In the early 1980s, U.S. universities began regulating sexual relationships between professors and students. Such regulations are routinely justified by a rationale drawn from sexual-harassment law in the employment context: the power differential between professor and student precludes the possibility of genuine consent on the student’s part. This rationale is problematic, as feminists in the 1980s first observed, for its protectionist and infantilizing attitude toward (generally) women students. But it is also problematic in that it fails to register what is truly ethically troubling about consensual professor-student sex. A professor’s having sex with his student constitutes a pedagogical failure: that is, a failure to satisfy the duties that arise from the practice of teaching. What is more, much consensual professor-student sex constitutes a patriarchal failure: such relationships often feed on, and reinforce, women’s second-class standing in higher education. As such, these relationships can thwart the legal right of women students, under Title IX, to exist in the university on equal terms with their male counterparts. Whether or not we should ultimately favor such an interpretation of Title IX—whether or not, that is, it would render campuses ultimately more equal for women and other marginalized people—it is clear that university professors need to attend more carefully to the sexual ethics of their own practice.
Ethical Necessities
In this paper I introduce my work in ethics, inviting others to draw on my approach to address the ethical issues that concern them. I set up the Centre for Ethical Philosophy at Durham University in 2007 to plug a puzzling gap in philosophical work to help us help the world. In 1. I set out ethical philosophy. In 2. I consider some implications, for example, that to do good we must pay much more attention to the beings around us, less to ourselves. In 3. I consider the implications for how we should think about war and peace. In 4. I draw out some implications for good political practice. In 5. I consider objections and conclude.
Needs-Centred Ethical Theory
Our aims in this paper are: (1) to indicate some of the many ways in which needs are an important part of the moral landscape, (2) to show that the dominant contemporary moral theories cannot adequately capture the moral significance of needs, indeed, that the dominant theories are inadequate to the extent that they cannot accommodate the insights which attention to needs yield, (3) to offer some sketches that should be helpful to future cartographers charting the domain of morally significant needs, and (4) to consider some anticipated objections to our project and offer some replies.
Does a Basic Needs Approach Require Capabilities?
In this article I consider criticisms of the basic needs approach (BNA) made by capability theorists, and argue that BNA can meet them all. I conclude that BNA has been unfairlycriticised and too hastily displaced by the capability approach (CA). This raises a further question: whatshould be done? My hope is that defenders of BNA will be encouraged to revivetheir approach by these arguments, and that defenders of CA will be encouragedto reconsider and modify or withdraw their criticisms.
Etiquette: A Confucian Contribution to Moral Philosophy
The early Confucians recognize that the exchanges and experiences of quotidian life profoundly shape moral attitudes, moral self-understanding, and our prospects for robust moral community. Confucian etiquette aims to provide a form of moral training that can render learners equal to the moral work of ordinary life, inculcating appropriate cognitive-emotional dispositions, as well as honing social perception and bodily expression. In both their astute attention to prosaic behavior and the techniques they suggest for managing it, I argue, the Confucians afford a model useful for appropriation in contemporary efforts to address small but potent moral harms such as microinequities
Moral Testimony and Collective Moral Governance
I suggest that a moderate version of pessimism about moral testimony succeeds. However, I claim also that all major pessimist accounts—Understanding, Affect, Virtue, and Autonomy—fail. Having argued for these claims, I propose a new pessimist alternative.
Those Who Fly Without Wings: Depictions of the Supreme Ideal Figure in the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi
In pre-Qin Chinese canonical texts, the supreme ideal figure with impeccable virtue and wisdom is usually referred to as the Sage (sheng 聖 or shengren 聖人). The Zhuangzi, however, is an exception. In this famous Daoist text, the supreme ideal has been referred to, in different contexts, as a Perfect Person (zhiren, 至人), a Daemonic Person (shenren, 神人), or an Authentic Person (zhenren, 真人), in addition to the Sage. Most scholars, when discussing the meanings of these terms, treat them as synonyms used by the author(s) of the Zhuangzi to designate the same figure. Very few scholars believe that they refer to four different types of ideal figures with different levels of perfection. In this article, I will first focus on depictions of the Sage, the Perfect Person, the Daemonic Person, and the Authentic Person in the Inner Chapters of the Zhuangzi to see whether they are used by the author to refer to the same or four different levels of a supreme ideal figure. I will then move on to discuss Zhuangzi’s art of writing as manifested in these depictions. The interpretive strategy I adopt is that of close reading with an eye to addressing the larger issues around the Inner Chapters in early Chinese culture.
The State of the Field Report IX: Contemporary Chinese Studies of Zhuangzian Wang (Forgetting)
The use of the character wang 忘 (forgetting) in the Zhuangzi 莊子 has been widely recognized in traditional and contemporary Chinese scholarship, but its meaning remains unclear. This article reviews some notable studies in Sinophone academia concerning the notion of wang in the Zhuangzi. The studies, though not necessarily focused on wang, shed light on different aspects of the concept, including its relation to self-cultivation, aesthetics, ethics, and ontology. While some scholars see wang as a form of elimination, others stress its relation to other concepts such as shi 適 (fitting). The relation of these two concepts, however, is not yet clear. There are also debates over what makes wang possible, with some linking it to dao 道 and some directing our attention to our daily experience. Despite the limited attention paid to wang to date, the studies reviewed show that it is a crucial aspect of Zhuangzian philosophy and deserves further study.
“Early Daoist Philosophy: Dao, Language and Society”.
This chapter – taken from the first edition of An Introduction to Chinese Philosophy – presents a comprehensive introduction to key ideas and arguments in early Daoist philosophy.
Twelve Feminists and Philosophy
This chapter reviews the book A Mind of One’s Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity (1993), by Louise B. Antony and Charlotte Witt. The appeal to reason and objectivity amounts to a request that the observer refuses to be intimidated by habit, and look for cogent arguments based on evidence that has been carefully sifted for bias. In our own society the arguments of feminists make such appeals to reason and objectivity all the time, and in a manner that closely resembles Platonic arguments. And yet today reason and objectivity are on the defensive in some feminist circles. We are frequently told that reason and objectivity are norms created by “patriarchy,” and that to appeal to them is to succumb to the blandishments of the oppressor. We are told that systems of reasoning are systems of domination, and that to adopt the traditional one is thus to be co-opted. A Mind of One’s Own is a collection of essays by women who are prominent in philosophy today and who wish to confront recent feminist criticisms of philosophy. Most of the contributors are under fifty and widely respected; most grew up with strong political ties to feminism.