Diversity Reading List

Abstract: One of the central claims of the neurodiversity movement is that society should accommodate the needs of autistics, rather than try to treat autism. People have variously tried to reject this accommodation thesis as applicable to all autistics. One instance is Pier Jaarsma and Stellan Welin, who argue that the thesis should apply to some but not all autistics. They do so via separating autistics into high‐ and low‐functioning, on the basis of IQ and social effectiveness or functionings. I reject their grounds for separating autistics. IQ is an irrelevant basis for separating autistics. Charitably rendering it as referring to more general capacities still leaves us mistaken about the roles they play in supporting the accommodation thesis. The appeal to social effectiveness or functionings relies on standards that are inapplicable to autistics, and which risks being deaf to the point of their claims. I then consider if their remaining argument concerning autistic culture may succeed independently of the line they draw. I argue that construing autistics' claims as beginning from culture mistakes their status, and may even detract from their aims. Via my discussion of Jaarsma and Welin, I hope to point to why the more general strategy of separating autistics, in response to the accommodation thesis, does not fully succeed. Finally, I sketch some directions for future discussions, arguing that we should instead shift our attention to consider another set of questions concerning the costs and extent of change required to accommodate all autistics.

Abstract:

 Though sex, and the philosophy of sex, are often serious if not solemn affairs, it pays to approach them with a sense of humor, as Greta Christina demonstrates. The philosophical topic at hand is what it is for a sexual act or encounter to be sexual (views about how to define “sex” properly are implicated in many issues, for example, in defining “rape” and “sexual harassment”). While laying out commonsensical definitions of “ sexual activity ” (say, that it must include penis-in-vagina coitus; that it requires that the participants be naked; that it involves sexual pleasure for all concerned), Christina reveals counterexamples, often from her own experience. This reflective exercise might lead us to be, as Christina is, skeptical about ever finding a final definition of “sexual activity.” Her essay has the virtue of forcing us to ask the analytic question and to realize that everyday understandings of “sex” are not very satisfying. Christina’s essay was reprinted by the magazine Ms. in its 1995 “Feminism and Sex” issue (November/Decem- ber, 60–62). The essay’s last two paragraphs are missing from that version, and there is no editorial warning that the essay was abridged. Those paragraphs, included here, are perhaps the most provocative in her essay: Christina admits to finding some sadomasochism “tremendously erotic, ” and she relates that when working as a nude dancer inside a peep show booth she had a “fabulous time” with one of her quarter-laden customers. These examples of “sex” are valuable to think about, both conceptually and normatively....

Conclusion: As you can see, this paper raises far more questions than it answers. I do, however, believe that the relationship between ethics and effectiveness (or technical and moral excellence) is at the core of leadership ethics and, for that matter, all areas of professional ethics. The question of how ethics is related to effectiveness lurks behind the problems with studying leadership that I mentioned earlier – the problems of language and definition, descriptive and normative confusions, the discussions about altruism and self-interest and the question of causation and history. Ethical assumptions are deeply embedded in the leadership literature and the way that people think about leadership. Leadership ethics requires scholars to first critically read the leadership literature, separate the normative ideas from the descriptive and then put the two back together again. Like most philosophical endeavors, digging for the questions is the most difficult part. Once the questions are unearthed, the task becomes slightly easier. For thousands of years, moral philosophers have wrestled with questions about the relationship between knowledge and morality, free will and determinism, etc. In our libraries reside the works of some of the greatest minds in history to help us with these questions. We should use them. When we consider the horrendous problems caused by leaders today and in the past, it is extraordinary that there are not more scholars working in the area of ethics and leadership. Most people agree that leaders should be ethical, but few have delved into what this means. How do we prepare leaders who have the capacity to responsibly use power, to carry out moral obligations to followers, make sound moral decisions and serve their organizations and constituents well, etc.? And, how do we develop followers, organizations, systems and institutions that support good leadership and do not tolerate bad leadership? These are questions faced by people everywhere and we will need the help of scholars around the world to answer them.

Abstract: In this paper I argue that a greater understanding of the part of ethics in leadership will improve leadership studies. Debates over the definition of leadership are really debates over what researchers think constitutes good leadership. The ultimate question is not "What is leadership?" but "What is good leadership?" The word good is refers to both ethics and competence. Research into leadership ethics would explore the ethical issues of current leadership research, serve as a critical study of the field, analyze and expand normative theories of leadership, and develop new theories, research questions and ways of thinking about leadership

Abstract: Do we have a duty to use moral neurointerventions to correct deficits in our moral psychology? On their surface, these technologies appear to pose worrisome risks to valuable dimensions of the self, and these risks could conceivably weigh against any prima facie moral duty we have to use these technologies. Focquaert and Schermer (Neuroethics 8(2):139–151, 2015) argue that neurointerventions pose special risks to the self because they operate passively on the subject-s brain, without her active participation, unlike ‘active- interventions. Some neurointerventions, however, appear to be relatively unproblematic, and some appear to preserve the agent-s sense of self precisely because they operate passively. In this paper, I propose three conditions that need to be met for a medical intervention to be considered low-risk, and I say that these conditions cut across the active/passive divide. A low-risk intervention must: (i) pass pre-clinical and clinical trials, (ii) fare well in post-clinical studies, and (iii) be subject to regulations protecting informed consent. If an intervention passes these tests, its risks do not provide strong countervailing reasons against our prima facie duty to undergo the intervention.

Abstract:

A French Jew born in Algeria, philosopher and novelist Cixous (b. 1937) blends and bends the categories of theory. Originally written for a journal issue on Beauvoir, this essay tries to map out a strategy against the alienation of women through the re-apropriation of their own identity, via written work. A literary interpretation of feminism, it articulates the idea of écriture féminine (feminine writing), a type of writing particular to women. This is Cixous' strategic essentialism: according to her, the difference in women's expression should be underlined, and thus women should write in a specific style allowing for a reclamation and a reinvention of their identities, against the patriarchal system. This literary strategy is heavily embodied, and relies on representations as much as lived, practical experiences to criticize a male-centered system. However, Cixous remains a structuralist: identity is not given, but built within discourse in complex relation with other poles, and feminine writing can be found in men through sexual subversion (Genet is one example). This essay marks a specific period in both French feminism and post-structuralism, providing a perfect example of the philosophical, political and artistic questions of the period.

Abstract: Feminists have challenged the claim that gender is irrelevant to the discussion of evil and suffering in the world. This chapter considers a range of approaches offered by feminists to the problem of evil, suggesting something of the innovation that considering gender issues bring to the discussion of evil. In describing a variety of feminist perspectives, I intend to highlight the way in which feminist theories invariably turn to the practical solutions that might be made to evil and suffering in our world.

Abstract: In this paper, I argue that intimacy confining constraints—or a categorical restriction on having additional intimate relationships—is morally impermissible. Though some scholars believe that this problem attaches exclusively to monogamous relationshipps, I argue that it also applies to non-monogamous relationships—such as polyfidelitous relationships—as well. As this point requires a deconstruction of the juxtaposition that erroneously places monogamy and non-monogamy as binary opposites, this paper reveals a variegated and interpenetrating field of intimate non-monogamous relationships, the existence of which gets us closer to realizing the transformative power contained within non-monogamous relationships.

Abstract: This paper shows how amatonormativity and its attendant social pressures converge at the intersections of race, gender, romantic relationality, and sexuality to generate peculiar challenges to polyamorous African American men in American society. Contrary to the view maintained in the “slut-vs-stud” phenomenon, I maintain that the label ‘player’ when applied to polyamorous African American men functions as a pernicious stereotype and has denigrating effects. Specifically, I argue that stereotyping polyamorous African American men as players estranges them from themselves and it constrains their agency by preemptively foreclosing the set of possibilities of what one’s sexual or romantic relational identities can be.

Abstract: This chapter presents a portrait of American children as situationally vulnerable and introduces the public emotion of civic tenderness as a response to the indifference that is routinely directed toward this vulnerability. Discussions of pro-social empathic emotions typically prioritize emotions like sympathy and compassion. While they are important in their own right, these pro-social emotions are responses to situations of current need. Civic tenderness is a response to situations of vulnerability. Insofar as a person or group is now in a situation of need, they had to have first been vulnerable to experiencing that need. Since vulnerability is conceptually prior to need, civic tenderness is prior to these other pro-social emotions. Through the process that I call tenderization, I explain how tenderness for poor and impoverished children’s vulnerability can be expanded to a society’s members, institutions, and systems.