Gilligan, Carol. Moral orientation and moral development
1987, In Eva Feder Kittay & Diana T. Meyers (eds.), Women and Moral Theory. Rowman & Littlefield 19-23.
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Added by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: When one looks at an ambiguous figure like the drawing that can be seen as a young or old woman, or the image of the vase and the faces, one initially sees it in only one way. Yet even after seeing it in both ways, one way often seems more compelling. This phenomenon reflects the laws of perceptual organization that favor certain modes of visual grouping. But it also suggests a tendency to view reality as unequivocal and thus to argue that there is one right or better way of seeing. Diversifying Syllabi: Gilligan argues that there are two “moral perspectives” that individuals can take when making moral judgments. The “justice” perspective has been associated with men and is (traditionally) taken as paradigmatic of mature moral reasoning. The “care” perspective, on the other hand, is associated with women, and is taken (by psychologists of the time) as a less mature form of moral reasoning. She argues against this view, and suggests that both perspectives are valuable. Though an individual may only be able to take on one perspective at a given time, they are not mutually exclusive, nor is one better than the other.Comment : Diversifying Syllabi: Gilligan argues that there are two “moral perspectives” that individuals can take when making moral judgments. The “justice” perspective has been associated with men and is (traditionally) taken as paradigmatic of mature moral reasoning. The “care” perspective, on the other hand, is associated with women, and is taken (by psychologists of the time) as a less mature form of moral reasoning. She argues against this view, and suggests that both perspectives are valuable. Though an individual may only be able to take on one perspective at a given time, they are not mutually exclusive, nor is one better than the other.Glaude, Eddie S.. In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America2007, University of Chicago Press.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Bart Schultz
Publisher's Note: In this timely book, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., one of our nation's rising young African American intellectuals, makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past. Central to Glaude's mission is a rehabilitation of philosopher John Dewey, whose ideas, he argues, can be fruitfully applied to a renewal of African American politics. According to Glaude, Dewey's pragmatism, when attentive to the darker dimensions of life - or what we often speak of as the blues - can address many of the conceptual problems that plague contemporary African American discourse. How blacks think about themselves, how they imagine their own history, and how they conceive of their own actions can be rendered in ways that escape bad ways of thinking that assume a tendentious political unity among African Americans simply because they are black, or that short-circuit imaginative responses to problems confronting actual black people. Drawing deeply on black religious thought and literature, In a Shade of Blue seeks to dislodge such crude and simplistic thinking, and replace it with a deeper understanding of and appreciation for black life in all its variety and intricacy. Only when black political leaders acknowledge such complexity, Glaude argues, can the real-life sufferings of many African Americans be remedied. Heady, inspirational, and brimming with practical wisdom, In a Shade of Blue is a remarkable work of political commentary on a scale rarely seen today. To follow its trajectory is to learn how African Americans arrived at this critical moment in their history and to envision where they might head in the twenty-first centuryComment : A really terrific, historically sophisticated work that highlights how philosophical pragmatism can be developed in connection with critical race theory.Goldberg, RoseLee. Identities: Feminism, Multiculturalism, Sexuality2004, In: Performance: Live Art Since the 60's. New York: Thames & Hudson. 128-145.-
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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov
Summary: Goldberg provides a richly illustrated historical account of the intimate connection between identity and performance art. Starting from the feminist art of the 1960's, the recognition and assertion of identity was a fundamental bid for social visibility. The next frontier was social recognition, which concerned ethnic and sexual minorities as much as it did women. The final frontier - political equality - is one that is still out of reach. Still, according to Goldberg, performance art continues to chart new territories of identification. In fact, while at the outset performance art used early feminist writing as inspiration, Goldberg recognizes a gradual reversal - today's feminists are as likely to chart new philosophical directions as they are to follow the exploratory charge of their performance art counterparts.Comment : This text provides a historical background on the relationship between identity politics and art. It would be useful in classes on performance art, on the social context of art, as well as classes focusing on philosophy or race, gender and sexuality and ways to achieve social visibility.Gonzalez-Arnal, Stella. Personal identity and transsexual narratives2012, in Gonzalez-Arnal, S., Jagger, Gi., and Lennon, K. (eds) Embodied Selves. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 66-83-
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Added by: Adriana Alcaraz Sanchez and Jodie RussellAbstract:
In this article, Gonzalez-Arnal challenges Susan James' embodied conception of personal identity by analysing transexual narratives. According to Gonzalez-Arnal, James' account cannot fully capture the experience of transexual persons since they describe the continuity of their personal (but also gender) identity despite significant changes in their bodies. Gonzalez-Arnal examines how other two theories of personal identity, a reductionist and a dualist one, might provide a better picture of the transexual narratives. After concluding that none the reductionist nor the dualist account does much better than an embodied view of personal identity, Gonzalez-Arnal proposes an improvement to James' view that accommodates transexual experiences, namely, acknowledging the integration of the "inner" self and other's perception of one's body in shaping one's "outer self".Comment (from this Blueprint): This article would be a good pairing to support the reading of James' "The Question on Personal Identity" (2002). In this article, Gonzalez-Arnal presents a compelling counter-example to James' argument that her theory should be preferred over psychological theories on personal identity given the role of embodiment on personal identity. According to James, mainstream thought experiments involving body swaps rarely discuss cases involving two bodies of different gender because they, intuitively, do not bring us to believe that Person A would survive a body swap with a Person B of different gender. Gonzalez-Arnal challenges James' argumentation by presenting the example of transsexuality by showing that their personal identity is preserved even though significant changes in their body take place.Griffioen, Amber, Mohammad Sadegh Zahedi. Medieval Christian and Islamic Mysticism and the Problem of a “Mystical Ethics”2019, In: T. Williams, ed. 2019. Cambridge Companion to Medieval Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ch. 13.-
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Added by: Francesca Bruno
Abstract: In this chapter, we examine a few potential problems when inquiring into the ethics of medieval Christian and Islamic mystical traditions: First, there are terminological and methodological worries about defining mysticism and doing comparative philosophy in general. Second, assuming that the Divine represents the highest Good in such traditions, and given the apophaticism on the part of many mystics in both religions, there is a question of whether or not such traditions can provide a coherent theory of value. Finally, the antinomian tendencies and emphasis on passivity of some mystics might lead one to wonder whether their prescriptive exhortations can constitute a coherent theory of right action. We tackle each of these concerns in turn and discuss how they might be addressed, in an attempt to show how medieval mysticism, as a fundamentally practical enterprise, deserves more attention from practical and moral philosophy than it has thus far received.Comment : This paper would work well as a secondary/overview reading in a course on medieval ethics, with a section on mysticism, focusing on mystic women or comparing different religious traditions (such as Christian and Islamic). For example, the course could focus on the topics of virtue and happiness, including the views of St. Augustine, Aquinas, Avicenna, Maimonides, and women mystics (such as Mechthild of Magderburg).Guen Hart, Carroll. “Power in the service of love”: John Dewey’s Logic and the Dream of a Common Language1993, Hypatia 8 (2):190-214-
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Added by: Franci MangravitiAbstract:
While contemporary feminist philosophical discussions focus on the oppressiveness of universality which obliterates “difference,” the complete demise of universality might hamper feminist philosophy in its political project of furthering the well-being of all women. Dewey's thoroughly functionalized, relativized, and fallibilized understanding of universality may help us cut universality down to size while also appreciating its limited contribution. Deweyan universality may signify the ongoing search for a genuinely common language in the midst of difference.
Comment : available in this BlueprintGuenther, Lisa. Solitary Confinement: Social Death and its Afterlives2013, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: Prolonged solitary confinement has become a widespread and standard practice in U.S. prisons - even though it consistently drives healthy prisoners insane, makes the mentally ill sicker, and, according to the testimony of prisoners, threatens to reduce life to a living death. In this profoundly important and original book, Lisa Guenther examines the death-in-life experience of solitary confinement in America from the early nineteenth century to today's supermax prisons. Documenting how solitary confinement undermines prisoners' sense of identity and their ability to understand the world, Guenther demonstrates the real effects of forcibly isolating a person for weeks, months, or years. -/- Drawing on the testimony of prisoners and the work of philosophers and social activists from Edmund Husserl and Maurice Merleau-Ponty to Frantz Fanon and Angela Davis, the author defines solitary confinement as a kind of social death. It argues that isolation exposes the relational structure of being by showing what happens when that structure is abused - when prisoners are deprived of the concrete relations with others on which our existence as sense-making creatures depends. Solitary confinement is beyond a form of racial or political violence; it is an assault on being.Comment : This text serves as both a clear introduction to the history of punishment and imprisonment in the United States, as well as a clear introduction to phenomenological method. Portions of the text on the experience of social death in solitary confinement would make excellent additions to introductory courses on prisons and punishment. Some chapters would also be fitting on classes concerning race and mass incarceration.Guenther, Lisa. Critical Phenomenology2019, In 50 Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, ed. Gail Weiss, Ann Murphy and Gayle Salamon. Northwestern University Press, pp. 11-16-
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Added by: Tomasz Zyglewicz, Shannon Brick, Michael GreerAbstract:
Phenomenology, the philosophical method that seeks to uncover the taken-for-granted presuppositions, habits, and norms that structure everyday experience, is increasingly framed by ethical and political concerns. Critical phenomenology foregrounds experiences of marginalization, oppression, and power in order to identify and transform common experiences of injustice that render “the familiar” a site of oppression for many. In Fifty Concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, leading scholars present fresh readings of classic phenomenological topics and introduce newer concepts developed by feminist theorists, critical race theorists, disability theorists, and queer and trans theorists that capture aspects of lived experience that have traditionally been neglected. By centering historically marginalized perspectives, the chapters in this book breathe new life into the phenomenological tradition and reveal its ethical, social, and political promise. This volume will be an invaluable resource for teaching and research in continental philosophy; feminist, gender, and sexuality studies; critical race theory; disability studies; cultural studies; and critical theory more generally.Comment (from this Blueprint): Lisa Guenther, author of the 2015 book "Solidarity Confinement: Social Death and its Afterlives," gives a quick overview of "critical phenomenology" and how it is different from classical phenomenology. The boundaries of critical phenomenology are still being drawn, but Guenther's concise explanation has already become canon. Understanding, in broad brush strokes, what critical phenomenology is will be important to engage with many conversations on feminist philosophy, especially in the continental tradition, since feminist theorists (inspired by Simone de Beavoir and Frantz Fanon) often appeal to lived experience in their theorizing of oppression.Haddock-Seigfried, Charlene. Pragmatism and Feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric1996, University of Chicago Press-
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, Contributed by: Quentin PharrPublisher’s Note:
Though many pioneering feminists were deeply influenced by American pragmatism, their contemporary followers have generally ignored that tradition because of its marginalization by a philosophical mainstream intent on neutral analyses devoid of subjectivity. In this revealing work, Charlene Haddock Seigfried effectively reunites two major social and philosophical movements, arguing that pragmatism, because of its focus on the emancipatory potential of everyday experiences, offers feminism its most viable and powerful philosophical foundation. With careful attention to their interwoven histories and contemporary concerns, Pragmatism and Feminism effectively invigorates both traditions, opening them to new interpretations and appropriations and asserting their timely philosophical relevance. This foundational work in feminist theory simultaneously invites and guides future scholarship in an area of rapidly emerging significance.Comment : This text is the perfect introduction to the history of how feminism influenced pragmatism, and vice versa, and how pragmatism can still offer a viable philosophical foundation for feminism. So, for students who are interested in both topics, they would do well to read this text. It offers a number of great quotations from early female and African-American proponents of pragmatism, and it also outlines a rich feminist perspective, grounded in a pragmatic outlook, on how to do philosophy and think about society in general.Hanson, Karen. Dressing down Dressing up – The Philosophic Fear of Fashion1990, Hypatia 5 (2):107 - 121.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Abstract: There is, to all appearances, a philosophic hostility to fashionable dress. Studying this contempt, this paper examines likely sources in philosophy's suspicion of change; anxiety about surfaces and the inessential; failures in the face of death; and the philosophic disdain for, denial of, the human body and human passivity. If there are feminist concerns about fashion, they should be radically different from those of traditional philosophy. Whatever our ineluctable worries about desire and death, whatever our appropriate anger and impatience with the merely superficial, whatever our genuine need to mark off the serious from the trivial, feminism may be a corrective therapy for philosophy's bad humor and self-deception, as these manifest themselves when the subject turns to beautiful clothes.Can’t find it?Contribute the texts you think should be here and we’ll add them soon!
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