Diversity Reading List

Comment: This paper offers a unique account of what distinguishes social contribution from other social goods, and makes an interesting defense of contribution as a right. It is especially relevant for discussing the extent to which we have social rights, and determining their scope, or their relationship to basic human rights. It might be useful to offer as further reading for a course on applied ethics, or could be used as a central reading in courses which focus on human rights or social rights. It also puts forward a novel understanding of social injustice which is grounded, not in distribution of goods, but in violation of rights. This aspect of the argument could be relevant to a more general discussion on conceptions of social justice.

Comment: This paper presents a unique interpretation of social, moral dilemmas in the context of our rights as social creatures. As such, it could be useful in the context of various social and political philosophical subject areas, including discussions on human rights, the scope of rights and duties, social rights, or alternative perspectives on moral dilemmas. In this sense, it could be used in an introductory moral philosophy course to introduce basic questions about moral dilemmas and the extent to which our social needs can be the subject of those dilemma. It could also be utilised in more advanced courses to examine the nature of socio-economic rights, the extent of our social needs, or to debate the extent to which the satisfaction of social needs constitutes such basic rights as human rights. It is somewhat technical, so introductory-level students may need some extra guidance.

Comment: This could be an interesting text to use in the context of a course on human rights, as it addresses an area of rights literature largely neglected by mainstream, analytic political philosophers. Brownlee offers a thorough and thoughtful consideration of what the content of such a right might be, and defends her account using careful reference to qualitative studies and existing data on the effects of social deprivation. In this sense, the text might also be useful in the context of discussions about applied social ethics and the broader civic and political significance of meeting social needs.

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Comment (from this Blueprint): Content warning: very explicit details of cruelties of slavery, sexual assault. In this seminal black feminist theory text, the Foucauldian scholar Saidiya Hartman considers the “archive” which is what she terms the collection of historical evidence that one writes about the past with. She reckons with the difficulty and ethics of writing about past figures and people who were subject to immense violence, degradation and oppression, since often the only records left of their existence are those written or approved by their oppressors or people who were complict in their oppression, and those records are often at best only caricatures of the person they pretend to represent.

Comment (from this Blueprint): An excerpt from her landmark 1991 text, Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment, this text sees Patricia Hill Collins outline four “controlling images” that contribute to black women’s oppression, appealing to cultural and literary devices, as well as social science literature. In the parts of this chapter not excerpted Hill Collins argues that stereotypical images and symbols of Black womanhood manipulate society’s perception and ideas about Black womanhood and, by extension, Black women which contributes to justifying their oppression.

Comment (from this Blueprint): In this book Jennifer Morton, a philosopher of education and political philosopher, revisits the question of upward mobility and the difficulties under-privileged college students face in completing college. She argues that they face huge, yet-unacknowledged costs: "ethical costs," that impact not just them but their wider (often-marginalized) communities. Her theses in this book therefore touch not just on the individual experiences of marginalized college kids but also on broader issues of social oppression and social change. To make her claims Morton draws on her own lived experiences as an immigrant and a philosopher teaching in a public institution. One might describe this empirical method as autoethnography, although she does not. She also draws upon interviews conducted with the population of students she's interested in, "strivers." Morton's book addresses the phenomenon of upward mobility, the ethical purposes and drawbacks of going to college, and dignifies the experiences of people from marginalized backgrounds who want to make a better life for them and their communities.

Comment (from this Blueprint): This 1900 essay is seminal in feminist theory and black studies. Wells paves the way, appealing to empirical evidence, for theorizing on the role that white women's sexuality plays in black people's oppression in the US context. This is part of her broader argument for why lynching should be considered a moral catastrophe in the US.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Cokley and Awad are both psychologists, whose work seeks to redress the wrongs of past injustices against marginalized groups, and who both use quantitative methods to do so. In this article, they sketch some of the historical reasons why members of marginalized groups are sometimes rightly suspicious of the use of quantative techniques. However, they both argue that quantitative methods are not necessarily oppressive, but can be put to good use provided their practioners are committed to social justice. They offer some examples, from their own work, of how this sort of quantitative work can help to further the cause of social justice.

Comment (from this Blueprint): Migdalia Arcila-Valenzuela and Andrés Páez argue that it is impossible to detect an individual instance of epistemic injustice. Their case relies on a review and analysis of the recent research on implicit bias. The key theoretical premise of their argument is that it is impossible to establish, for any individual situation, what is the minimum degree of credibility that the speaker is entitled to. However, they still think we can measure general testimonial injustice, which they construe as “a behavioral tendency of a prejudiced hearer.”