Thomson, Judith Jarvis. A Defense of Abortion
1971, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1):47-66.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Simon FoktContent: Thomson aims to see if abortion can be defended even if the anti-abortion theorist is granted their key premise, i.e. that the foetus has the status of a person. Thomson argues that this is, in fact, irrelevant since we do not owe it to others to let them use our body in order to survive.Comment: This text offers one of the central arguments in favour of moral permissibility of abortion and features the 'famous violinist' thought experiment. It is a central reading for any module in applied ethics focusing on abortion.Todd, Loretta. Notes on Appropriation1990, Parallelogramme 16(1): 24-33.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Erich Hatala MatthesSummary: Todd (Métis) situates contemporary acts of cultural appropriation in the colonial appropriation of indigenous land. She offers a normative definition of cultural appropriation according to which it is understood as the opposite of cultural autonomy. In the course of her discussion, she responds to a number of defenses of cultural appropriation that, she argues, fail to recognize the asymmetries of power in which appropriation from indigenous communities is embedded.Comment: This is an excellent text to use in order to present students with a conception of the wrong of cultural appropriation that is firmly rooted in the context of colonial power dynamics. It is short, and can be usefully compared and contrasted with the arguments presented by James O. Young in "Profound Offense and Cultural Appropriation.".Tremain, Shelley. Reproductive freedom, self-regulation, and the government of impairment in utero2006, Hypatia 21(1): 35-53.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Simon FoktAbstract: This article critically examines the constitution of impairment in prenatal testing and screening practices and various discourses that surround these technologies. While technologies to test and screen (for impairment) prenatally are claimed to enhance women's capacity to be self-determining, make informed reproductive choices, and, in effect, wrest control of their bodies from a patriarchal medical establishment, I contend that this emerging relation between pregnant women and reproductive technologies is a new strategy of a form of power that began to emerge in the late eighteenth century. Indeed, my argument is that the constitution of prenatal impairment, by and through these practices and procedures, is a widening form of modern government that increasingly limits the field of possible conduct in response to pregnancy. Hence, the government of impairment in utero is inextricably intertwined with the government of the maternal body.Comment: Most useful in teaching on ethical issues at the beginning of life. It can be also used in teaching on the ethics of autonomy, freedom of choice, and feminism in general.Tsai, George. Rational Persuasion as Paternalism2014, Philosophy and Public Affairs 42(1): 78-112.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Carl FoxContent: Tsai argues that offering another agent reasons can sometimes count as paternalism when it is motivated by distrust of the other's agency, conveys this lack of confidence, and intervenes in the target's sphere of agency.Comment: Best suited as further or specialised reading on paternalism and agency.Vredenburgh, Kate. The Right to Explanation2021, Journal of Political Philosophy 30 (2):209-229
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
This article argues for a right to explanation, on the basis of its necessity to protect the interest in what I call informed self- advocacy from the serious threat of opacity. The argument for the right to explanation proceeds along the lines set out by an interest- based account of rights (Section II). Section III presents and motivates the moral importance of informed self- advocacy in hierarchical, non- voluntary institutions. Section IV argues for a right to so- called rule- based normative and causal explanations, on the basis of their necessity to protect that interest. Section V argues that this protection comes at a tolerable cost.
Comment: This paper asserts a right to explanation grounded in an interest in informed self-advocacy, the term the author uses to describe a cluster of abilities to represent one's interests and values to decision-makers and to further those interests and values within an institution. Vredenburgh also argues that such form of self-advocacy are necessary for hierarchical, non-voluntary institutions to be legitimate and fair - and it is on these grounds that a person may reasonably reject insitutional set-ups that prevent them from engaging in these abilities. In this sense, Vredenburgh's argument applies to a broader set of problems then simply algorithmic opacity - they may feasibly be applied to cases in which systems (such as bureacratic ones) deny an individual this right to explanation. Therefore, this paper presents an argument which would be useful as further or specialised reading in a variety of classroom contexts, including courses or reading groups addressing technological and algorithmic ethics, basic political rights, bureacratic ethics, as well as more general social and political philosophical courses. It might be interesting, for example, to use it to in an introductory social/political course to discuss with students some of the ethical questions that are particular to a 21st century context. As systems become more complex and individuals become further removed from the institutional decision-making that guides/rules/directs their lives, what right do we have to understand the processes that condition our experience? In what other situations might these rights become challenged?Walsh, Andrea N., Dominic McIver Lopes. Objects of Appropriation2012, In Young, James O., and Conrad G. Brunk, eds. The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation: Blackwell Publishing.-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Erich Hatala MatthesSummary: Walsh and Lopes argue that some appropriation can be beneficial and productive: in particular, the appropriation of elements of dominant culture by members of culturally marginalized groups. They explore this idea through discussion of such appropriative artwork by a number of contemporary First Nations artists, which they argue challenges "the assumed alignment of appropriator with oppressor and appropriatee with victim"(227).Comment: This text serves as a useful counterpoint to the general framework employed in much of the other cultural appropriation literature. It is also a useful selection for course units focusing on art practice.Warren, Karen J.. A Philosophical Perspective on the Ethics and Resolution of Cultural Property Issues1989, In The Ethics of Collecting Cultural Property, edited by Phyllis Mauch Messenger. USA: University of New Mexico Press.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Erich Hatala MatthesSummary: Warren's chapter offers a careful and systematic look at arguments concerning what she calls "the 3 R's": restitution (or repatriation) of cultural property, restrictions on cultural imports and exports, and the rights (to ownership, access, etc.) over cultural property. She ultimately argues that this framework should be overturned in favor of an approach to cultural property disputes that is modeled on conflict resolution. This approach deprioritizes traditional talk of property and ownership in favor of a focus on preservation.Comment: Due to its clear and organized approach, this article is an excellent teaching resource, and a good choice in particular if you plan to do a single reading on repatriation issues. While it often focuses more on summary than developing the many argumentative approaches mentioned, it offers a helpful backbone for further discussion.Weil, Simone. The Need for Roots: Prelude to a Declaration of Duties Towards Mankind1952, New York: Routledge
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasPublisher’s Note:
In The Need for Roots, her most famous book, Weil reflects on the importance of religious and political social structures in the life of the individual. She wrote that one of the basic obligations we have as human beings is to not let another suffer from hunger. Equally as important, however, is our duty towards our community: we may have declared various human rights, but we have overlooked the obligations and this has left us self-righteous and rootless. Published posthumously, The Need for Roots was a direct result of Weil's collaboration with Charles De Gaulle, where Weil set out to address the past and to propose a road map for the future of France after World War II. She painstakingly analyzes the spiritual and ethical milieu that led to France's defeat by the German army, and then addresses these issues with the prospect of eventual French victory.
Comment: This text offers a unique and original analysis of the duty to uphold community, and the bearing of community on the life of the individual. As with much of Weil's writing, the series of essays constitute a distinct contribution to the philosophical literature, in part, because they showcase a somewhat idiosyncratic style of philosophical methodology that was unique to Weil - a blend of continental style, treating philosophy as poetic prose, and analytic method, laying out an argument in sequential premises which lead the reader towards a conclusion. As such, it might constitute an interesting contribution to a course on political philosophy, by offering an alternative approach outside of 20th century canon to examining basic human rights and collective obligations. In addition, it could also be used as supplemental text in courses examines alternative philosophical methodologies, especially in political philosophy (for example, it could be paired with work by Hannah Arendt) or underexplored women of 20th century western philosophy.Wolf, Susan. Freedom Within Reason1990, Oxford University Press-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Jojanneke VanderveenPublisher's Note: In Freedom Within Reason, Susan Wolf charts a course between incompatibilism, or the notion that freedom and responsibility require causal and metaphysical independence from the impersonal forces of nature, and compatibilism, or the notion that people are free and responsible as long as their actions are governed by their desires. Wolf argues that some of the forces which are beyond our control are friends to freedom rather than enemies of it, enabling us to see the world for what it is. The freedom we want is not independence from the world, but independence from the forces that prevent us from choosing how to live in the light of a sufficient appreciation of the world.Comment:Wynter, Sylvia. The Re-Enchantment of Humanism: An Interview with Sylvia Wynter2000, Small Axe 8. pp. 119-207.
-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Suddha Guharoy and Andreas SorgerAbstract:
Sylvia Wynter is a radical Jamaican theorist influenced, among others, by Frantz Fanon. This well known interview is often considered to be the best introduction to her thinking about the question of human in the aftermath of 1492 and the consequent racialisation of humanity.
Wynter rethinks dominant concepts of being human, arguing that they are based on a colonial and racialized model that divides the world into asymmetric categories such as "the selected and the dysselected", center and periphery, or colonizers and colonized. Against this Wynter proposes a new humanism. According to Katherine McKittrick Wynter develops a "counterhumanism", that breaks from the classification of humans in static, asymmetric categories.Comment (from this Blueprint): Sylvia Wynter is a Jamaican novelist, playwright, and academic who draws on a huge breadth of academic literature, including amongst others anthropology, critical race theory, postcolonialism, and feminism, in her prolific academic writings that cover an equally diverse set of themes. One important strand of her work involves “unsettling” what she sees as the dominant (Western/European) understanding of “Man”, which she argues is responsible for enabling the brutal and harrowing treatment of non-whites by the European colonisers. Indeed, one of the goals of Wynter’s project is to theorise a new kind of humanism that does not collapse into violence and exclusion, as the current dominant Western paradigm has, but rather one that is truly “comprehensive and planetary” (p.121) in scope. The reading for this week is a long-form interview Wynter did with David Scott, the editor of Small Axe, and covers a huge breadth of her work. The preface of the interview offers a helpful contextualisation of Wynter’s work, while the section we will be reading offers an overview into Wynter’s thinking about the ways in which humanist discourse has functioned to exclude non-whites.Yap, Audrey. The Logical Syntax of Prejudice: Oppression and the Constitutive A Priori2024, In R. Cook and A. Yap (eds.), Feminist Philosophy and Formal Logic. University of Minnesota Press-
Expand entry
-
Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane FairbankAbstract: I argue that a thoroughgoing naturalized epistemology can easily underestimate the extent to which certain background assumptions will infl uence arguments. Instead, then, I suggest that we can borrow a conceptual tool from neo-Kantian philosophy of science, namely the constitutive a priori. This idea originates in neo-Kantian philosophers who understood, in light of Einsteinian physics, that Kantian views about the a priority of space were untenable. Frameworks that adopt some version of a constitutive a priori take certain propositions to play the role of a priori principles, without granting them the universality or necessity that such principles traditionally hold. I will argue that thinking of certain views or values as having the status of constitutive a priori principles can help us understand what would be required for an epistemic agent to change them, and thus illustrate the extent to which they are resistant to being dislodged by evidence.Comment: available in this BlueprintCan’t find it?Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!
-
-
-
This site is registered on Toolset.com as a development site. -
-
-
-
-
-
-