Diversity Reading List

Abstract:

This article questions fundamental concepts in political philosophy and political theory, as well as the method of political philosophy and philosophy more generally. While acknowledging that concepts such as contract, higher self, or organism do not refer within political theories to anything real but function as metaphors, MacDonald nonetheless emphasizes the importance of reflecting on the reasons for and the effects of their use. This way of thinking can constitute an essential part of philosophical method.

MacDonald’s thesis is that such concepts arise in response to puzzles of social life, among which the most fundamental is perhaps the question, “Why should human beings live with others of their own kind at all?” According to MacDonald, however, there is no general answer to these puzzles that could be applied to all social situations and that would entail political obligations normative for every context. This constitutes an important implicit critique of classical political theories.

As MacDonald argues, “as rational and responsible citizens we can never hope to know once and for all what our political duties are. And so we can never go to sleep.” The impossibility of offering a universal theory of political duties thus implies the requirement of constant ethical and political vigilance.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Abstract:
Psychology has had a number of things to say about black and coloured people, none of them favourable, and most of which have reinforced stereotyped and derogatory images. Beyond the Masks is a readable account of black psychology, exploring key theoretical issues in race and gender. In it, Amina Mama examines the history of racist psychology, and of the implicit racism throughout the discipline. Beyond the Masks also offers an important theoretical perspective, and will appeal to all those involved with ethnic minorities, gender politics and questions of identity.

Publisher’s Note:
Nineteen prominent Native artists, educators, and activisits share their candid and often profound thoughts on what it means to be a Native American woman in the early 21st century. Their stories are rare and often intimate glimpses of women who have made a conscious decision to live every day to its fullest and stand for something larger than themselves.

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.

Publisher’s Note:
In this essay, Mariátegui offers an analysis of Peruvian literary practices and a criticism of some of its central figures. He argues that what has been construed as a “national literature” erases the contributions of Indigenous cultures to Peruvian identity, and, in doing so, it partly contributes to the marginalization of Indigenous Peruvians.

Summary: In this chapter, the author considers three main arguments for the epistemology of ignorance, where this thinks of ignorance not as being a feature of a neglectful epistemic practice, yet as being a substantive epistemic practice itself. The author considers the relationship between these three different arguments that, although differing in the way they present the nature of ignorance, she takes to be jointly compatible. In conclusion, she argues that ignorance is not only a problem related to the justificatory practice, yet also to the ontology of truth.