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Added by: Chris Blake-TurnerAbstract:
There are some long-standing social issues that imperil Black Americans' relationship with health and healthcare. These issues include racial disparities in health outcomes (Barr 2014), provider bias and racism lessening their access to quality care (Sabin et al. 2009), disproportionate police killings (DeGue, Fowler, and Calkins 2016), and white supremacy and racism which encourage poor health (Williams and Mohammed 2013). Bioethics, comprised of humanities, legal, science, and medical scholars committed to ethical reasoning is prima facie well suited to address these problems and influence solutions in the form of policy and education. Bioethics, however, so far has shown only a minimal commitment to Black racial justice.Reader, Soran. Abortion, Killing, and Maternal Moral Authority2008, Hypatia 23 (1):132-149-
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
A threat to women is obscured when we treat “abortion-as-evacuation” as equivalent to “abortion-as-killing.” This holds only if evacuating a fetus kills it. As technology advances, the equivalence will fail. Any feminist account of abortion that relies on the equivalence leaves moral room for women to be required to give up their fetuses to others when it fails. So an account of the justification of abortion-as-killing is needed that does not depend on the equivalence.
Comment: This text explores a common justification for the permissability of abortion, which the author describes as an equivalence between "abortion-as-killing" and "abortion-as-evacuation". The author also examines a series of dilemmas which arise from traditional pro-choice discussions of abortion (at least at the time of writing), such the two-horned dilemma which appears to trap pro-choice advocates in only two camps: one in which the fetus is morally signficant (and therefore can only be aborted, but not killed), and another in which the fetus is morally negligible (in which case, it does not matter). Reader challenges this dichotomy and aims to show that fetal killing can be justified without claiming that fetuses are negligible by focusing on relationship, in general, and motherhood, in particular. Therefore, the text would be most useful as a primary or supplemental reading in an intermediate or advanced course studying contemporary analytic debates on abortion or feminist thought and critical gender studies.
Rettovà, Alena. The role of African languages in African philosophy2002, Rue Descartes. 36 (2): 129-150.-
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Added by: Sara Peppe and Björn Freter
Introduction: Since the beginning of the development of the corpus of African philosophical writing, African philosophy has been written exclusively in European languages. African philosophers write in English, in French, in Portuguese, in German, in Latin, and if we may include the non-African authors who made substantial contributions to African philosophy and the languages into which the major works of African philosophy were translated, we would arrive at a large number of European (and possibly even Asian) languages, but very few, if any, African ones. There are authors among African philosophers who stress the importance of a renaissance of the traditional thought systems, some go as far as to claim that the usage of African languages may have far-reaching consequences on the philosophical conclusions at which we arrive. In spite of this, the same authors often acknowledge certain shortcomings of African languages to express philosophical ideas. In any way, they all continue writing in European languages. The reasons for this state of affairs are obvious. Historical conditions such as colonialism, economic and political dependency, contribute to the fact of the international weakness of regional languages, this being the case not only of African languages. English and French, but especially English, have a large international public, books in English get sold, get read, etc. African languages were ignored or even suppressed during the colonial era, so that speaking a European language became a matter of high prestige, whereas African languages were looked down upon. Even if that changed, economic underdevelopment leads to cultural underdevelopment, propagating African languages is only possible if there are the means to do it. But even then, there is the large number of African languages: which are we to choose? On the grounds of these reasons, African languages are underdeveloped, lack the vocabulary to express realities of modern life.Comment (from this Blueprint): This article explores the theme of African philosophy that is generally expressed in European languages. Some African philosophers want to propose a renaissance of the traditional body of thought, even if some acknowledge that African languages face issues in expressing some philosophical ideas. African philosophers are continuing to write in European languages due to some historical conditions (e.g., colonialism) that are responsible for the weakness of regional languages on the international scene. One of the main issues is that neither efforts have been made yet to develop a corpus of African philosophical terminology nor Western philosophical books have been translated into African languages. The major questions of the article focus on whether it is possible to write philosophy in African languages and analyse the role of African languages in the development of African thought. The author considers the usage of African languages in African philosophy, the use of African languages in the four major branches of African philosophy and finally, she considers African languages that serve as a tool for African philosophy.
Richardson, S. Sarah. Sex Itself: The Search for Male and Female in the Human Genome2013, The University of Chicago Press.-
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Added by: Andrea Blomqvist, Contributed by: Isela
Publisher's Note: Human genomes are 99.9 percent identical—with one prominent exception. Instead of a matching pair of X chromosomes, men carry a single X, coupled with a tiny chromosome called the Y. Tracking the emergence of a new and distinctive way of thinking about sex represented by the unalterable, simple, and visually compelling binary of the X and Y chromosomes, Sex Itself examines the interaction between cultural gender norms and genetic theories of sex from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present, postgenomic age. Using methods from history, philosophy, and gender studies of science, Sarah S. Richardson uncovers how gender has helped to shape the research practices, questions asked, theories and models, and descriptive language used in sex chromosome research. From the earliest theories of chromosomal sex determination, to the mid-century hypothesis of the aggressive XYY supermale, to the debate about Y chromosome degeneration, to the recent claim that male and female genomes are more different than those of humans and chimpanzees, Richardson shows how cultural gender conceptions influence the genetic science of sex. Richardson shows how sexual science of the past continues to resonate, in ways both subtle and explicit, in contemporary research on the genetics of sex and gender. With the completion of the Human Genome Project, genes and chromosomes are moving to the center of the biology of sex. Sex Itself offers a compelling argument for the importance of ongoing critical dialogue on how cultural conceptions of gender operate within the science of sex.Comment:
Roberts, Rodney C.. The American Value of Fear and the Indefinite Detention of Terrorist Suspects2007, Public Affairs Quarterly, 21 (4): 405-419.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Summary: This paper develops the claim that indefinite detention (as used by the U.S. following the attacks on September 11, 2001) is justfied by an appeal to racialized fear. Roberts argues that the indefinite detention of suspected terrorists is both immoral and unjust--claiming that arguments in favor of it (such as the interest in interrogation, the consequentialist justification, and the preventative detention argument) fail to ground the permissibility of indefinite detention.Comment: This text would be of use in a course discussing the ethics of war, criminal justice ethics, or the idea of terrorism. It presents a clear discussion, in an accessible way, of a number of arguments in favor of indefinite detention, ultimately arguing that such defenses are insufficient to ground its moral permissibility.
Roberts, Rodney C.. The Counterfactual Conception of Compensation2006, Metaphilosophy, 37 (3-4): 414-428.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: My aim in this essay is to remove some of the rubbish that lies in the way of an appropriate understanding of rectificatory compensation, by arguing for the rejection of the counterfactual conception of compensation. Although there is a significant extent to which contemporary theorists have relied upon this idea, the counterfactual conception of compensation is merely a popular assumption, having no positive argument in support of it. Moreover, it can make rendering compensation impossible, and absurd notions of compensation can result from its use, results that may themselves constitute injustices. This latter difficulty is most troubling when the CCC is employed in large compensatory cases like the case of rectificatory compensation for the descendants of American slaves. I want to suggest that, taken together, the difficulties with the CCC yield sufficient reason for rejecting it as an acceptable rectificatory notion.Comment: This text presents an interesting and accessible discussion of the counterfactual conception of compensation (most famously presented by Nozick, though one need not have read Nozick to understand this text) as a matter of rectificatory justice. It would be of use in courses concerning schemes or principles of distributive and rectificatory justice. As the text analyzes the justification for reparations to the decendents of African slaves in the U.S., it would also be of use in a course that covers questions of reparations for historical injustices (perhaps alongside Coates' well known "The Case for Reparations").
Robeyns, Ingrid. Gender and the Metric of Justice2010, in Brighouse, H. & Robeyns, I. Measuring Justice: Primary Goods and Capabilities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 215-236.-
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Added by: Carl Fox
Content: A relatively short but very illuminating discussion of the application of two key metrics (social primary goods and capabilities) to the issue of gender injustice in non-ideal circumstances.Comment: Offers a clear account of gender and what falls under 'gender justice'. Easy to read with some useful exposition but a reader would benefit from some background knowledge. Probably best as a specialised or further reading.
Robeyns, Ingrid. Ideal Theory in Theory and Practice2008, Social Theory and Practice 34 (3):341-362.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Jojanneke Vanderveen
Abstract: In recent year a growing number of political philosophers have expressed worries about the nature of ideal theory and its dominance in the literature on social justice. Differently, in the post-Rawlsian literature on theories of justice, most of the work done by mainstream political theorists and philosophers is part of what is known as 'ideal theory'.Comment: Very influential article about the use of idealizations in theories of justice, and about the use of partial theories of justice. Cited a lot. Very good resource in a justice class.
Robeyns, Ingrid. Will a Basic Income Do Justice to Women?2001, Analyse & Kritik 23 (1):88-105-
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
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.
Comment: This paper explores questions as the intersection of feminism and the basic income literature, offering a take on one of the classic feminist critiques of basic income: namely, that the purported conditions of freedom that basic income is supposed to bring about are only really available to members of the population who do not belong to an oppressed or marginalised class. For those that do belong to such groups - in this case, women - the availability of such conditions of freedom will be highly dependent on existing gendered divisions of labour and restrictions on choice. As such, the author argues that proposals for basic income, if they are serious about ensuring real freedom for all, must take this into consideration. The author also challenges existing (at the time of writing) contradictions in the claims being made about the effect of basic income policy on women, as opposed to men. The paper would therefore be interesting to discuss in relation to feminist politics or a survey of the basic income literature, especially assigned in tandem with some of the foundational literature, such as Phillipe Van Parijs' work.
Robinson, Jenefer. Deeper Than Reason: Emotion and its Role in Literature, Music, and Art2005, Clarendon Press.-
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Christy Mag Uidhir
Publisher's Note: Jenefer Robinson takes the insights of modern scientific research on the emotions and uses them to illuminate questions about our emotional involvement with the arts. Laying out a theory of emotion supported by the best evidence from current empirical work, she examines some of the ways in which the emotions function in the arts. Written in a clear and engaging style, her book will make fascinating reading for anyone interested in the emotions and how they work, as well as anyone engaged with the arts and aesthetics.Comment:
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Ray, Keisha. It’s Time for a Black Bioethics
2021, The American Journal of Bioethics. 21(2): 38–40.
Comment (from this Blueprint): In this short, seminal piece, Keisha Ray argues that bioethics needs to address issues of health and well-being of Black individuals. She applies Beauchamp and Childress’s famous four principles of bioethics to a particular issue: the disproportionate maternal mortality rate of Black women in the United States. Ray argues bioethics must incorporate the lens of Black bioethics, if the discipline is to remain relevant.