Diversity Reading List

Abstract:
The paper argues that science's focus on the ideal and stable hides, and thus contributes to the silencing of, the real and fluid, which corresponds to womanhood.

Abstract:
This paper enumerates Irigaray's main arguments and thoughts regarding the gendered nature of language and "the logos".

Abstract:
Val Plumwood charged classical logic not only with the invalidity of some of its laws, but also with the support of systemic oppression through naturalization of the logical structure of dualisms. In this paper I show that the latter charge - unlike the former - can be carried over to classical mathematics, and I propose a new conception of inconsistent mathematics - queer incomaths - as a liberatory activity meant to undermine said naturalization.

Abstract:

How can we justify partiality to those near to us, such as our own families, friends, neighbours and colleagues, when we could act in much more morally valuable ways by helping others who are merely distant from us? In 1972 Peter Singer used two now-famous examples, Pond and Overseas, to challenge our complacent partiality. The charge of neglect of an obvious moral duty to meet distant grave needs is refined and developed by Peter Unger(1996).

Although Singer is a consequentialist, he intends the problem of distance to challenge all moral thinkers irrespective of their theoretical commitments. Singer's challenge has somehow to be met, and this is what discussions of the problem of distance in contemporary analytic philosophy attempt to do. To solve the problem, we have to reject
or modify impartialism or partialism.

Abstract:

This chapter explores a so-far neglected way of avoiding the bads of loneliness: by learning to value solitude, where that is understood as a state of ‘keeping oneself company’, as J. David Velleman puts it. Unlike loneliness, solitude need not involve any deprivation, whether subjective or objective. This chapter considers the various goods to which solitude is constitutive or instrumental, with a focus on the promise that proper valuing of solitude holds for combating loneliness. The overall argument is this: If loneliness significantly detracts from individual wellbeing, and if the ability to value solitude protects against loneliness, then such an ability is obviously valuable to human flourishing. If, further, loneliness raises concerns of justice, then supporting people’s ability to value solitude is a way to implement a desideratum of justice. Individuals can cultivate their ability to value solitude, an ability that others can promote or hinder.

Abstract:

This article addresses the question whether a basic income will be a just social policy for women. The implementation of a basic income will have different effects for different groups of women, some of them clearly positive, some of them negative. The real issues that concern feminist critics of a basic income are the gender-related constraints on choices and the current gender division of labour, which are arguably both playing at the disadvantage of women. It is argued that those issues are not adequately addressed by a basic income proposal alone, and therefore basic income has to be part of a larger packet of social policy measures if it wants to maximise real freedom for all.

Abstract:

Common sense morality and legislations around the world ascribe normative relevance to biological connections between parents and children. Procreators who meet a modest standard of parental competence are believed to have a right to rear the children they brought into the world. I explore various attempts to justify this belief and find most of these attempts lacking. I distinguish between two kinds of biological connections between parents and children: the genetic link and the gestational link. I argue that the second can better justify a right to rear.

Abstract:

This paper provides an answer to the question why birth parents have a moral right to keep and raise their biological babies. I start with a critical discussion of the parent-centred model of justifying parents’ rights, recently proposed by Harry Brighouse and Adam Swift. Their account successfully defends a fundamental moral right to parent in general but, because it does not provide an account of how individuals acquire the right to parent a particular baby, it is insufficient for addressing the question whether and why there is a right to parent one’s biological child. Such a right is important because, in its absence, fairness towards adequate prospective parents who are involuntarily childless would demand a ‘babies redistribution’; moreover, in societies with entrenched histories of injustice there may be reasons of fairness for shuffling babies amongst all recent parents. I supplement the Brighouse-Swift account of fundamental parental rights by an account of how adequate parents acquire the right to parent their biological babies. I advance two arguments to this conclusion: by the time of birth, the birth parents will have already shouldered various burdens in order to bring children into existence, and are likely to have formed an intimate relationship with the future baby. Denying birth parents who would make at least adequate parents the right to keep their baby would be unfair to them and would destroy already formed parent-baby relationships which, I assume, are intrinsically valuable.

Abstract:

There is a broad philosophical consensus that both children’s and prospective parents’ interests are relevant to the justification of a right to parent. Against this view, I argue that it is impermissible to sacrifice children’s interests for the sake of advancing adults’ interest in childrearing. Therefore, the allocation of the moral right to parent should track the child’s, and not the potential parent’s, interest. This revisionary thesis is moderated by two additional qualifications. First, parents lack the moral right to exclude others from associating with the child. Second, children usually come into the world as part of a relationship with their gestational mother; often, this relationship deserves protection.

Abstract:

This paper reconsiders the debates around the interpretation of Parmenides’ Being, in order to draw out the preconceptions that lie behind such debates and to scrutinize the legitimacy of applying them to a text such as Parmenides’ poem. With a focus on the assumptions that have driven scholars to seek clarity within the notoriously ambiguous verse of the poem, I ask whether it is possible to develop an analysis of Parmenides’ Being that is sympathetic both to his clear interest in argument, logic, knowledge and truth and to his ambiguous expression and cultural and literary resonances.