Sontag, Susan. Against Interpretation
2009, Penguin Modern Classics
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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirSummary: Sontag mines the history of philosophical aesthetics and art criticism for the reasons why interpretation has held us under its spell for the last two millennia. One such reason is our insistence on the form/content dichotomy and the vestigial prioritizing of content in the way we talk about art. Another reason is the discursive, and thus political, control that interpretation enables. A third reason is our willingness to sacrifice our unmediated experience of an artwork, and our sensitivity to an artist's intentions, for the sake of interpretative success. To counter these "reactionary, impertinent, cowardly, stifling" tendencies, Sontag proposes an "erotics of art" - a new emphasis on transparence, which favors description and appreciation over interpretation. This critical ethos does not only change the terms of conceptual engagement; it also opens the gates for creative approaches to art which explicitly challenge vestigial modes of meaning-making and meaning extraction. Even though Sontag does not specifically single any of these approaches out, performance art is arguably the most extreme of the potential candidates.Comment: This text offers a seminal critique of art interpretation and should be included in any course discussing interpretation and criticism.
Sorge, Carmen. The Relationship Between Bonding with Nonhuman Animals and Students’ Attitude Towards Science
2008, Society and Animals 16 (2): 171-184
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Added by: Sara PeppeAbstract: This paper examines the relationship of bonding with nonhuman animals during an interactive, animal-in-the-wild science program and the science attitudes of 358 young children between the ages of 8 and 14 Talking Talons utilizes typically wild animals such as raptors, reptiles, and bats in a school-based educational science curriculum. Qualitative data from interviews with students in the program indicated that 'bonding with animals' and the educators within the program were related to increased positive attitudes toward science. The program used quantitative methods to examine these dual relationships - with animals and with educators- on student attitude toward science. The program performed a step-wise multiple regression with 'Attitude toward Science' as the dependent variable and 'Gender,' 'Age,' and 'Bonding with Animals' as independent variables. Both 'Bonding with Animals' and 'Bonding with the Educator' contributed significantly to prediction of the participants' science attitudes. Altogether 28% of the variance in 'Science Attitude' was predicted by both 'Gender' and 'Age' , 'Bonding with Animals' and 'Bonding with Educator'. Bonding with the animals had a large quantifiable relationship with student attitudes toward science.Comment: This article is about the theme of 'bonding with animals' during a science programme. It is highly recommended for intermediate readers who have some knowledge about the main topic of the article.
Spaulding, Shannon. Imagination, Desire, and Rationality
2015, Journal of Philosophy 112 (9):457-476 (2015)
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Added by: Andrea BlomqvistAbstract: We often have affective responses to fictional events. We feel afraid for Desdemona when Othello approaches her in a murderous rage. We feel disgust toward Iago for orchestrating this tragic event. What mental architecture could explain these affective responses? In this paper I consider the claim that the best explanation of our affective responses to fiction involves imaginative desires. Some theorists argue that accounts that do not invoke imaginative desires imply that consumers of fiction have irrational desires. I argue that there are serious worries about imaginative desires that warrant skepticism about the adequacy of the account. Moreover, it is quite difficult to articulate general principles of rationality for desires, and even according to the most plausible of these possible principles, desires about fiction are not irrational.Comment: This would function well as a required reading in a week on why we have emotional reactions to fiction, probably in a course for senior undergraduate students. It is suitable for a philosophy of fiction module.
Spencer, Quayshawn. A radical solution to the Race problem
2014, Philosophy of Science 81 (5):1025-1038
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Anonymous
Abstract: It has become customary among philosophers and biologists to claim that folk racial classification has no biological basis. This paper attempts to debunk that view. In this paper, I show that ‘race’, as used in current U.S. race talk, picks out a biologically real entity. I do this by, first, showing that ‘race’, in this use, is not a kind term, but a proper name for a set of human population groups. Next, using recent human genetic clustering results, I show that this set of human population groups is a partition of human populations that I call ‘the Blumenbach partition’.
Comment: This is a great paper to use for teaching metaphysics of race
Sreenivasan, Gopal. Justice, Inequality, and Health
2009, E. N. Zalta (ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy [electronic resource]
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Added by: Simon FoktContent: Sreenivasan asks: 'what makes a health inequality an injustice, when it is one? Do <em>health</em> inequalities have some significance in justice that differs from other important inequalities? Or is the injustice of an unjust inequality in health simply due to the application of general principles of equality and justice to the case of health?'Comment: This text offers a good introduction to the problem of justice in healthcare and social justice in general. The text is best used as required reading in medical ethics classes, and as further reading in moral and political philosophy classes focusing on justice.
Sreenivasan, Gopal. Disunity of Virtue
2009, Journal of Ethics 13 (2-2):195 - 212.
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Added by: Simon FoktAbstract: This paper argues against the unity of the virtues, while trying to salvage some of its attractive aspects. I focus on the strongest argument for the unity thesis, which begins from the premise that true virtue cannot lead its possessor morally astray. I suggest that this premise presupposes the possibility of completely insulating an agent’s set of virtues from any liability to moral error. I then distinguish three conditions that separately foreclose this possibility, concentrating on the proposition that there is more to morality than virtue alone—that is, not all moral considerations are ones to which some virtue is characteristically sensitive. If the virtues are not unified, the situationist critique of virtue ethics also turns out to be more difficult to establish than some have supposed.Comment: This paper offers a discussion of some strong objections against virtue ethics, and as such it is best used to support modules focusing on this neo-Aristotelian view. Further, it addresses problems which seem to follow from empirical research into virtues and character, which makes it particularly useful in teaching students who tend to confuse moral psychology and philosophy.
Sreenivasan, Gopal. A Human Right to Health? Some Inconclusive Scepticism
2012, Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 86 (1):239-265.
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Added by: Simon FoktAbstract: This paper offers four arguments against a moral human right to health, two denying that the right exists and two denying that it would be very useful (even if it did exist). One of my sceptical arguments is familiar, while the other is not.The unfamiliar argument is an argument from the nature of health. Given a realistic view of health production, a dilemma arises for the human right to health. Either a state's moral duty to preserve the health of its citizens is not justifiably aligned in relation to the causes of health or it does not correlate with the human right to health. It follows that no one holds a justified moral human right to health against the state.Education and herd immunity against infectious disease both illustrate this dilemma. In the former case, the state's moral duty correlates with the human right to health only if it demands too much from a cause of health; and in the latter, only if it demands nothing from a cause of health (that is, too little).Comment: Useful in teaching on distributive justice in medicine or medical ethics in general. Can also be used as further reading in political and moral philosophy modules on human rights.
Srinivasan, Amia. Does Anyone Have the Right to Sex?
2018, London Review of Books, 40 (6): 5-10.
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Nadia MehdiAbstract:
Srinivasan attempts to address the question of how we are able to dwell in the ambivalent place where we acknowledge that no one is obligated to desire anyone else, that no one has a right to be desired, but also that who is desired and who isn’t is a political question, a question usually answered by more general patterns of domination and exclusion.Comment: This text is an insightful call to bring discussions of sexual consent back to a politics of desire. It would make a great addition to syllabi covering the philosophy of sex.
Srinivasan, Amia. Feminism and Metaethics
2016, in Mcpherson, Tristram and Plunkett, David (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, Routledge 2016
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Added by: Giada FratantonioAbstract: Feminism is first and foremost a political project: a project aimed at the liberation of women and the destruction of patriarchy. This project does not have a particular metaethics; there is no feminist consensus, for example, on the epistemology of moral belief or the metaphysics of moral truth. But the work of feminist philosophers - that is, philosophers who identify with the political project of feminism, and moreover see that political project as informing their philosophical work - raises significant metaethical questions: about the need to rehabilitate traditional moral philosophy, about the extent to which political and moral considerations can play a role in philosophical theorizing, and about the importance of rival metaethical conceptions for first-order political practice. I discuss some of the contributions that feminist philosophy makes to each of these questions in turn. I hope to call attention to the way in which feminist thought bears on traditional topics in metaethics (particularly moral epistemology and ethical methodology) but also to how feminist thought might inform metaethical practice itself.Comment: The author discusses some contributions that feminist philosophy can make to some questions on metaethics. Can be used for a course on feminism.
Srinivasan, Amia. The Aptness of Anger
2018, Journal of Political Philosophy, 26 (2):123-144
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Lizzy VenthamAbstract: This paper argues that anger has an important role in political life. By not recognising this, we risk neglecting groups for whom anger is appropriate, and who have never been allowed to be angry.Comment: This paper is a great conversation starter about the place of anger in political philosophy. It provides original arguments that can go against a lot of students' initial intuitions on the topic, so can be a great way to start discussion and debate. I'd use it on classes on politics, feminism, or applied ethics.
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