Lai, Ten-Herng. Political Vandalism as Counter‐Speech: A Defence of Defacing and Destroying Tainted Monuments
2020, European Journal of Philosophy, 28(3): 602-616
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Added by: Ten-Herng Lai & Chong-Ming LimAbstract:
Tainted political symbols ought to be confronted, removed, or at least recontextualized. Despite the best efforts to achieve this, however, official actions on tainted symbols often fail to take place. In such cases, I argue that political vandalism—the unauthorized defacement, destruction, or removal of political symbols—may be morally permissible or even obligatory. This is when, and insofar as, political vandalism serves as fitting counter-speech that undermines the authority of tainted symbols in ways that match their publicity, refuses to let them speak in our name, and challenges the derogatory messages expressed through a mechanism I call derogatory pedestalling: the glorification or honoring of certain individuals or ideologies that can only make sense when members of a targeted group are taken to be inferior.Comment (from this Blueprint): This paper can be used for discussions of how defacing objectionable commemorations can transform their speech.
Lambert-Beatty, Claire. Twelve Miles: Boundaries of the New Art/Activism
2008, Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 33(2): 309-327.
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Added by: Rossen VentzislavovSummary: Lambert-Beatty explores the limits of art activism through a detailed account of Rebecca Gomperts' Women on Waves project. Starting in 2001, Gomperts - a physician with a background in art - sailed a customized maritime gynecological clinic with a crew from the Netherlands to the coastal areas of countries where abortion had been outlawed. The clinic would dock far enough from the shore (twelve miles being the limit of states' naval jurisdictions) to offer healthcare to local women undisturbed. Lambert-Beatty notes that for all of its political import, the project retains a radical imagination of the poetic kind. Considering its enthusiastic reception by the international artworld, and inclusion in major art exhibitions, it is also clear that Gomperts intended the work at least partially as art. And, yet, Women on Waves challenges notions of the aesthetic as the "retreat from the real" that it is so often seen as. Lambert-Beatty sees the pragmatic aspect of the work as an integral part of its beauty, and vice versa. This symbiotic balance seems to resolve the tension Ranciere finds "between the logic of art that becomes life at the price of abolishing itself as art, and the logic of art that does politics on the explicit condition of not doing it at all."Comment: This text is best used in discussions of the relationship between art and political activism. It can also be used as a case study in applied ethics classes on abortion.
Langton, Rae. Speech Acts and Unspeakable Acts
1993, Philosophy and Public Affairs 22(4): 293-330.
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Added by: Emily PaulSummary: Considers the idea of construing Pornography as a speech act - what this would mean, and the implications that follow from this. Examines arguments that pornography can i) subordinate and ii) silence women.Comment: Great paper for a feminist philosophy course - in particular, for a unit on Pornography. It could be good to set seminar questions asking (for example) how, according to Langton, pornography silences women. It could also be good to get students to be clear on Langton's three different types of speech act, and to give their own examples of these. (The 3 being illocutionary, perlocutionary and locutionary).
Langton, Rae. Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification
2009, Oxford Uuniversity Press.
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Added by: Emily PaulPublisher's note: Rae Langton here draws together her ground-breaking and contentious work on pornography and objectification. She shows how women come to be objectified -- made subordinate and treated as things -- and she argues for the controversial feminist conclusions that pornography subordinates and silences women, and women have rights against pornography.Comment: Any of these chapters would be really useful for a feminist philosophy or ethics course, and can be studied in a 'stand alone' sense. In particular, the 'sexual solipsism' chapter itself contains numerous discussion points. It could be good for different groups of students to each be assigned a different chapter, and then to present to the class as a whole.
Lawson, Bill E.. The Value of Environmental Justice
2008, Environmental Justice 1 (3): 155-158.
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Added by: Rochelle DuFordAbstract: Environmental justice, at least, entails preserving the environment as a global entity, but also making those persons who feel, have felt, have been, or are victims of environmental crimes and atrocities feel as if they are part of the solution as full members of the human community and not just the environmental dumping ground for the well-off.Comment: This text is a quick introduction to the problem of responsibility for environmental injustices. It makes a good conversation starter for why some individuals do not feel responsible for environmental atrocities, specifically in the context of environmental racism. It would fit well in a class that discussed justice, environmental justice (racism or NIMBY more generally), or collective responsibility.
Lewis Gordon. An Introduction to Africana Philosophy
2008, Cambridge University Press
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Added by: Sara Peppe, Contributed by: Jonathan EgidPublisher’s Note:
In this undergraduate textbook Lewis R. Gordon offers the first comprehensive treatment of Africana philosophy, beginning with the emergence of an Africana (i.e. African diasporic) consciousness in the Afro-Arabic world of the Middle Ages. He argues that much of modern thought emerged out of early conflicts between Islam and Christianity that culminated in the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian Peninsula, and from the subsequent expansion of racism, enslavement, and colonialism which in their turn stimulated reflections on reason, liberation, and the meaning of being human. His book takes the student reader on a journey from Africa through Europe, North and South America, the Caribbean, and back to Africa, as he explores the challenges posed to our understanding of knowledge and freedom today, and the response to them which can be found within Africana philosophy.
Comment: The single best short introduction to the subject, for use in any context that requires quick acquaintance with these ideas and thinkers of the African context.
Lim, Chong-Ming. Vandalizing Tainted Commemorations
2020, Philosophy & Public Affairs, 48(2): 185-216
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Added by: Björn FreterAbstract: What should we do about “tainted” public commemorations? Recent events have highlighted the urgency of reaching a consensus on this question. However, existing discussions appear to be dominated by two naïve opposing views – to remove or preserve them. My aims in this essay are two-fold. First, I argue that the two views are not naïve, but undergirded by concerns with securing self-respect and with the character of our engagement with the past. Second, I offer a qualified defence of vandalising tainted commemorations. The defence comprises two parts. I consider two prominent suggestions – to install counter-commemorations and to add contextualising plaques – and argue that they are typically beset with difficulties. I then argue that in some circumstances, constrained vandalism is a response to tainted commemorations which effectively adjudicates the demands of the two opposing viewsComment: Lim’s paper represents one of the best attempts to charitably understand the view of those who support preservation, and furthermore constructively engages with them to the extent where a reasonable yet striking solution is proposed. Encouraged to be read with Lim, C.-M. (2020), “Transforming problematic commemorations through vandalism”, Journal of Global Ethics, 16(3): 414–421, where Lim defends the feasibility of his radical solution.
Lintott, Sheila. Sublime Hunger: A Consideration of Eating Disorders Beyond Beauty
2003, Hypatia 18 (4):65-86.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag UidhirAbstract: In this paper, I argue that one of the most intense ways women are encouraged to enjoy sublime experiences is via attempts to control their bodies through excessive dieting. If this is so, then the societal-cultural contributions to the problem of eating disorders exceed the perpetuation of a certain beauty ideal to include the almost universal encouragement women receive to diet, coupled with the relative shortage of opportunities women are afforded to experience the sublime.
Little, Margaret Olivia. Abortion, intimacy, and the duty to gestate
1999, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 2 (3):295-312.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: In this article, I urge that mainstream discussions of abortion are dissatisfying in large part because they proceed in polite abstraction from the distinctive circumstances and meanings of gestation. Such discussions, in fact, apply to abortion conceptual tools that were designed on the premiss that people are physically demarcated, even as gestation is marked by a thorough-going intertwinement. We cannot fully appreciate what is normatively at stake with legally forcing continued gestation, or again how to discuss moral responsibilities to continue gestating, until we appreciate in their own terms the goods and evils distinctive of gestational connection. To underscore the need to explore further the meanings of gestation, I provide two examples of the difference it might make to legal and moral discussions of abortion if we appreciate more fully that gestation is an intimacy.
Little, Margaret Olivia. Why a feminist approach to bioethics?
1996, Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 6 (1):1-18.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon FoktAbstract: Many have asked how and why feminist theory makes a distinctive contribution to bioethics. In this essay, I outline two ways in which feminist reflection can enrich bioethical studies. First, feminist theory may expose certain themes of androcentric reasoning that can affect, in sometimes crude but often subtle ways, the substantive analysis of topics in bioethics; second, it can unearth the gendered nature of certain basic philosophical concepts that form the working tools of ethical theory.
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