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Added by: Rossen Ventzislavov
Summary: In this conversation Butler and Athanasiou explore the parameters of the public performance of political dissent. They discuss instances of political protest that link up to Butler and Athanasiou's shared sense of performativity. For the two of them, performativity is the aspect of our social life that manifests surprise, challenge and urgency through the human body. This makes the performative an especially effective instrument against the disparity, dispossession and desperation the better part of humanity is forced to endure.Calhoun, Cheshire. The Virtue of Civility2000, Philosophy and Public Affairs 29 (3):251-275.-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Eline Gerritsen
Abstract: The decline of civility has increasingly become the subject of lament both in popular media and in daily conversation. Civility forestalls the potential unpleasantness of a life with other people. Without it, daily social exchanges can turn nasty and sometimes hazardous. Civility thus seems to be a basic virtue of social life. Moral philosophers, however, do not typically mention civility in their catalogues or examples of virtue. In what follows, I want to suggest that civility is a particularly interesting virtue for moral philosophers because giving an adequate account of the virtue of civility requires us to rethink the relationship between moral virtue and compliance with social norms.
Comment: This paper has a clear argumentative structure, gives many examples and does not require prior knowledge of the topic. It can be used on its own in a discussion of virtue ethics, e.g. to illustrate how you can argue that something is a virtue and how to differentiate virtues. It can also be used in a discussion of the relation between morality and social norms.
Callahan, Joan. Same-Sex Marriage: Why It Matters – At Least for Now2009, Hypatia 21 (1): 70-80.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: This paper addresses the progressive, feminist critique of same-sex marriage as articulated by Claudia Card. Although agreeing with Card that the institution of marriageas we know it is profoundly morally flawed in its origins and effects, Callahan disagrees with Card's suggestion that queer activists in the United States should not be working for the inclusion of same-sex couples in the institution.Comment: This article is an excellent rejoinder to Card's "Gay Divorce: Thoughts on the Legal Regulation of Marriage." (She directly addresses the Card text, so it should not be read without first reading the Card.) It would be a good addition to a course that covers same-sex marriage, social justice, or contemporary ethical problems.
Card, Claudia. Gay Divorce: Thoughts on the Legal Regulation of Marriage2007, Hypatia, 22 (1): 24-38.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: Although the exclusion of LGBTs from the rites and rights of marriage is arbitrary and unjust, the legal institution of marriage is itself so riddled with injustice that it would be better to create alternative forms of durable intimate partnership that do not invoke the power of the state. Card's essay develops a case for this position, taking up an injustice sufficiently serious to constitute an evil: the sheltering of domestic violence.Comment: This text is very accessible and poses a unique problem for the legal regulation of romantic relationships. This text would fit well in a class that discusses sexual relations, violence, marriage, love, or justice (as Card directly discusses Rawls' Theory of Justice). Further, it would make a nice addition to a course that discusses justice for LGBT persons, as Card argues that there are more pressing legal and political issues that LGBT communities ought to agitate in favor of.
Card, Claudia. Against Marriage and Motherhood1996, Hypatia 11 (3):1 - 23.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Carla Rodriguez
Abstract: This essay argues that current advocacy of lesbian and gay rights to legal marriage and parenthood insufficiently criticizes both marriage and motherhood as they are currently practiced and structured by Northern legal institutions. Instead we would do better not to let the State define our intimate unions and parenting would be improved if the power presently concentrated in the hands of one or two guardians were diluted and distributed through an appropriately concerned community.Comment:
Carpenter, Amber. Illuminating Community – Animals in Classical Indian Thought2018, In Peter Adamson and G. Fay Edwards (eds) Animals: A History. Oxford University Press-
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Added by: Björn FreterAbstract:
This chapter presents a discussion of the rich tradition of reflection on animals in ancient Indian philosophy, which deals with but is not restricted to the topic of reincarnation. At the center of the piece is the continuity that Indians saw between human and nonhuman animals and the consequences of this outlook for the widespread idea of nonviolence. Consideration is also given to the philosophical interest of fables centrally featuring animals, for example the Pañcatantra. In general it is suggested that ancient Indian authors did not, unlike European counterparts, focus on the question of what makes humans unique in contrast to all other animals, but rather on the ethical and metaphysical interconnections between humans and various kinds of animals.Comment (from this Blueprint): An overview of the role of non-human animals in Indian Thought pointing out that there is not much evidence of that presumption of a fundamental difference between human and nonhuman forms of life that allows us in English to use the word “animal” simply to mean “nonhuman animal.” The concept of the animal is thus not best suited to explore the nature of the human by contrast. Instead we more often find a background presumption of a common condition: whatever lives seeks to sustain its life, wants pleasure and not pain, wants its desires and aims satisfied rather than thwarted.
Carpenter, Amber. Amber Carpenter on Animals in Indian Philosophy [Podcast]2018, History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps [Blog]-
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Added by: Björn FreterAbstract:
An interview with Amber Carpenter about the status of nonhuman animals in ancient Indian philosophy and literature.Comment (from this Blueprint): An interview about the status of nonhuman animals in ancient Indian philosophy and literature; a very good complement to her paper.
Cassidy, Lisa. Starving Children in Africa: Who Cares?2005, Journal of International Women's Studies 7 (1): 84-96.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: The current state of global poverty presents citizens in the Global North with a moral crisis: Do we care? In this essay, I examine two competing moral accounts of why those in the North should or should not give care (in the form of charity) to impoverished peoples in the Global South. Nineteen years ago feminist philosopher Nel Noddings wrote in Caring that 'we are not obliged to care for starving children in Africa' (1986, p. 86). Noddings's work belongs to the arena of care ethics - the feminist philosophical view that morality is about responding to, caring for, and preventing harm to those particular people to whom one has emotional attachments. By contrast, Peter Singer's recent work, One World, advances an impartialist view of morality, which demands that we dispassionately dispense aid to the most needy (2002, p.154). Thus this question needs answering: am I obliged to give care to desperately poor strangers, and if so, which moral framework (Singer's impartialism, or feminism's care ethics) gives the best account of that obligation? I argue that as an American feminist I should care for Africans with whom I will never have a personal relationship. However, this obligation can be generated without relying on the impartialist understanding of morality.Comment: This text responds to Peter Singer and Ned Noddings on the question of global poverty (though, one need not have read either previously as she provides an overview). It would be useful in a course that focused on questions of economic justice, poverty, care ethics, or charity.
Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism2000, NYU Press-
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Added by: Suddha Guharoy, Andreas Sorger
Publisher's Note: This classic work, first published in France in 1955, profoundly influenced the generation of scholars and activists at the forefront of liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Nearly twenty years later, when published for the first time in English, Discourse on Colonialism inspired a new generation engaged in the Civil Rights, Black Power, and anti-war movements and has sold more than 75,000 copies to date.
Aimé Césaire eloquently describes the brutal impact of capitalism and colonialism on both the colonizer and colonized, exposing the contradictions and hypocrisy implicit in western notions of "progress" and "civilization" upon encountering the "savage," "uncultured," or "primitive." Here, Césaire reaffirms African values, identity, and culture, and their relevance, reminding us that "the relationship between consciousness and reality are extremely complex. . . . It is equally necessary to decolonize our minds, our inner life, at the same time that we decolonize society."
Comment (from this Blueprint): Aimé Césaire’s Discourse on Colonialism is a foundational text in postcolonial theory, which provides an excoriating critique of not only European practices of colonialism, but also the underlying theories and logics used to justify them. Specifically, Césaire takes aim at the view of colonialism as a ‘civilising mission’, where benevolent Europeans would provide non-white non- Europeans with the tools necessary for modernisation. Instead, he argued that colonialism wrought destruction everywhere it went, killing people, eradicating civilisations, and obliterating any alternative cultural ideas that contrasted European values. Crucially, Césaire explores the psychological effects of colonialism on both the colonised and the coloniser – a theme that would be taken further by Frantz Fanon (a student of Césaire’s) in his writings.
Chadwick, Ruth F.. Cloning1982, Philosophy 57 (220):201-209.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: Every body cell of an animal or human being contains the same complete set of genes. In theory any of these cells can be used to start a new embryo. The technique has been employed in the case of frogs. The nucleus is taken out of a body cell of a frog and implanted in an enucleated frog's egg. The resulting egg cell is stimulated to develop into a normal frog, and will be an exact copy of that frog which provided the nucleus with all the genetic information. In normal sexual reproduction, two parents each contribute half their genes, but in the case of cloning, one parent passes on all his or her genesComment:
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Butler, Judith, Athena Athanasiou. The Political Promise of the Performative
2013, In: Dispossession: The Performative in the Political. London: Polity. 140-148.
Comment: This text is best used as a further or specialised reading in classes on political dissent and subversion of social norms. It can inspire interesting discussions on ways to express dissent and protest, and can be very useful in discussions of politically involved art.