In this article, I propose the hypothesis that in contemporary western normative motherhood, pregnancy and (early) motherhood are often perceived as a temporary fit of bewilderment, both physically, psychologically and socially. I introduce the metaphor of the emergency lane to express this state of exception. Mothers are granted temporary relief from certain expectations. However, the need to get back in shape and back to work – the need to leave the emergency lane – quickly, preferably unharmed, reveals the assumption that mothers in that early period are not fully regarded as people. Drawing on insights from maternal and critical disability scholars I argue that these norms are deeply ableist and affect all mothers. Moreover, I suggest that postponed motherhood might be linked to the fear of this emergency lane, and I use the decline theory, a concept from ageing studies, to make this argument.
Attentional discrimination and victim testimony
Sometimes, a form of discrimination is hard to register,
understand, and articulate. A rich precedent demonstrates
how victim testimonies have been key in uncovering such
“hidden” forms of discrimination, from sexual harassment to
microaggressions. I reflect on how this plausibly goes too for
“attentional discrimination”, referring to cases where the
more meaningful attributes of one social group are made
salient in attention in contrast to the less meaningful attributes
of another. Victim testimonies understandably dominate
the “context-of-discovery” stage of research into these
initially opaque forms of discrimination; a victim’s encounter
with the gap between their experience and dominant conceptual
frameworks for understanding it is what provides an
initial foothold for analysis to begin. Some object, however,
to this methodology continuing to dominate the later “context-of-justification”
stage, where the hypothesis is rigorously
challenged. I argue that this objection underestimates not
just how other methodologies are more likely to inherit the
various mechanisms of invisibility hiding the discrimination
in question, but also how victim testimonies are distinctively
well-suited to recognize and challenge those mechanisms.
Victim testimonies, then, ought to continue playing
a dominant role into these later stages of research regarding
hidden forms of discrimination.
Japanese Provides a New Relation between Language and the Real World
In Categories and On Interpretation, Aristotle develops his view on the relation between language and the real world. However, there exist in Japanese words conflicting with the idea. This paper argues that each of the four formal classes of lexically meaningful elements of Japanese defined on their combinability with the nominative case and the tense markers consistently corresponds to the divisions of reality, and shows that the relation of words to the world cannot be predicted from their use in a sentence. Under this analysis, Aristotle’s idea, which is based on the “omoma-rhema” distinction, from which the universal “noun-verb” distinction originates, is thrown into a question.
Considerations on Logical Consequence and Natural Language
In a recent article, “Logical Consequence and Natural Language”, Michael Glanzberg claims that there is no relation of logical consequence in natural language (2015). The present paper counters that claim. I shall discuss Glanzberg’s arguments and show why they don’t hold. I further show how Glanzberg’s claims may be used to rather support the existence of logical consequence in natural language.
On the Structure of Scientific Inquiry
The object of this paper is the study, in some of its aspects, of the structure of scientific inquiry. The subject is a large one and covers the major part of the field of scientific methodology. We shall confine our attention more particularly to the consideration of those problems of scientific structure which occur in the case of more advanced sciences and merely outline the corresponding problems which occur primarily in sciences in the more elementary stage
Epistemic Trouble for Engineering ‘Woman’
This paper puts forth a functionalist difficulty for Sally Haslanger’s proposal for engineering our concept of ‘woman.’ It is argued that the project of bringing about better political function fulfillment cannot get off the ground in virtue of epistemic failure.
New Words for Old Wrongs
This paper begins with the idea that there are sometimes gaps in our shared linguistic/conceptual resources that make it difficult for us to understand our own social experiences, and to make them intelligible to others. In this paper, I focus on three cases of this sort, some of which are drawn from the literature on hermeneutical injustice. I offer a diagnosis of what the gaps in these cases consist in, and what it takes to fill them. I argue that these gaps are filled in, at least initially, by labels of a particular kind. Specifically, these are labels that allow us to see the experiences in question as novel instances of phenomena with which we are already normatively familiar. Further, I also show that these labels bring with them important downsides: they introduce distortions into our understandings of these experiences. Using a pair of case studies (‘statutory rape,’ ‘sexual harassment’), I illustrate these distortions.
Political Rioting: A Moral Assessment
Avia Pasternak offers a moral assessment of political rioting, focusing on cases like the riots over the police killing of Freddie Gray in Baltimore in 2015 and the 2005 French Banlieu riots. As she notes, there are two common responses to such cases: that rioters are just the same as common criminals, or that rioters are morally worse than common criminals. In response, Pasternak develops an analysis of political rioting as a form of “spontaneous, disorganized, public collective violence in order to protest against and to defy [the] political order” (2). In her view, political rioting ought to be understood as a form of defensive harm–harm inflicted in order to avert an attack, as in justified cases of self-defence or just wars. Those who engage in political rioting, Pasternak argues, “do so in order to bring an end, or at least to ameliorate their on-going unjust treatment at the hands of their state. It follows then that in determining the appropriate moral response to rioters, we ought to examine their actions in light of the various constraints offered by just war theorists” (3). Pasternak focuses on three such constraints: necessity, success, and proportionality. And she argues that, objections to the contrary notwithstanding, “under circumstances that are not far from those we find in some real-world democracies, the resort to political rioting can comply with the criteria of permissible defensive harm” (4).
Cognitive Transformation, Dementia, and the Moral Weigh of Advance Directives
Dementia patients in the moderate-late stage of the disease can, and often do, express different preferences than they did at the onset of their condition. The received view in the philosophical literature argues that advance directives which prioritize the patient’s preferences at onset ought to be given decisive moral weight in medical decision-making. Clinical practice, on the other hand, favors giving moral weight to the preferences expressed by dementia patients after onset. The purpose of this article is to show that the received view in the philosophical literature is inadequate and is out of touch with real clinical practice. I argue that having dementia is a cognitive transformative experience and that preference changes which result from this are legitimate and ought to be given moral weight in medical decision-making. This argument ought to encourage us to reduce our confidence in the moral weight of advance directives for dementia patients.
The Limit of Language in Daoism
The paper is concerned with the development of the paradoxical theme of Daoism. Based on Chad Hansen’s interpretation of Daoism and Chinese philosophy in general, it traces the history of Daoism by following their treatment of the limit of language. The Daoists seem to have noticed that there is a limit to what language can do and that the limit of language is paradoxical. The ‘theoretical’ treatment of the paradox of the limit of language matures as Daoism develops. Yet the Daoists seem to have noticed that the limit of language and its paradoxical nature cannot be overcome. At the end, we are left with the paradoxes of the Daoists. In this paper, we jump into the abyss of the Daoists’ paradoxes from which there is no escape. But the Daoists’ paradoxes are fun!