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Mac, Juno, Molly Smith. Revolting Prostitutes: The Fight for Sex Workers’ Rights
2018, Verso Books

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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Rosa Vince

Publisher's Note: Do you have to think that prostitution is good to support sex worker rights? How do sex worker rights fit with feminist and anti-capitalist politics? Is criminalising clients progressive—and can the police deliver justice? In Revolting Prostitutes, sex workers Juno Mac and Molly Smith bring a fresh perspective to questions that have long been contentious. Speaking from a growing global sex worker rights movement, and situating their argument firmly within wider questions of migration, work, feminism, and resistance to white supremacy, they make clear that anyone committed to working towards justice and freedom should be in support of the sex worker rights movement.

Comment: This text is essential for any course in feminism, philosophy of sex, oppression and resistance, epistemic injustice, which discuss sex work or labour rights movements.

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Mackenzie, Catriona (ed.), Stoljar, Natalie (ed.). Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Automony, Agency, and the Social Self
2000, Oxford University Press.

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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa

Publisher's Note: This collection of original essays explores the social and relational dimensions of individual autonomy. Rejecting the feminist charge that autonomy is inherently masculinist, the contributors draw on feminist critiques of autonomy to challenge and enrich contemporary philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility. The essays analyze the complex ways in which oppression can impair an agent's capacity for autonomy, and investigate connections, neglected by standard accounts, between autonomy and other aspects of the agent, including self-conception, self-worth, memory, and the imagination.

Comment: All but one of the papers in this volume are writtn by underrepresented authors.

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MacKinnon, Catharine A.. Are Women Human?: and other international dialogues
2006, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Bart Schultz

Abstract: More than half a century after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defined what a human being is and is entitled to, Catharine MacKinnon asks: Are women human yet? If women were regarded as human, would they be sold into sexual slavery worldwide; veiled, silenced, and imprisoned in homes; bred, and worked as menials for little or no pay; stoned for sex outside marriage or burned within it; mutilated genitally, impoverished economically, and mired in illiteracy--all as a matter of course and without effective recourse?

Comment: An excellent collection of essays by MacKinnon that includes some of her critiques of Foucauldian social constructionism.

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Macklin, Ruth. Cloning and Public Policy
2002, In Justine Burley & John Harris (eds.), A companion to genethics. Blackwell. pp. 206-215.

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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt

Abstract: It seemed like only minutes after a team of Scottish scientists announced, in late February 1997, that they had successfully cloned a sheep, that governmental officials and private citizens throughout the world called for a ban on cloning human beings. The rush to legislate or issue executive orders was so swift, it is reasonable to wonder why the news that a mammal had been cloned ignited such a stampede to prohibit, even criminalize, attempts to clone humans. These events raise a series of separate, yet related questions. Why does the prospect of cloning human beings incite such strong reactions? What reasons have been proposed for enacting national laws or international conventions to prohibit cloning? Can these prohibitions be justified by sound ethical arguments? Before attempting to answer these questions, let us look first at the responses that called for public policy measures to ban human cloning.

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Maclean, Anne. The Elimination of Morality: Reflections on Utilitarianism and Bioethics
1993, Routledge.

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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt

Publisher's Note: The Elimination of Morality poses a fundamental challenge to the dominant conception of medical ethics. In this controversial and timely study, Anne Maclean addresses the question of what kind of contribution philosophers can make to the discussion of medico-moral issues and the work of health care professionals. She establishes the futility of bioethics by challenging the conception of reason in ethics which is integral to the utilitarian tradition. She argues that a philosophical training confers no special authority to make pronouncements about moral issues, and proposes that pure utilitarianism eliminates the essential ingredients of moral thinking. Maclean also exposes the inadequacy of a utilitarian account of moral reasoning and moral life, dismissing the claim that reason demands the rejection of special obligations. She argues that the utilitarian drive to reduce rational moral judgment to a single form is ultimately destructive of moral judgment as such. This vital discussion of the nature of medical ethics and moral philosophy will be important reading for anyone interested in the fields of health care ethics and philosophy.

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Maracle, Lee. I Am Woman: A Native Perspective on Sociology and Feminism
2002, Press Gang Publishers, Canada.

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Added by: Sonja Dobroski and Quentin Pharr
Publisher’s Note:
I Am Woman represents my personal struggle with womanhood, culture, traditional spiritual beliefs and political sovereignty, written during a time when that struggle was not over. My original intention was to empower Native women to take to heart their own personal struggle for Native feminist being. The changes made in this second edition of the text do not alter my original intention. It remains my attempt to present a Native woman's sociological perspective on the impacts of colonialism on us, as women, and on my self personally.

Comment:
available in this Blueprint

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McKay, Ailsa. Promoting Gender Equity Through a Basic Income
2013, In Karl Widerquist (ed.), Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research. Wiley Blackwell

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Added by: Deryn Mair Thomas
Abstract:
Basic Income: An Anthology of Contemporary Research presents a compilation of six decades of Basic Income literature. It includes the most influential empirical research and theoretical arguments on all aspects of the Basic Income proposal.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This text presents several interesting feminist arguments in favour of basic income, while offering some novel criticisms about the way 'work' is typically conceptualised in traditional UBI debates. In particular, McKay points out that most UBI discussion disregards unpaid work, which has a variety of impliciations for gendered labour and class division. Therefore, it can be used, first, to engage students with literature at the intersection of feminist philosophy, philosophy of gender, and philosophy of work; and second, to further discuss philosophical questions concerning how we conceptualise work and what happens when certain forms of work are prioritsed over others.

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McLean, Sheila. A Patient’s Right to Know: Information Disclosure, the Doctor and the Law
1995, Aldershot: Dartmouth.

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Added by: Simon Fokt
Publisher’s Note:

Comment: This volume addresses issues concerning the rights of patients. Particular issues examined include the patient's right to consent to or refuse treatment, and issues related to valid consent and its dependence on information, including full details regarding the risks associated with a particular course of treatment. Useful as further reading in applied ethics classes, or in any moral or political philosophy teaching related to consent. Additionally, can be useful in discussions on the differences and similarities between the moral and legal approaches to the issue of consent.

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McPherson, Lionel K.. Is Terrorism Distinctively Wrong?
2007, Ethics 117(3): 524-546.

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Added by: Helen Morley

Introduction: Many people, including philosophers, believe that terrorism is necessarily and egregiously wrong. I will call this “the dominant view.” The dominant view maintains that terrorism is akin to murder. This forecloses the possibility that terrorism, under any circumstances, could be morally permissible—murder, by definition, is wrongful killing. The unqualified wrongness of terrorism is thus part of this understanding of terrorism. I will criticize the dominant view. Some philosophers have argued that terrorism might not be impermissible on either a rights‐based or a consequentialist analysis. But I will not pursue the question of whether terrorism could ever be justifiable. Rather, I will argue that the dominant view’s condemnatory attitude toward terrorism as compared to conventional war cannot be fully sustained. I propose that a version of the argument that terrorists do not have adequate authority to undertake political violence—and not the prominent argument that noncombatants should be immune from deliberate use of force against them—is the most plausible basis for finding terrorism objectionable.

Comment: McPherson challenges the view that there is something distinctively wrong about terrorism as compared to conventional warfare. In addition to a discussion on terrorism it presents challenges to traditional interpretations of just war theory.

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McShane, Katie. Neosentimentalism and Environmental Ethics
2011, Environmental Ethics, 33 (1): 5-23.

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Added by: Rochelle DuFord

Abstract: Neosentimentalism provides environmental ethics with a theory of value that might be particularly useful for solving many of the problems that have plagued the field since its early days. In particular, a neosentimentalist understanding of value offers us hope for making sense of (1) what intrinsic value might be and how we could know whether parts of the natural world have it; (2) the extent to which value is an essentially anthropocentric concept; and (3) how our understanding of value could be compatible with both a respectable naturalism and a robust normativity.

Comment: This reading is could be used well as a response to Rolston or Callicott's versions of environmental value. The article also covers a number of problems endemic to formal value theory (especially a neosentimentalist theory of the nature of value). It would work best in an upper level undergraduate course on value theory or environmental ethics.

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