the view that there are multiple, equally natural gender kinds—is true, but this view seems incompatible with the substantivity of gender. The goal of this paper is to argue that the notion of (...) substantivity can be understood in a way that accommodates gender pluralism. First, I claim that gender terms (at least as used in the ontology room) are referentially indeterminate, where referential indeterminacy holds in virtue of the way the world is. Second, I propose a degree-theoretic (or scalar) account of metaphysical substantivity; genders are substantial to the degree that they are determinate. I conclude that gender is relatively, although not absolutely, substantial. (shrink)

This paper continues a debate on the normative limits of conceptual engineering. In particular, it responds to Manuel Gustavo Isaac’s (2021) claim, in response to Simion (2018a) and Podosky (2018), but in particular Podosky, that cognitive efficacy, rather than truth and knowledge, should be the normative standard by which we assess the legitimacy of a conceptual engineering project – at least for ideological concepts. I argue Isaac has not done enough to show us that truth and knowledge are insignificant for (...) the conceptual engineering of ideological concepts. (shrink)

What is a woman? The definition of this central concept of feminism has lately become especially controversial and politically charged. “Ameliorative Inquirists” have rolled up their sleeves to reengineer our ordinary concept of womanhood, with a goal of including in the definition all and only those who identify as women, both “cis” and “trans.” This has proven to be a formidable challenge. Every proposal so far has failed to draw the boundaries of womanhood in a way acceptable to the Ameliorative (...) Inquirists, since not all those who identify as women count as women on these proposals, and some who count as women on these proposals don’t identify as women. This is the Trans Inclusion Problem. Is there any solution? Can there be? Recently, Katharine Jenkins, pointing to the work of Mari Mikkola, suggests that the Trans Inclusion Problem can be “deflated” rather than solved. We will investigate this proposal, and show that, unfortunately, Jenkins is mistaken: Mikkola’s project will not help us answer the Trans Inclusion Problem. After that, we’ll look at Robin Dembroff’s suggestion that we “imitate” the linguistic practices of trans inclusive and queer communities, and we will evaluate whether this would help us solve the Trans Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, this strategy also fails to solve the problem. By the end, we’ll have a better appreciation of the challenges faced by Ameliorative Inquirists in their project of redefining “woman,” and clearer view of why the Trans Inclusion Problem cannot, in fact, be solved. That’s primarily because, no matter what it means to be a woman, it’s one thing to be a woman, and another thing to identify as a woman. (shrink)

What does it take for a property to be a social property? This question is different from questions about what it takes for a property to be socially constructed. That is: it is one thing to be social, it is another to be socially constructed. Compared to questions about social construction, this question about sociality has received relatively little attention in social metaphysics. Here, I work from a very specific set of observations which arise from the social metaphysics literature to (...) uncover a sufficient condition on sociality for properties, a condition which I argue all non-social properties fail to satisfy. (shrink)

Contextualist accounts of “woman,” including Saul (2012), Diaz-Leon (2016), and Ichikawa (2020), aim to capture the variability of the meaning of the term, and do justice to the rights of trans women. I argue that (i) there is an internal tension between a contextualist stance and the commitment to trans-inclusive language, and that (ii) we should recognize and tackle the broader and deeper theoretical and practical difficulties implicit in the semantic debates, rather than collapsing them all into semantics. Moving on, (...) I sketch three strategies to help us advance feminist philosophical endeavors, including how attending to contextual matters can lead us to further reflect on the meta-contextual, such as our role in shaping contexts and whether the working of language is indicative of a larger oppressive social structure. (shrink)

Was bisexuality a widespread feature of ancient Greek society? This question is an instance of cross-cultural projection -- of taking the means through which people are categorized in one culture and applying it to members of another. It’s widely held by those who think that sexual orientation is socially constructed that its projection poses a problem. In this paper, I offer a more careful analysis of this alleged problem. To analyze projection, I adapt Iris Einheuser’s substratum-carving model of conventionalism to (...) fit the specific needs of social construction. Using this model, I show that projection is conceptually coherent, and so does not for that reason pose any problem. Along the way, I identify some of the epistemic difficulties facing projection. While these difficulties are formidable, they are not substantially affected by the constructivist claim. I therefore conclude that there is no unique problem facing the projection of a socially constructed sexual orientation. (shrink)

Social constructionist analysis of kind terms such as ‘women’ are often criticized as counterintuitive. In response, Haslanger claims that such charges are moot once the distinctions between different types of philosophical analyses and their corresponding concepts are in place. I argue that even with the said distinctions, the Haslangerian definition of ‘women’ is problematic. Drawing on recent discussions on contextualism, metalinguistic negotiation, and the crucial role solidarity plays in politically significant terms, I claim that Haslanger’s replies would lead to consequences (...) contrary to the stated goal of her project. Moreover, I offer a new proposal that takes seriously the aim of ameliorating ‘women.’ My account draws on a dynamic understanding of solidarity based on feminist reconceptualization and makes recourse to Mikkola’s model of trait/norm covariance. Based on the vision that a proper ameliorative analysis in the positive moment should be forward-looking to enhance our coordination in a more just society, my construal elucidates what ‘women’ can and ought to be. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore a range of existent and possible ameliorative semantic theories of gender terms: invariantism, according to which gender terms are not context-sensitive, contextualism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of use, and relativism, according to which the meaning of gender terms is established in the context of assessment. I show that none of these views is adequate with respect to the plight of trans people to use their term of (...) choice to self-identify and be referred to accordingly. I then consider an invariantist view based on self-identification and explore some of its challenges. (shrink)

Chinese translation courtesy of Zhuanxu Xu. We want to know what gender is. But metaphysical approaches to this question solely have focused on the binary gender kinds men and women. By overlooking those who identify outside of the binary–the group I call ‘genderqueer’–we are left without tools for understanding these new and quickly growing gender identifications. This metaphysical gap in turn creates a conceptual lacuna that contributes to systematic misunderstanding of genderqueer persons. In this paper, I argue that to better (...) understand genderqueer identities, we must recognize a new type of gender kind: critical gender kinds, or kinds whose members collectively resist dominant gender ideology. After developing a model of critical gender kinds, I suggest that genderqueer is best modeled as a critical gender kind that stands in opposition to `the binary assumption', or the prevalent assumption that the only possible genders are the binary, discrete, exclusive, and exhaustive kinds men and women. (shrink)

How ought we socially to categorize individuals with respect to sexual orientation? In this paper, I engage with philosophical work on the foundations of political solidarity as well as public health research on the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS in order to develop a categorization scheme conducive to the normatively important aims of LGBTQIA+ social movements.

In this article, I identify a distinctive form of injustice—ontic injustice—in which an individual is wronged by the very fact of being socially constructed as a member of a certain social kind. To be a member of a certain social kind is, at least in part, to be subject to certain social constraints and enablements, and these constraints and enablements can be wrongful to the individual who is subjected to them, in the sense that they inflict a moral injury. The (...) concept of ontic injustice is valuable in three main ways: it draws our attention to the role played by social kinds in enacting wrongful constraints and enablements; it clarifies our options for developing accounts of the ontology of particular social kinds, such as gender kinds; and, along with the related concept of ‘ontic oppression’, it helps us to understand and respond to oppression. (shrink)

Alex Byrne’s article, “Are Women Adult Human Females?”, asks a question that Byrne treats as nearly rhetorical. Byrne’s answer is, ‘clearly, yes’. Moreover, Byrne claims, 'woman' is a biological category that does not admit of any interpretation as (also) a social category. It is important to respond to Byrne’s argument, but mostly because it is paradigmatic of a wider phenomenon. The slogan “women are adult human females” is a political slogan championed by anti-trans activists, appearing on billboards, pamphlets, and anti-trans (...) online forums. In this paper, I respond to Byrne’s argument, revealing significant problems with its background assumptions, content, and methodology. (shrink)

Contextualist treatments of clashes of intuitions can allow that two claims, apparently in conflict, can both be true. But making true utterances is far from the only thing that matters — there are often substantive normative questions about what contextual parameters are appropriate to a given conversational situation. This paper foregrounds the importance of the social power to set contextual standards, and how it relates to injustice and oppression, introducing a phenomenon I call "contextual injustice," which has to do with (...) the unjust manipulation of conversational parameters in context-sensitive discourse. My central example applies contextualism about knowledge ascriptions to questions about knowledge regarding sexual assault allegations, but I will also discuss parallel dynamics in other examples of context-sensitive language involving politically significant terms, including gender terms. The central upshot is that the connections between language, epistemology, and social justice are very deeply interlinked. (shrink)

We want to know what gender is. But metaphysical approaches to this question solely have focused on the binary gender kinds men and women. By overlooking those who identify outside of the binary–the group I call ‘genderqueer’–we are left without tools for understanding these new and quickly growing gender identifications. This metaphysical gap in turn creates a conceptual lacuna that contributes to systematic misunderstanding of genderqueer persons. In this paper, I argue that to better understand genderqueer identities, we must recognize (...) a new type of gender kind: critical gender kinds, or kinds whose members collectively destabilize one or more pieces of dominant gender ideology. After developing a model of critical gender kinds, I suggest that genderqueer is best modeled as a critical gender kind that destabilizes the ‘binary axis’, or the piece of dominant gender ideology that says that the only possible genders are the binary, discrete, exclusive, and exhaustive kinds men and women. (shrink)

Feminism has long grappled with its own demarcation problem—exactly what is it to be a woman?—and the rise of trans-inclusive feminism has made this problem more urgent. I will first consider Sally Haslanger’s “social and hierarchical” account of woman, resulting from “Ameliorative Inquiry”: she balances ordinary use of the term against the instrumental value of novel definitions in advancing the cause of feminism. Then, I will turn to Katharine Jenkins’ charge that Haslanger’s view suffers from an “Inclusion Problem”: it fails (...) to class many trans women as women. Jenkins offers a novel norm-relevancy account of woman to avoid the Inclusion Problem. Unfortunately, Jenkins’ account has serious internal problems, i.e. problems by Jenkins’ own lights: it is unintelligible, or it suffers from an Inclusion Problem of its own. After that, I will develop novel arguments for the conclusion that the project of Ameliorative Inquiry is both incoherent and also impossible to complete—at least, impossible to complete in a trans-inclusive way. Trans-inclusive feminism, therefore, would do well to move beyond Ameliorative Inquiry. Insofar as that’s not possible, trans-inclusive feminism inherits the incoherence of Ameliorative Inquiry. (shrink)

Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that aims to give a theoretical account of what there is and what it is like. Social justice movements seek to bring about justice in a society by changing policy, law, practice, and culture. Evidently, these activities are very different from one another. The goal of this article is to identify some positive connections between recent work in metaphysics and social justice movements. I outline three ways in which metaphysical work on social reality can (...) make a contribution to movements seeking social justice, viz., (1) by providing basic categories and concepts useful for clarifying and defending claims made by social justice movements; (2) by offering accounts of the natures of social categories, structures, and institutions that these movements seek to change; and (3) by contributing to “unmasking” or “debunking” projects that reveal putatively natural arrange- ments to be social in nature and hence subject to moral critique, alteration, and possibly eradication. (shrink)

Are words like ‘woman’ or ‘man’ sex terms that we use to talk about biological features of individuals? Are they gender terms that we use to talk about non-biological features e.g. social roles? Contextualists answer both questions affirmatively, arguing that these terms concern biological or non-biological features depending on context. I argue that a recent version of contextualism from Jennifer Saul that Esa Diaz-Leon develops doesn't exhibit the right kind of flexibility to capture our theoretical intuitions or moral and political (...) practices concerning our uses of these words. I then float the view that terms like 'woman' or 'man' are polysemous, arguing that it makes better sense of the significance of some forms of criticisms of mainstream gender ideology. (shrink)

What’s important about ‘coming out’? Why do we wear business suits or Star Trek pins? Part of the answer, we think, has to do with what we call agential identity. Social metaphysics has given us tools for understanding what it is to be socially positioned as a member of a particular group and what it means to self-identify with a group. But there is little exploration of the general relationship between self-identity and social position. We take up this exploration, developing (...) an account of agential identity—the self-identities we make available to others. Agential identities are the bridge between what we take ourselves to be and what others take us to be. Understanding agential identity not only fills an important gap in the literature, but also helps us explain politically important phenomena concerning discrimination, malicious identities, passing, and code-switching. These phenomena, we argue, cannot be understood solely in terms of self-identity or social position. (shrink)

In this paper, we defend two main claims. The first is a moderate claim: we have a negative duty to not use binary gender-specific pronouns he or she to refer to genderqueer individuals. We defend this with an argument by analogy. It was gravely wrong for Mark Latham to refer to Catherine McGregor, a transgender woman, using the pronoun he; we argue that such cases of misgendering are morally analogous to referring to Angel Haze, who identifies as genderqueer, as he (...) or she. The second is a radical claim: we have a negative duty to not use any gender-specific pronouns to refer to anyone, regardless of their gender identity. We offer three arguments in favor of this claim (which appeal to concerns about inegalitarianism and risk, invasions of privacy, and reinforcing essentialist ideologies). We also show why the radical claim is compatible with the moderate claim. Before concluding, we examine common concerns about incorporating either they or a neologism such as ze as a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. These concerns, we argue, do not provide sufficient reason to reject either the moderate or radical claim. (shrink)

Analytic feminists are philosophers who believe that both philosophy and feminism are well served by using some of the concepts, theories and methods of analytic philosophy modified by feminist values and insights. By using ‘ analytic feminist’ to characterize their style of feminist philosophizing, these philosophers acknowledge their dual feminist and analytic roots and their intention to participate in the ongoing conversations within both traditions. In addition, the use of ‘ analytic feminist’ attempts to rebut two frequently made presumptions: that (...) feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Depicting transgender persons in comics without falling into visual caricature and thereby perpetuating harmful stereotypes can be a delicate task. In this discussion, I draw upon the notion of picture-reading to argue that, despite this fact, comics as a medium is particularly well-suited—both formally and in terms of production-relevant factors—toward capturing and communicating the complexities of transgender experience.

A social fact S is grounded by some plurality of grounds. And the fact that S has the grounding-conditions it does is anchored by some set of anchors. Epstein has recently suggested (2019) that the anchoring relation is a cross-world determination relation. In this paper we put forward three arguments against this view. First, we argue from the analogy between social and non-social kinds: there is no cross-world determination involved in non-social natural kinds. Secondly, we take issue with the very (...) idea of cross-world determination: no determination relation in our current metaphysical toolkit can have relata that occupy different possible worlds (in the relevant sense). Thirdly, we argue that cross-world anchoring generates an indeterminacy problem: if S holds in an anchorless world w, and there are distinct anchors (for S) holding at w1 and w2 respectively, then it is indeterminate whether S’s grounding-conditions hold in virtue of the w1-anchors or the w2-anchors. (shrink)

Social construction is involved in various forms of injustice that have been in focus in recent years, such as testimonial and discursive injustice. There is also injustice that is distinctly metaphysical and involves acting and being, and recent work has identified various forms of it, including categorical injustice, ontic injustice and ontological oppression. Less attention has been paid to cases that fall betwixt and between, to the unintelligible and interstitial. In this paper, I discuss how conferralism can account for certain (...) types of interstitial injustice. (shrink)

This paper proposes a new account of gender identity on which for A to have gender G as part of their gender identity is for A to not take G not to fit them (or to positively take G to fit them). It argues that this subjective fit account of gender identity fits well with trans people’s testimony and both trans and cis people’s experiences of their genders. The subjective fit account also avoids the problems that existing accounts of gender (...) identity face. Existing accounts face broadly two types of problems. First, they seem to imply that trans people have gender identities different from those that they in fact have. For instance, they seem to imply that some trans women do not have a female gender identity or have not always had that gender identity, contrary to their testimony and experiences. I argue that the subjective fit account avoids this problem. Second, many existing accounts of gender identity seem to conflict with the idea that our gender identities merit respect. I argue that the subjective fit account avoids this problem because it understands gender identities to consist in normative experiences and judgments and normative experiences and judgments merit respect. (shrink)

Many disputes about gender are normatively charged. To account for this, some suggest building normativity into the semantics of gender terms. I propose an alternative, pragmatic account. When speakers utter gender-attributing sentences of the form ‘Person A is of gender G’, they often pragmatically convey normative content about whether A should be categorized as G. After critically discussing the semantic approach, I motivate and discuss in detail this novel pragmatic view and elaborate on its compatibility with a number of semantic (...) options. (shrink)

What is gender and on what should gender classification be based? Dembroff (2018) has recently claimed that, for reasons of social justice, gender classification should not track extant gender kinds. They further argue for ontological pluralism—the existence of many gender kinds, and recommend that we combat oppression by imitating the gender kinds and classification practices in non-oppressive communities. Contra Dembroff, I argue that the analysis is subject to a number of internal problems, including a misguided self-characterization and a tension between (...) ontological pluralism and imitation. In addition, I sketch a different perspective on the relation between gender kinds and gender classification practices that upholds Dembroff’s intended goal but ameliorates the unintended complications. (shrink)

The inclusion problem for theories of gender arises when those theories inappropriately fail to include certain individuals in the gender categories to which they ought to belong. The inclusion problem affects both of the most influential traditions in feminist theorizing about gender: social-position accounts and identity accounts. I argue that the inclusion problem can be solved by adopting a structured theory of gender, which incorporates aspects of both social-position accounts and identity accounts. According to the theory I favor, an individual’s (...) gender is determined by their gender identity if they have one; otherwise, it is determined by their social position. My structured approach to gender offers a more direct solution to the gender inclusion problem than alternatives recently advocated by Barnes (2020), Jenkins (2023), and others. It also points the way to a simple solution to inclusion problems that arise at the level of gendered language. (shrink)

Generic statements are commonly expressed using the bare plural – ‘tigers are striped’ – or the indefinite singular – ‘a tiger is striped’. Notoriously, some generics can be expressed using the bare plural locution, but not the indefinite singular; bare plural generics and indefinite singular generics pattern differently. I explore this phenomenon as it applies to normative generic statements: expressions like boys don’t cry, women are kind and nurturing, children are seen and not heard – that convey something over and (...) above (and even distinct from) the descriptive reading. I argue that we should look to a metalinguistic theory of generics to understand indefinite singular normative generics. That is, a normative indefinite singular generic is a proposal about what to include in the extension of the generic term. This theory explains why it is more often than not that felicitous indefinite singular generics are about social kind terms. I argue that this explains a crucial way in which language shapes the social world. When we say things like (2), we propose definitions and uses for the word ‘boy’. Such proposals and their consequences actually impact the behavior of the groups they pick out, as well as the attitudes of others towards those groups. (shrink)

Social metaphysics is a source of important philosophical and moral insight. Furthermore, much social metaphysics appears to be substantive. However, some have recently argued that standard views of metaphysics cannot accommodate substantive social metaphysics. In this paper I offer a new diagnosis of this problem and defend a new solution, showing that this problem is an illuminating lens through which to examine the nature and boundaries of metaphysics. This case instantiates a broad, common pattern generated by attempts to align distinctions (...) between realism and anti-realism, mind-independence and mind-dependence, and legitimate and non-legitimate inquiry. I show that the best response is to abandon the association between substantive metaphysics and mind-independence, and I sketch a new definition of substantivity, given in terms of explanatory power, that makes room for substantive social metaphysics while also offering an attractive basis for general metaphysics. (shrink)

Our gender identity is our sense of ourselves as a woman, a man, as genderqueer or as another gender. Trans people have a gender identity that is different from.

According to the dispositional account of gender, to have a gender is to have some set of behavioral dispositions. Robin Dembroff (2020) levels a strong objection to Jennifer McKitrick’s (2015) dispositional view of gender, arguing that it can neither capture the extension of genderqueer identities nor treat them with the respect that they warrant. In this paper, I offer a defense of the dispositional view against these charges. I argue that accounts of dispositions tailored to deal with masks and finks—phenomena (...) that would prevent a disposition from manifesting or change a disposition if it were about to manifest—can avoid Dembroff’s extensional worry without reducing nonbinary identities to a matter of mere linguistic convention. I offer a revision to the dispositional account of genderqueer that incorporates Dembroff’s insights about the nature of destabilizing gender binaries. (shrink)

Many trans women (men) say that they know that they are women (men). Anti-trans activists deny the claims trans people say they know. Many say that social kinds like woman, Latinx, and consent are in some important sense constructed in the social world and are thus open to a certain amount of engineering. I think the claims to knowledge trans people make are correct, and I think it correct that such things as gender, race, and consent are constructed by society (...) and so are prime candidates for what philosophers these days call conceptual engineering. But it is not all that easy to see how the claim about knowledge and the claim that what is known is determined by the vagaries of the social world are to be reconciled. In this paper I argue that this is a real problem, that it has a solution, and that the solution tells us something important about what happens when we contest norms or engineer concepts. (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)

A central debate in philosophy of race is between eliminativists and conservationists about what we ought do with ‘race’ talk. ‘Eliminativism’ is often defined such that it’s committed to holding that (a) ‘race’ is vacuous and races don’t exist, so (b) we should eliminate the term ‘race’ from our vocabulary. As a stipulative definition, that’s fine. But as an account of one of the main theoretical options in the debate, it’s a serious mistake. I offer three arguments for why eliminativism (...) should not be tethered to vacuity or error theory, and three arguments for why the view shouldn’t be understood in terms of eliminating the term ‘race’ from our vocabulary. Instead, I propose we understand the debate as concerning whether certain uses of ordinary race terms are typically wrong. This proposal is quite simple, and naturally suggested by the common gloss that eliminativism about ‘race’ is akin to a commonsensical view about 'witch' talk. But nonetheless, I argue that it offers a significant recharacterization of this core debate in philosophy of race. (shrink)

This paper explores the question: What would conceptual engineering have to be in order to promote social justice? Specifically, it argues that to promote social justice, conceptual engineering must deliver the following: it needs to be possible to deliberately implement a conceptual engineering proposal in large communities; it needs to be possible for a conceptual engineering proposal to bring about change to extant social categories; it needs to be possible to bring a population to adopt a conceptual engineering proposal for (...) the right reasons; and it needs to be possible to do – without producing harmful consequences. I show that, of the three dominant approaches to conceptual engineering in the literature, only one of them seems amenable to the idea that it is possible and legitimate to promote social justice in accordance with –. (shrink)

To investigate the metaphysics of gender categories—categories like “woman,” “genderqueer,” and “man”—is to ask questions about what gender categories are and how they exist. This chapter offers a pluralist account of the metaphysics of gender categories, according to which there are several different varieties of gender categories. I begin by giving a brief overview of some feminist accounts of the metaphysics of gender categories and illustrating how certain moral and political considerations have been in play in these discussions as constraints (...) on acceptable accounts of gender categories. I then present my pluralist account of gender categories and highlight some of its virtues. Finally, I assess how my pluralist account fares relative to the moral and political considerations identified earlier in the chapter. I argue that although the account does not fare well, we should in fact revise our understanding of what those considerations are and how they should constrain our accounts of gender categories. I then show that, on this revised understanding, my pluralist account emerges as a viable position. (shrink)

Feminist philosophers have long worried that intersectionality undermines the viability of the concept and category of woman, thereby undermining feminist theory and politics. Some have responded to this problem by abandoning intersectionality; others have attempted to find some suitably inclusive way of reconceptualizing woman. I provide a novel solution that focuses on conceptualizing oppression in light of intersectionality, rather than trying to provide an account of what it is to be a woman. By enabling us to understand feminism as responding (...) to gender oppression, this account shows that intersectionality does not conceptually undermine and fragment feminism. Feminism should be intersectional. (shrink)

Most people have a clear sense of what they mean by disability, and have little trouble identifying conditions they consider disabling. Yet providing a clear and consistent definition of disability is far from straightforward. Standardly, disability is understood as the restriction in our abilities to perform tasks, as a result of an impairment of normal physical or cognitive human functioning. However, which inabilities matter? We are all restricted by our bodies, and are all incapable of performing some tasks, but most (...) of these inabilities are not considered disabilities. If, then, we are to avoid the category of disability becoming overly broad—and thus politically and practically useless—we need some way of picking out the specific inabilities that are disabling. I argue that our answer should be informed by an account of the opportunities individuals are entitled to be able to perform as a matter of justice. Thus, to be disabled is to have these opportunities restricted, and not to deviate from the species norm or lack any ability that might improve our well-being. (shrink)

All too often, social kinds function as sites of oppression. To be a woman, to be Black, to be trans – each, in its own way, situates someone at the lower end of a social hierarchy. Membership in such groups thus constitutes a liability: notwithstanding the goods people draw from sharing in these identities, they also stand at perpetual risk of those same identities exposing them to significant harm. What, if anything, can members of oppressed groups do to counter that (...) oppression? In this article I explore one possible strategy: people can – and do – strategically invoke their membership in what I call ‘anti-oppressive kinds’, in order to contest the oppression they face qua members of oppressed groups. Focusing on one particularly salient anti-oppressive kind, the human, I first offer an explanation as to how and why its invocation might be politically effective, before considering some hazards with its use. (shrink)

What makes the categorisation of a human collective morally relevant? How does the categorisation of individuals into groups affect their social status and treatment? This article provides an account of the moral relevance of social categories and assesses the status of “childhood” within this framework. It distinguishes morally relevant social categories (labelled as social groups) through three conditions: first, individuals are externally ascribed to the social category; second, the properties of the social category are reified through the social construction of (...) its definition; and, third, the social category predetermines the normative treatment owed to the individuals ascribed. The existence of these three characteristics in the construction of a social category entails that the individuals ascribed may be affected by unjust constraints and restrictions on their lives and choices, thus, requiring a re-evaluation of how their social grouping frames their status and treatment. The article claims that the “childhood” social category complies with the three conditions (ascription, reification, and normativisation). This implies that individuals categorised as “children” may suffer from unjust constraints and restrictions based on their social categorisation. (shrink)

Social ontologists commonly think that our ideas about social entities, and about other people also inhabiting the social realm, play an important role in making those entities into what they are. At the same time, we know that our ideas are often indeterminate in character, which presumably would mean that this indeterminacy should carry over to the social realm. And yet social indeterminacy is a neglected topic in social ontology. It is argued that this neglect can be traced to how (...) a particular approach that favors ahistorical reconstructions in making sense of social entities has come to dominate social ontology. If we think beyond the parameters set by this approach, however, we can see that recognizing indeterminacy as a pervasive phenomenon in the social realm might open up new interpretative possibilities in relation to different social categories. This argument is at least partly in line with recent calls for a move towards nonideal social ontology. (shrink)