Introduction, pp 1-13

1. To begin, discuss your own critical reflections about the concept and experience of work.
   • Can we think of work as a cohesive, overarching system? Why/Why not?
   • If yes, does the current system have problems? What might some of those problems be?
   • Who has a responsibility to resolve them?
2. Why does Weeks think it is so difficult to reflect critically about work as a social system, as opposed to the more narrow project of addressing particular problems within the system? Why might it be important to critique work as a social system?
3. Weeks discusses some of the problems that arise when we think about work as a private, rather than public sphere of activity. In what ways can work be private, public, or both? What problems does the privatization of work present?
4. Weeks writes, “The social role of waged work has been so naturalised as to seem necessary and inevitable, something to be tinkered with but never escaped.” She is drawing attention to the degree to which wage work, and the norms associated with it, are taken for granted and assumed to be part of the natural order of things. Why might this be a problem?

Introduction, pp 16-23

1. How does work shape society, according to Weeks? How does the work system embed certain ways of thinking about morality?
2. How does the work system interact with gender?
3. How does the work system interact with, and influence, class and social status?
4. Do you think work legitimize a particular type of exploitation, by arranging people in hierarchical relations with an imbalance of power? Is this an inevitable feature of work, or can it be resolved (e.g. through democritization)?

Introduction 1.1

1. Why, according to Herzog, is it important to resasses the moral nature of organisations and organisational structure? Do you find her initial arguments to be convincing?
2. Herzog writes that, within organisations, “individuals face specific moral challenges, which are different from the moral challenges they encounter in other spheres of life.” What are some examples of these challenges, either from the text or from your own experiences? Why are these moral problems different from the ones we encounter in other spheres of life?
3. Do you think organisational morality can be ‘reclaimed’, as Herzog does? Why/Why not?
4. It is relatively commonplace these days to encounter the idea that corporations are evil and that all large organisations are “irresponible monsters” incapable of moral action. But Herzog insists that organisations can be forces for good. What are some examples of this? Why might organisational morality be worth reclaiming?

Introduction 1.3

1. What factors contribute to the sense that organisational structures are amoral, or outside the scope of normal human moral demands? How has traditional normative theorising failed to account for organisations, and the particular moral problems they face?
2. What assumptions do we make about organisational structure, and why (e.g. organisations as ‘systemic’, or like machines)? How does this affect our perspective of their moral responsibility?
3. What assumptions do we make about individual agents, and why (e.g. that they behave opportunistically)? How does this affect our perspective of organisational moral responsibility?
4. What are some ways, either concrete or abstract, that we might reorient organisational life?

1. What are the features of meaningful work, according to Veltman? Does Veltman think meaningfulness – and consequently, meaningful work – is a subjective characteristic?
2. Why does Veltman think it is useful to have objective measures of meaningfulness?
3. Is all work meaningful? Why / why not?
   • Is work that is not meaningful the same as work that is meaningless?
   • According to Veltman, what characteristics makes work bad? How do you think we should respond to the existence of such work?
4. How do you think we should understand the importance of meaningful work? Is it a basic need, something all people should have a right to, or is it simply a matter of personal preference?

1. What are some of the general conclusions that Terkel draws from his interviews? What values or experiences does he notice are common across different kinds of work?
2. Do these align with Veltman’s objective measures of meaningful work?
3. Do you think it is important for one’s work to be meaningful? Why / Why not? What role has meaningful work played in your own life?

1. The interviewees discuss the experiences of their work as truck drivers. Are there any common experiences or features that emerge in the interviews? Are any of these experiences universal or shared across other professions? Discuss how your own experience of work relates to these interviews.
2. Do you see evidence of Veltman’s objective measures of meaningfulness in the interviews? Give examples and discuss.

1. What is the author’s main aim in this article?
2. What is the distinction between labour, work, and action that Arendt makes? Why might this conceptual distinction be useful?
3. The author argues that remuneration was once conceptualised differently, through the practice of patronage. How did remuneration function in the case of the professional gentleman, according to Penner?
   • In what ways is this conception different from our current one?
   • Why makes such a conception attractive to the author? Why might it be useful?
4. What are some objections that might be raised against this model of remuneration? How does the author respond?
5. Do you find Penner’s argument convincing? Why / Why not?

1. What is the author’s main aim in this article?
2. In what three ways, according to the author, does a livelihood contribute to a person’s well-being?
   • Is having control over resource inflow the same as complete economic independence?
   • How is social contribution esteem different from simply the personal satisfaction of a job well done?
   • In what ways is the opportunity for self-provision morally significant?
3. Why does the author think that market-based income is superior to publicly financed income?
4. Is Greene’s argument persuasive? What might be some objections to a right to livelihood?

1. What are some of the barriers that persons with disabilities face in the labour market and workplace?
2. Why might access to work be especially important for persons with disabilities to feel like full members of society? Albin discusses this in Section I, but you can also think about previous discussions on meaningful work.
3. Why, according to Albin, does the CRPD represent a critical shift in the discussion about a right to work for persons with disability?
4. What does Article 27 of the Convention state? Discuss any features of the article that you find interesting.
5. What are some of the main concerns that confront a universal right to work? How, according to the author, does Article 27 provide an answer to these problems?
6. What argument does the author provide as justification for a universalist approach? How does thinking about a right to work in terms of ‘abilities’ augment an understanding of the right to work?

1. What is the author’s purpose, in this article?
2. In what way, according to the author, does the current debate around basic income fail to recognise the social experiences of women? Why is it important to do so?
3. How does basic income literature typically treat references to women and questions of gender inequality, according to the author?
4. What solution does the author propose to these problems? How does she argue we should reconceptualise work?
5. Why does the author refer to traditionally female work as “invisible”?

1. What is the author’s main aim in this article?
2. Does the author assume there exists a civic obligation to work? On what grounds? Do you agree or disagree with this assumption?
3. What are some reasons, according to the author, for which the ghetto poor may reasonably refuse to work but which could be altered by small structural changes to American society? How does the author think these reasons could be addressed or resolved?
4. What are the three major objections to a pro tanto civic obligation to work that the author presents? How does the author think these could be addressed or resolved?
5. Do you think that these major objections are enough to override a pro tanto obligation to work?

1. What basic assumptions about work and intelligence is Rose attempting to challenge in this essay?
2. What values are tradtionally associated with the working class, according to the author? Can you list any that he does not mention?
3. What are some cultural or conceptual reasons, according to Rose, why we might associate working class jobs with low intelligence, lack of cleverness, etc.?
4. What are some examples – involving verbal, mathematical, or physical skills – that the author raises to counter these long held cultural assumptions?
5. What might be the value of subverting or challenging these basic assumptions? How could it help us create a fairer, more just system of work?

1. What are the author’s main claims in this article?
2. What are some of the reasons why diversity can be good for communities?
3. What two propositions about the workplace does Estlund make before beginning her argument? Do you agree or disagree with these fundamental assumptions?
4. What are some of the social benefits of work – the benefits of connectedness – that Estlund identifies?
5. Why does Estlund think that the workplace presents a unique location for integration?
6. What does Estlund argue are some of the consequences and social implications of racially diverse workplaces?
7. What are some of the challenges still present in racially diverse workplaces?
8. What are some of the political implications of diverse workplaces for democracy? What are some suggestions Estlund offers for how to promote or protect diversity in the workplace? Are there any ideas you might add?

1. How does Haslanger’s empirical data compare with how things are today?
2. Has the position of women in philosophy improved over the last ten years?
3. Do you agree that the exclusion of women from the history of philosophy is partly to do with disciplinary boundaries?
4. Why is it that women are not being published in top academic philosophy journals at the same rate as men?

1. Why have women been historically excluded from the philosophical canon?
2. What is the ‘traditional canon’ in philosophy and is it useful?
3. Do you agree with Waithe that, rather than remaking the traditional philosophical canon, we should simply ecpand it?
4. What are the dangers of this approach?

1. How could the inclusion of women in philosophy be more intersectional?
2. What lessons can we learn from Llanera’s personal experience?

1. Hutchings and Owens propose a new way forward for thinking about women’s international thought. Do you find this compelling?
2. Hutchings and Owens discuss the gendered and racialised reception of work. How might this be overcome?

1. Should we focus on the contribution that women philosophers can make to the discipline? 
2. What is the value of representation among philosophers in the canon?
3. Do you agree with Tyson that expanding the canon will make philosophy better?
4. Do you think that, even if expanding the canon does not improve the discipline, we ought to do so anyway?

1. What did Hypatia mean by “breaking away from the world of matter”?
2. What was the impact of Hypatia’s public philosophy and political activity?
3. In what way is Hypatia’s execution comparable with Socrates’?

1. Why does Astell critique women’s ‘conduct books’?
2. Astell does not argue that women and men are the same. What should we think about this claim?
3. Is Astell concerns with the material position of women or their sense of self?
4. How does Astell propose that women reclaim their autonomy?
5. What benefits does Astell claim would stem from an all-women educational community?

1. Is there anything about the political context surrounding the Oxford Four that makes their time at Oxford together distinctive?
2. Why should we think of these four women as a collective (if we should at all)?
3. How does discussing these women’s’ relationships with one another help us to understand the development of their thought?

1. Why is the comparison between Socrates and Ọ̀rúnmìlà so powerful?
2. What is the place of the oral tradition in philosophy?
3. Oluwole wants to highlight what is African about African philosophy. What are the main features that she highlights?

1. What have ‘bourgeois white women’ done to feminist movements?
2. hooks says that she struggles to choose between feminist and anti-racist struggles. How does she propose we proceed instead of choosing?
3. Can feminism ever make sense of the diverse nature of women’s’ experience?

1. What is Young’s argument against liberal approaches to distributive justice?
2. Is there anything missing from Young’s account of oppression?
3. What is the concept of ‘structural injustice’ and how does it explain the Sandy case?
4. Do you agree that we should move from a ‘liability’ model to a forward-looking ‘responsibility’ model of justice?

For Nivedita Menon, feminism is not about a moment of final triumph over patriarchy but about the gradual transformation of the social field so decisively that old markers shift forever. From sexual harassment charges against international figures to the challenge that caste politics poses to feminism, from the ban on the veil in France to the attempt to impose skirts on international women badminton players, from queer politics to domestic servants’ unions to the Pink Chaddi campaign, Menon deftly illustrates how feminism complicates the field irrevocably. Incisive, eclectic and politically engaged, Seeing like a Feminist is a bold and wide-ranging book that reorders contemporary societ

1. “Selectively equating ‘unnatural’ with ‘immoral’ is a way of suffocating the debate” In what other social debates do we see this move being made? (p. 94)
2. Would you say ‘nature’ itself is an inherently politically loaded idea, or is it simply its persistent equivocation with normative ethical frameworks which has rendered it synonymous with an unquestionable necessity about the way things are/ought to be? (pp. 93-4)
3. Is describing queerness as the result of nature a solution to homophobia? (p. 97)
4. “But the whole unpredictable thing about politics is that, often, counterhegemonic voices are able to tip the scales within a constellation produced by range of heterogenous ideas and circumstances.” What does Nivedita mean by this? And can you think of some examples of this? (p. 100)
5. What is the relationship between class and queerness? (pp. 103-104)
6. To what extent can hijras be said to share women’s experiences? (pp. 105-106)
7. Should people everywhere be given the option of a third gender on passports and other legal documents? Should gender simply not be a question which is asked on such documents? (p. 106)
8. Would you say the ‘glamorisation’ of the gay ‘lifestyle’ has mostly helped or hindered the LGBTQ+ movement? (p. 109)
9. What are some of the central lessons which can be extracted from this chapter?

Two of the most important political movements of the late twentieth century are those of environmentalism and feminism. In this book, Val Plumwood argues that feminist theory has an important opportunity to make a major contribution to the debates in political ecology and environmental philosophy. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature explains the relation between ecofeminism, or ecological feminism, and other feminist theories including radical green theories such as deep ecology. Val Plumwood provides a philosophically informed account of the relation of women and nature, and shows how relating male domination to the domination of nature is important and yet remains a dilemma for women.

1. Why is the relationship between nature and culture gendered?
2. What are the different ways in which feminists have theorised about the distinction between nature and culture?
3. What do you think about this distinction?
4. What is ‘backgrounding’? And what other aspects of women’s lives do you think are ‘backgrounded’?
5. On page 32 Plumwood quotes Alison Jagger’s discussion of gender roles leading to the overdevelopment/underdevelopment of certain aspects of our character. Do you agree with this? What are some ways this can be evidenced?
6. On page 37 Plumwood states that women have been associated with nature because of their ‘uncontrollable’ bodies. What does she mean by this?
7. In what ways have women’s choices surrounding reproduction been constrained?
8. What do you think about the ‘abstract pro-nature’ approach to reproduction? Is there anything to be said in favour of it?
9. What is Plumwood’s suggestion for how we ought to go about theorising about reproduction in light of her rejection of dualism?
10. Has this chapter changed your position/opinion on anything? If so, what.

Angela Davis provides a powerful history of the social and political influence of whiteness and elitism in feminism, from abolitionist days to the present, and demonstrates how the racist and classist biases of its leaders inevitably hampered any collective ambitions. While Black women were aided by some activists like Sarah and Angelina Grimke and the suffrage cause found unwavering support in Frederick Douglass, many women played on the fears of white supremacists for political gain rather than take an intersectional approach to liberation. Here, Davis not only contextualizes the legacy and pitfalls of civil and women’s rights activists, but also discusses Communist women, the murder of Emmitt Till, and Margaret Sanger’s racism. Davis shows readers how the inequalities between Black and white women influence the contemporary issues of rape, reproductive freedom, housework and child care in this bold and indispensable w

1. What does the lack of scholarly engagement with the female slave tell us about historical scholarship more broadly? (p. 7)
2. To what extent does this alter the credibility of the scholarship which has already taken place on the black male slave?
3. What kind of labour was common for the female slave? And what can this tell us about contemporary notions of femininity? (p. 8)
4. “The special abuses inflicted on women thus facilitated the ruthless economic exploitation of their labour” (p. 10) This was the position of the Black Woman slave. To what extent can this be generalised as a universal remark upon the woman’s condition?
5. What was the condition of pregnant slaves who laboured in the fields? (p. 11)
6. “As the ideology of femininity—a by-product of industrialization—was popularized and disseminated through the new ladies’ magazines and romantic novels, white women came to be seen as inhabitants of a sphere totally severed from the realm of productive work.” What is the ‘ideology of femininity’? (p. 12)
7. How was the ‘matriarchal’ family structure – which was supposedly present in slave families – utilised to legitimise the denigration of black men, women, and families?
8. “The salient theme emerging from domestic life in the slave quarters is one of sexual equality.” Discuss. (p. 16)
9. Who was Harriet Tubman? Please feel free to revisit the text or use any other resources you have to hand at the moment to answer this question. (p. 18)
10. “This was one of the greatest ironies of the slave system, for in subjecting women to the most ruthless exploitation conceivable, exploitation which knew no sex distinctions, the groundwork was created not only for Black women to assert their equality through their social relations, but also to express it through their acts of resistance.” Discuss.
11. Does the utilisation of rape as a method of intimidation tell us something salient about the eroticisation and hyper-sexualisation of women who belong to oppressed racial groups? (p. 19)
12. Discuss Genovese’s diagnosis of the problem of raphite men against black women. (p. 20)
13. “It was those women who passed on to their nominally free female descendants a legacy of hard work, perseverance and self-reliance, a legacy of tenacity, resistance and insistence on sexual equality—in short, a legacy spelling out standards for a new womanhood”. In what ways have you witnessed the standards of a new womanhood emerge in your own lives and in the lives of the women around you? (p. 21)

1950s Calcutta. Seventeen-year-old Shankar walks on to Old Post Office Street to become a clerk in the Calcutta High Court. There he meets the last English barrister, and thus begins their unusual and unforgettable relationship.

The Great Unknown is the moving story of the many people Shankar meets in the courtrooms and lawyers’ chambers of Old Post Office Street—some seeking justice, others watching the drama of life unfold. It offers a uniquely personal glimpse into their PBI – World of unfulfilled dreams and duplicity, of unexpected tragedy, as well as hope and exhilaration.

Here you will meet Marian Stuart, who journeys from Lebanon to PBI – India in search of a husband and happiness; the once-rich but now-destitute Englishman James Gould; Helen Grubert, the embittered Anglo-PBI – Indian typist, who wins her breach-of-promise case but has a miraculous change of heart; Nicholas Droulas, the betrayed Greek sailor desperate for revenge; Shefali Mitra, the distraught mother fighting to hold on to er she did not give birth to; Chhoka-da, the benevolent babu who takes the young clerk under his wing; and the barrister sahib who profoundly enriches Shankar’s life with his own experiences.

The Great Unknown (Kato Ajanarey), Sankar’s debut novel, first appeared in Desh in 1955. An instant success, it remains immensely popular more than fifty years after its publication. This first-ever English translation captures the simplicity and poignancy of the origi

1. What are the images that come to mind when you think of the ‘Good Woman’? And how much influence do you think this has had over your own life?
2. “She is the woman who can make the habitually apathetic Mumbaikars take to the streets in outrage when she is sexually assaulted” Do you think that public outrage at sexual assault is selective? If so, how much of this conditioned by the image of the ‘good woman’? (pp. 34-35)
3. How is dialogue surrounding safety on the streets dominated by concerns for middle-class women? Would you say that working-class women are entirely excluded from consideration on this matter? (pp. 36-7)
4. Are there other performative displays of respectability that you can think of? (p. 37)
5. Do you agree that the binary between public/private perfectly maps onto the binary between good/bad women? If so, can you think of any further examples to illustrate this? (p. 38)
6. Do you think there is a general anxiety surrounding being able to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ women? If itself differently in men than it does in women? (p. 39)
7. What does the lack of public outrage at rape cases which are committed against sex workers tell us about hegemonic depictions of women’s sexuality, and women’s societal position more broadly? (p. 40)
8. The author points out that the general reluctance to press charges after sexual assault reveals the embedded shame that families (and women themselves) prioritise over the mental and physical health of the victim of the crime. What else might this tell us? (p. 41)
9. Discuss some of the ways in which “The inextricable connection of safety to respectability” bars women from safety. (p. 42)

All About Love offers radical new ways to think about love by showing its interconnectedness in our private and public lives. In eleven concise chapters, hooks explains how our everyday notions of what it means to give and receive love often fail us, and how these ideals are established in early childhood. She offers a rethinking of self-love (without narcissism) that will bring peace and compassion to our personal and professional lives, and asserts the place of love to end struggles between individuals, in communities, and among societies. Moving from the cultural to the intimate, hooks notes the ties between love and loss and challenges the prevailing notion that romantic love is the most important love of all.

Visionary and original, hooks shows how love heals the wounds we bear as individuals and as a nation, for it is the cornerstone of compassion and forgiveness and holds the power to overcome shame.

For readers who have found ongoing delight and wisdom in bell hooks's life and work, and for those who are just now discovering her, All About Love is essential reading and a brilliant book that will change how we think about love, our culture-and one another.

1. Would you say it was fair to claim that our conception of ‘discipline’ particularly when it is applied to children – is ‘masculinised’?
2. “There can be no love without Justice.” Discuss.
3. Do you agree that there should be some systems in place to uphold ‘children’s rights’?
4. Is the neglect and abuse of children a structural injustice? If so, to what extent does Hooks’s proposition for a children’s ‘rights’ represent an individualistic solution to a structural problem?
5. Is there a chance that such systems may disproportionately legislate against and penalise actions by mothers as opposed to fathers?
6. How might such systems be potentially distorted by sexist ideals of the ‘good’ mother?
7. What does Hooks’s analysis of popular support for physical punishment of children tell us about dominant attitudes towards violence?

In spite of the double burden of racial and gender discrimination, African-American women have developed a rich intellectual tradition that is not widely known. In Black Feminist Thought, originally published in 1990, Patricia Hill Collins set out to explore the words and ideas of Black feminist intellectuals and writers, both within the academy and without. Here Collins provides an interpretive framework for the work of such prominent Black feminist thinkers as Angela Davis, bell hooks, Alice Walker, and Audre Lorde. Drawing from fiction, poetry, music and oral history, the result is a book that provided the first synthetic overview of Black feminist thought and its canon.

1. What is the difference between an epistemology, paradigm, and methodology? (p. 252)
2. Can you think of some examples of how knowledge validation processes reflect the interests of elite white men? (p. 253)
3. Collins claims that part of the way Black feminist thought is kept out of legitimised spheres of knowledge is by allowing a few select black women into the academy and encouraging them to espouse the same Eurocentric ‘universally’ accepted knowledges as their white male colleagues. Do you agree with this? If so, do you think black women are the only marginalised group that we can observe this happening to? (p. 254)
4. Do you agree with the claim that women are more likely to rely on first-hand experience than men? If so, why? (p. 259)
5. “the differences distinguishing U.S. Black women from other groups, even those close to them, lies less in Black women’s race or gender identity than in access to social institutions that support an ethic of caring in their lives”. Do you agree with this claim? (pp. 264-5)
6. Many feminist scholars have pointed out that the widespread exclusion of situated perspectives and situated knowledge is damaging to women, but why is it so central to Black women’s oppression in particular?
7. Does the ‘universal’ emerge from attending to the fine details of the particular? (pp. 268-9)
8. “Partiality, and not universality, is the condition of being heard” What does Collins mean by this? (p. 270)
9. How does the existence of Black Feminist Epistemology challenge what currently passes for Truth? Be as specific as possible.

One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same exten

1. Paraphrasing Foucault, Butler writes: “Juridical systems of power produce the subjects they subsequently come to represent”. What does this mean? (p. 2)
2. Do you agree with Butler’s claim that the existence of the ‘subject’ should be understood as arising from the mythical state of nature hypothesis and illusionary social contract? (p. 2)
3. What is political ‘representation’? And is there an alternative to the ‘stable subject’? (p. 4)
4. What is the central point of Butler’s discussion of De Beauvoir and Irigaray? (p. 10)
5. Do you think the destruction of ‘sex’ would lead to women assuming the status of the universal subject? (pp. 18-20)
6. Is this a desirable goal? (pp. 18-20)
7. What does Haar mean by “All psychological categories … derive from the illusion of substantial identity”? (pp. 20-21)
8. What does Butler mean by “it would seem that the ontology of substances itself is not only and artificial effect, but essentially superfluous”? (p. 24)
9. Do you agree with Wittig that ‘Sex’ does not precede oppression? (p. 25)
10. How significant do you think the role of language is in ‘marking’ gender? (p. 25)
11. Discuss the claim that Butler extracts from Foucault that “the subject” does not have access to a sexuality that is somehow ‘outside’ or ‘before’ the power that prohibits, regulates, and creates it. (p. 29)
12. What are some of the “contingent acts” that present gender as a “naturalistic necessity”? (p. 33)

Two of the most important political movements of the late twentieth century are those of environmentalism and feminism. In this book, Val Plumwood argues that feminist theory has an important opportunity to make a major contribution to the debates in political ecology and environmental philosophy. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature explains the relation between ecofeminism, or ecological feminism, and other feminist theories including radical green theories such as deep ecology. Val Plumwood provides a philosophically informed account of the relation of women and nature, and shows how relating male domination to the domination of nature is important and yet remains a dilemma for women.

1. Do you agree with Plumwood that colonisation creates the identity of the colonised? (p. 41-2) And that ‘woman’ is made from the dross and refuse of a man? (p. 44) Is there anything you don’t understand about the list of dualisms which is presented on page 43?
2. What do you make of Plumwood’s assessment of Aristotle’s justification for various forms of dominion on page 46? Do you agree that they are all inseparably interconnected?
3. Is it true that the more unstable a ‘master’s identity’ the more aggressively it needs to be asserted? Can you think of any additional examples for this?
4. In what ways has ‘Inclusion’ impacted women and – what has historically been segregated as – women’s work?
5. Do you think homoginisation and stereotyping happens only to oppressed classes of people? Is there a difference between the stereptypes we have for men and the ones we have for women?
6. If there is a difference here, do you think it is morally significant?
7. What is the difference between a dualism anAre there any instances in which it may be suitable to adopt the cavern of reversal strategy? (p. 62)
8. What do you think of the Mackinnon quote captured on page 65?
9. Do you agree with Plumwood that a desolution of gendered dualisms necessitates the weaving of this dualism into other dualisms?

1. Ray writes: “Bioethics, however, so far has shown only a minimal commitment to Black racial justice” (p. 38). Why do you think that is?
2. How does the lens of Black bioethics help us explain Black women’s higher maternal mortality rates in the United States?
3. Ray deploys the principles of autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence, and justice in a Black bioethics framework. But she is also explicit that “There are… other ways of doing bioethics” (p. 38). How might Black bioethics help us, if at all, understand other ways of approaching bioethical issues?
4. Ray raises the possibility of medical reparations for Black patients. What kind of reparations, if any, might be appropriate and why? Do you think they should be implemented?
5. Ray’s discussion focuses on a particular case: Black women in the United States. To what extent does her argument about Black bioethics generalize to other contexts?
6. What, if anything, can we learn from Ray’s paper about bioethics and non-Black marginalized groups?

1. How do you understand intersectionality? How, if at all, does that differ from Wilson et al.’s understanding?
2. What are we supposed to learn about intersectionality in clinical medicine from the two cases, i.e. History of Trauma and Chronic Pain? What are the similarities and differences between the two cases when it comes to applying intersectionality in clinical contexts?
3. Why do Wilson et al. say that “an intersectional framework to clinical practice does not call for simple concordance of physician-patient race and gender” (p. 12)?
4. Wilson et al. argue that “clinicians can be as knowledgeable about the impact of social policies on their patients as they are about [medical issues]” (p. 14). Is it feasible to expect physicians and other healthcare providers to be knowledge about socio-historical contexts and structures, in addition to having medical expertise?
5. Which of the three objections that Wilson et al. consider do you find most compelling? Do they address it adequately?
6. How might you put Wilson et al.’s paper in conversation with Ray’s? Are Black bioethics and intersectionality in clinical medicine compatible? If so, how? If not, under which circumstances is each approach to be preferred?

1. How does Yearby distinguish between biological and social race?
2. How does Yearby argue that using racial categories in medicine leads to racial health disparities?
3. Do you agree with Yearby that “the root cause of poor health outcomes for all groups… is racism” (p. 21)?
4. How, if at all, does Yearby’s discussion of morality in childbirth affect your understanding of Ray’s argument?
5. What does Yearby mean by “the corruption of knowledge production” (pp. 22–23)? How does she argue that racism plays a role in this process?
6. Yearby argues that race-based medicine with respect to breast cancer “not only reifies the racist belief that Whites are superior, but also prevents women of all races from equal to treatment” (p. 24). Is her argument a good one? How might it extend beyond breast cancer?
7. Like the other authors in this section, Yearby focuses on the medical system in the U.S. To what extent do Yearby’s arguments apply to other medical systems, for instance those with state-provided medical access as in the U.K.?

1. How does Taylor cast doubt on the idea of animal advocacy as giving “voice to the voiceless”? Do you agree with her?
2. What is the argument from marginal cases?
3. Why, according to Taylor, is there a “danger” in the argument from marginal cases?
4. How does Taylor argue for the conclusion that to “compare animals to intellectually disabled people… harms both populations”?
5. What does Taylor mean when, in the final paragraph, she claims that “We need to crip animal ethics”? Do you agree?
6. How might Taylor’s article have implications for bioethical issues beyond animal ethics?

1. How does willful hermeneutical ignorance differ from hermeneutical injustice?
2. What is the “double bind” of epistemic exploitation (p. 717)?
3. What is the “standard view of disability” and why is not a “value-free starting assumption”, according to Wieseler (pp. 719–720)?
4. How does Wieseler draw on the notions of epistemic exploitation, epistemic imperialism, and willful hermeneutical ignorance to critique Singer (a stand in for philosophical bioethicists more generally) on his approach to disability?
5. What are “crip skills” and what is their significance for bioethics and epistemic resistance (p. 726)?
6. As well as arguing that assuming that disabled people have a low quality of life is ableist, Wieseler claims that quality of life should not be conflated with value of life. What is valuable about lives other than their subjective quality?
7. What points of harmony and friction are there between Wieseler’s piece and Taylor’s?

1. What is the so-called “disability paradox” and what are Stramondo’s reservations about that term (p. 202)?
2. What is wrong, according to Stramondo, with the University of Washington’s invocation of “health” in their triage protocol?
3. Stramondo writes: “I would argue that any triage protocol is unjustly discriminatory against disabled people insofar as it deprioritizes them due to a belief that their lives are of less value because they are of less quality” (p. 204). How is Stramondo’s argument affected, if at all, by Wieseler’s injunction to separate quality of life from value of life?
4. Why is individual assessment, rather than assessment based on group membership, of likelihood of survival important?
5. What is the distinction that Stramondo draws between inefficiency and waste? How does the distinction allow him to argue for accepting the likelihood-of-survival criterion while rejecting the level-of-resource intensity criterion? How does the distinction play a role in bioethical issues beyond triage?
6. What is the “powerful paradigm shift” Stramondo interprets Shelley Tremain as calling for (p. 206)? What does Stramondo suggest that bioethicists do in response? Is he right?
7. Taking Stramondo’s points into consideration, what do you think a just, and in particular an anti-ableist, triage protocol would involve?

1. How do Peter and Liaschenko define moral distress? Is their definition a good one? Why or why not?
2. What is a moral identity and why is it important in thinking about moral distress?
3. Peter and Liaschenko write that “the identity of ‘nurse’ is a social construction” (p. 339). What do they mean by that? Are they right?
4. How does foregrounding relationships shed light on moral distress?
5. How does gender play a role in the moral distress of hospital nurses?
6. What recommendations do Peter and Liaschenko make for alleviating the problem of moral distress? Are likely to work? What other recommendations might be implemented?
7. Peter and Liaschenko focus on the moral distress of hospital nurses, but recognize that moral distress is a broader issue. What are some examples of moral distress beyond hospital nursing, or even beyond the context of healthcare?

1. An important part of Ashley’s argument is their own experience in accessing HRT and other transition-related healthcare, as well the experiences of the trans community. Appeals to anecdotal, and especially personal, evidence mark a departure from the how bioethics is normally practised. What are the advantages and disadvantages of Ashley’s approach?
2. How can the concepts of epistemic exploitation, epistemic imperialism and willful hermeneutical ignorance (explained in Wieseler’s paper) augment Ashley’s argument that trans people are subject to injustice when “physicians deny the authority trans people have over their own mental experiences” (p. 481)?
3. “Medically transitioning is not all about gender dysphoria”, Ashley writes (p. 481). What do they mean? How do they argue that gender dysphoria assessments problematize and pathologize trans experience?
4. How does Ashley argue that assessment and referral requirements either assume that trans people are mentally ill or involve double standards?
5. In general, how should we think about the limits of informed consent? That is, what are the circumstances in which someone requesting medical treatment is not sufficient for providing that treatment? It might be helpful to think both about the circumstances of the person making the request and about the thing they’re requesting.

1. Priest argues that psychological harm is not less important than physical harm. How does she argue for this claim? Is she correct?
2. Priest argues that the state should intervene and offer PBT to trans youth with unsupportive parents. What is her argument exactly? Is it a good one?
3. How does Priest address the objection that some studies suggest “many transgender children do not go on to become transgender adults” and so shouldn’t be given PBT (p. 49)?
4. Why does Priest not base her argument on the “mature minor doctrine” (p. 52)?
5. What is the special role of schools in providing PBT, according to Priest?
6. Priest considers several objections to her argument, especially in the section beginning on p 54. Are her replies convincing? Are there any other objections that she doesn’t address? How might you reply on her behalf?
7. Although Priest is not committed to the idea that PBT should only be provided to trans youth when they give properly informed consent, it’s worth considering informed consent in children and adolescents as an issue in itself. If children can’t give properly informed consent to PBT, why not? Are there things they can give properly informed consent to? If so, why is PBT different?

For more than a millennium the great Mesoamerican city of Teotihuacn (c. 150 b.c.a.d. 750) has been imagined and reimagined by a host of subsequent cultures including our own. Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage engages the subject of the unity and diversity of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica by focusing on the classic heritage of this ancient city. This new volume is the product of several years of research by members of Princeton University's Moses Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project and Mexico's Proyecto Teotihuacn. Offering a variety of disciplinary perspectives--including the history of religions, anthropology, archaeology, and art history - and a wealth of new data, Mesoamerica's Classic Heritage examines Teotihuacn's rippling influence across Mesoamerican time and space, including important patterns of continuity and change, and its relationships, both historical and symbolic, with Tenochtitlan, Cholula, and various Mayan communities.

Latin American and Latinx Philosophy: A Collaborative Introduction is a beginner’s guide to canonical texts in Latin American and Latinx philosophy, providing the non-specialist with necessary historical and philosophical context, and demonstrating their contemporary relevance. It is written in jargon-free prose for students and professors who are interested in the subject, but who don’t know where to begin. Each of the twelve chapters, written by a leading scholar in the field, examines influential texts that are readily available in English and introduces the reader to a period, topic, movement, or school that taken together provide a broad overview of the history, nature, scope, and value of Latin American and Latinx philosophy. Although this volume is primarily intended for the reader without a background in the Latin American and Latinx tradition, specialists will also benefit from its many novelties, including an introduction to Aztec ethics; a critique of “the Latino threat” narrative; the legacy of Latin American philosophy in the Chicano movement; an overview of Mexican existentialism, Liberation philosophy, and Latin American and Latinx feminisms; a philosophical critique of indigenism; a study of Latinx contributions to the philosophy of immigration; and an examination of the intersection of race and gender in Latinx identity.

Publisher's note: For at least two millennia before the advent of the Spaniards in 1519, there was a flourishing civilization in central Mexico. During that long span of time a cultural evolution took place which saw a high development of the arts and literature, the formulation of complex religious doctrines, systems of education, and diverse political and social organization.The rich documentation concerning these people, commonly called Aztecs, includes, in addition to a few codices written before the Conquest, thousands of folios in the Nahuatl or Aztec language written by natives after the Conquest. Adapting the Latin alphabet, which they had been taught by the missionary friars, to their native tongue, they recorded poems, chronicles, and traditions.

The fundamental concepts of ancient Mexico presented and examined in this book have been taken from more than ninety original Aztec documents. They concern the origin of the universe and of life, conjectures on the mystery of God, the possibility of comprehending things beyond the realm of experience, life after death, and the meaning of education, history, and art. The philosophy of the Nahuatl wise men, which probably stemmed from the ancient doctrines and traditions of the Teotihuacans and Toltecs, quite often reveals profound intuition and in some instances is remarkably “modern.”

This English edition is not a direct translation of the original Spanish, but an adaptation and rewriting of the text for the English-speaking reader.

This book investigates some of the central topics of metaphysics in the philosophical thought of the Maya people of Mesoamerica, particularly from the Preclassic through Postclassic periods. This book covers the topics of time, change, identity, and truth, through comparative investigation integrating Maya texts and practices — such as Classic Period stelae, Postclassic Codices, and Colonial-era texts such as the î and the books of Chilam Balam — and early Chinese philosophy.

Adapted from prologue. “Since its rediscovery in the mid-nineteenth century the codex Cantares Mexicanos has come to be recognized as the chief source of Aztec poetry and one of the monuments of American Indian literature (…) Over the years a tradition has gradually been established that views the Cantares as a poet’s miscellany, studded with lyrics composed by famous kings (…) [Bierhorst’s edition] breaks with this tradition (…) The findings [of the present study] in brief are these: The ninety-one songs in the Cantares, without exception, belong to a single genre, which flourishes during the third quarter of the sixteenth century. Netotiliztli (or dance associated with worldly entertainment) is the native name that appears to have been applied to the genre in its entirety. But for lack of certainty on this point, and for the sake of convenience, I have chosen to designate it by the term “ghost songs.” (…) the Aztec ghost song may be described as a musical performance in which warrior-singers summon the ghosts of ancestors in order to swell their ranks and overwhelm their enemies. (…) The Cantares itself (…) is limited to songs belonging to the city-state of Mexico, or to Mexico and its close ally, Azcapotzalco (…) Although it is possible that a few of the songs in the Cantares manuscripts were composed before the Conquest, by far the greater number belong to the post-Conquest period.”

Publisher's note: For at least two millennia before the advent of the Spaniards in 1519, there was a flourishing civilization in central Mexico. During that long span of time a cultural evolution took place which saw a high development of the arts and literature, the formulation of complex religious doctrines, systems of education, and diverse political and social organization. The rich documentation concerning these people, commonly called Aztecs, includes, in addition to a few codices written before the Conquest, thousands of folios in the Nahuatl or Aztec language written by natives after the Conquest. Adapting the Latin alphabet, which they had been taught by the missionary friars, to their native tongue, they recorded poems, chronicles, and traditions.

The fundamental concepts of ancient Mexico presented and examined in this book have been taken from more than ninety original Aztec documents. They concern the origin of the universe and of life, conjectures on the mystery of God, the possibility of comprehending things beyond the realm of experience, life after death, and the meaning of education, history, and art. The philosophy of the Nahuatl wise men, which probably stemmed from the ancient doctrines and traditions of the Teotihuacans and Toltecs, quite often reveals profound intuition and in some instances is remarkably “modern.”

This English edition is not a direct translation of the original Spanish, but an adaptation and rewriting of the text for the English-speaking reader.

Aztec psychological thought is described in this paper. The Pre-Columbian world of the Aztecs was characterized by Spanish chroniclers as being as sophisticated in the sciences and medicine as anything found in Europe at the time of the conquest of Mexico. This knowledge included a belief structure about the development of personality and the way in which Aztec society socialized the person. Concepts of psychological equilibrium and well-being are also found within Aztec medicine. Psychological dysfunctions were identified by Aztec healers and "talking" therapies not unlike today's psychotherapeutic techniques could be found.

Publisher’s note: “Two of the world’s leading scholars of the Aztec language and culture have translated Sahagún’s monumental and encyclopedic study of native life in Mexico at the time of the Spanish Conquest. This immense undertaking is the first complete translation into any language of Sahagún’s Nahuatl text, and represents one of the most distinguished contributions in the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and linguistics.

Written between 1540 and 1585, the Florentine Codex (so named because the manuscript has been part of the Laurentian Library’s collections since at least 1791) is the most authoritative statement we have of the Aztecs’ lifeways and traditions—a rich and intimate yet panoramic view of a doomed people.

The Florentine Codex is divided by subject area into twelve books and includes over 2,000 illustrations drawn by Nahua artists in the sixteenth century.”

For the ancient Mexicas, the composition of the human body was similar to that of the cosmos, with both being composed of dense and light substances. The light substance of the human body was divine in nature and formed the different souls of each human being. Some souls were indispensable for human existence while others were unnecessary and often harmful. The dense part of the human body functioned through its union with the souls. Like the different souls, the dense parts of the human body also had specific functions dedicated to different activities. For example, human thought derived primarily from the heart. Souls could be damaged, which could cause them to malfunction and lead to illness and possibly death in the human being. As the souls were divine, each was a conscious being with its own personality; thus there could be disagreements between them. Disharmony could also lead to illness.

-Yolia is one of the principal indigenous terms present in Christian Nahua terminology in the first decades of European contact. It is employed for “soul” or “spirit” and often forms a doublet with ánima in Nahuatl texts of an ecclesiastical, devotional, or secular nature. the term -Yolia/teyolia has also lived a rich and fascinating life in scholarly literature. Its etymology (“the means for one’s living”) is strikingly similar to that of the Spanish word “ánima”, or “soul.” Taking into account the possibility that attestations of the seemingly pre-Hispanic -Yolia can be identified in some of the written sources, we have reviewed historical, linguistic, and anthropological evidence concerning this term in order to revisit the Nahua concept of the “soul.” we also scrutinize the very origin of -Yolia in academic discourse. this analysis, based on broader historical and linguistic evidence referring to both pre-Conquest beliefs and Christianization in sixteenth-century central Mexico, is the point of departure for proposing and substantiating an alternative hypothesis about the origin of -yolia. Our precise focus has been to trace and pinpoint a pervasive Christian influence, manifest both in indigenous Colonial texts and conceptual frameworks of modern scholars interpreting them. we conclude that -Yolia is a neologism created in the early Colonial period.

Summary: The Mapa de Cuauhtinchan II is a historical-cartographical document from the early colonial period from the state of Puebla, which is likely a copy of an older document from the early post-classic period. This document was declared a historical monument on June 24th, 1963, by the Mexican National Institute of Anthropology and History. The number 2 was assigned to distinguish it from other maps [found in Cuauhtinchan]. To this day, there are four maps registered in this town that pertained to the sixteenth century. Together they constitute a set of sources intimately related in virtue of its pictographic style, as well as of its historic and cartographic content. The Mapa de Cuauhtinchan II is considered one among the historical-cartographical documents that served to state arguments and justifications in defense of political and territorial rights of the ethnic groups who authored them. Along with the oral tradition, they conform Mesoamerican historiography. The historical information they provide refers to the Chichimeca groups of people that left Chicomoztoc in the twelfth century as a response to the calling of the Tolteca-Chichimeca people to conquer the allies of the Olmeca Xicallanca people in Cholula, Puebla.

Translated from Mesoamerican Research Foundation (n.d.), Mapa de Cuauhtínchan II, available at http://mesoamerica.info/mapa-de-cuautinchan-II.

The cultural construction of experience and perception has been a topic of interest among scholars working in Mesoamerica for decades. Archaeological remains, art, ancient and historic textual sources, and ethnographic observations complement and inform one another in those investigations, many of which stress the particular conceptions of bodies, sensorial hierarchies, and lived experiences across the culturally and linguistically connected region extending geographically from northern Mexico to Costa Rica. This chapter provides an overview of sensorial studies in Mesoamerica that highlights the rich and diverse evidence available. It emphasizes a diachronic, comparative approach, common in Mesoamericanist archaeology, which forces scholars to go beyond the identification of specific stimuli on discrete senses and enables them to study contexts of heightened synaesthetic experience, as well as those contexts’ affective and symbolic meanings. Finally, I suggest possibilities for considering an archaeology of the senses that extends beyond the limits of a singular human body in order to more fully embrace the conceptual nature of ancient Mesoamerican experience.

In this chapter, Laack analyzes a migration account visually depicted in the Mexican early colonial pictorial manuscript known as the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2. This pictographic map tells the story of a group of Aztecs leaving their primordial home, changing their social, cultural, and religious identity through migration and the passing of ordeals, and finally settling in the town of Cuauhtinchan. It is painted in the style of Aztec pictography, which used visual imagery to convey thoughts and meanings in contrast to alphabetical scripts using abstract signs for linguistic sounds. Drawing on the theories of embodied metaphors and embodied meaning by philosopher Mark L. Johnson and cognitive linguist George P. Lakoff, I argue that Aztec pictography offers efficient and effective means to communicate embodied metaphors on a visual level and evokes complex layers of embodied meaning. In doing so, I intend to change perspective on the narrative powers of religious stories by transcending textual patterns of analysis and theory building and opening up to non-linguistic modes of experience and their influence on narrative structures and strategies.

The ancient Maya and other Mesoamerican peoples showed an intense interest in invoking the senses, especially hearing, sight, and smell. The senses were flagged by graphic devices of synaesthetic or cross-sensory intent; writing and speech scrolls triggered sound, sightlines the acts and consequences of seeing, and flowery ornament indicated both scent and soul essence. As conceived anciently, the senses were projective and procreative, involving the notion of unity and shared essence in material and incorporeal realms. Among the Maya, spaces could be injected with moral and hierarchical valuation through visual fields known as y-ichnal. The inner mind extended to encompass outer worlds, in strong parallel to concepts of monism. From such evidence arises the possibility of reconstructing the phenomenology of ancient Mesoamericans.

Adapted from the preface: The Popol Vuh tells the story of the emergence of light in the darkness, from primordial glimmers to brilliant dawns, and from rain¬ storms as black as night to days so clear the very ends of the earth can be seen. A revised edition of this translation of the Popol Vuh has become necessary because the world of Mayan studies is itself a constantly brightening one. Advances in the understanding of Mayan languages, literature, art, history, politics, and astronomy have required changes in the introduction, notes, commentaries, glossary, and illustrations. There are also changes in the translation itself, some of them subtle refinements and others that readers of the previous edition may find surprising. And finally, an index has been added.”

Publisher’s note: For the Classic Maya, who flourished in and around the Yucatan peninsula in the first millennium AD, artistic materials were endowed with an internal life. Far from being inert substances, jade, flint, obsidian, and wood held a vital essence, agency, and even personality. To work with these materials was to coax their life into full expression and to engage in witty play. Writing, too, could shift from hieroglyphic signs into vibrant glyphs that sprouted torsos, hands, and feet. Appearing to sing, grapple, and feed, they effectively blurred the distinction between text and image.In this first full study of the nature of Maya materials and animism, renowned Mayanist scholar Stephen Houston provides startling insights into a Pre-Columbian worldview that dramatically contrasts with western perspectives. Illustrated with more than one hundred photographs, images, and drawings, this beautifully written book reveals the Maya quest for transcendence in the face of inevitable death and decay.”

The ancient Maya, through their shamans, kings, warriors, and scribes, created a legacy of power and enduring beauty. The landmark publication of A Forest of Kings presented the first accessible, dramatic history of this great civilization, written by experts in the translation of glyphs. Now, in Maya Cosmos, Freidel, Schele, and Parker examine Maya mythology and religion, unraveling the question of how these extraordinary people, five million strong, have managed to preserve their most sacred beliefs into modern times. In Maya Cosmos, the authors draw upon translations of sacred texts and histories spanning thousands of years to tell us a story of the Maya, not in our words but in theirs.