Diversity Reading List

Summary: This paper argues that prostitution and other markets in women's sexual labor are not necessarily morally wrong. Satz argues that such markets are morally wrong to the extent that they reinforce the vast social inequalities between men and women. Satz discusses a number of approaches to understanding the wrongness of markets in women's sexual labor, including an economic approach, an essentialist approach, and an egalitarian approach. Ultimately, she critiques the economic and essentialist approach as insufficient, favoring the egalitarian approach. Lastly, Satz discusses the question of decriminalization, arguing in favor of legislation concerning markets in women's sexual labor only to the extent that those laws promote gender equality.

Abstract: This paper examines the morality of kidney markets through the lens of choice, inequality, and weak agency looking at the case for limiting such markets under both non-ideal and ideal circumstances. Regulating markets can go some way to addressing the problems of inequality and weak agency. The choice issue is different and this paper shows that the choice for some to sell their kidneys can have external effects on those who do not want to do so, constraining the options that are now open to them. I believe that this is the strongest argument against such markets.

Abstract: Philosophers of language have tended to focus on examples that are not politically significant in any way. We spend a lot of time analyzing natural kind terms: We think hard about 'water' and 'pain' and 'arthritis.' But we don't think much about the far more politically significant kind terms (natural or social - it's a matter for dispute) like 'race,' 'sex,' 'gender,' 'woman,' 'man,' 'gay,' and 'straight.' In this essay, I will try to show, using the example of 'woman,' that it's worth thinking about terms like these, for at least three reasons: (1) There are some interesting puzzles. (2) Politically significant terms matter to people's lives - and it's worth spending at least some of our energy thinking about things that matter in this way. (3) Most importantly, interesting methodological issues emerge at the intersection of philosophy of language and politics.

Abstract: One of the most important aspects of Grice's theory of conversation is the drawing of a borderline between what is said and what is implicated. Grice's views concerning this borderline have been strongly and influentially criticised by relevance theorists. In particular, it has become increasingly widely accepted that Grice's notion of what is said is too limited, and that pragmatics has a far larger role to play in determining what is said than Grice would have allowed. (See for example Bezuidenhuit 1996; Blakemore 1987; Carston 1991; Recanati 1991, 1993, 2001; Sperber and Wilson 1986; Wilson and Sperber 1981.) In this paper, I argue that the rejection of Grice has moved too swiftly, as a key line of objection which has led to this rejection is flawed. The flaw, we will see, is that relevance theorists rely on a misunderstanding of Grice's project in his theory of conversation. I am not arguing that Grice's versions of saying and implicating are right in all details, but simply that certain widespread reasons for rejecting his theory are based on misconceptions.1Relevance theorists, I will suggest, systematically misunderstand Grice by taking him to be engaged in the same project that they are: making sense of the psychological processes by which we interpret utterances. Notions involved with this project will need to be ones that are relevant to the psychology of utterance interpretation. Thus, it is only reasonable that relevance theorists will require that what is said and what is implicated should be psychologically real to the audience. (We will see that this requirement plays a crucial role in their arguments against Grice.) Grice, I will argue, was not pursuing this project. Rather, I will suggest that he was trying to make sense of quite a different notion of what is said: one on which both speaker and audience may be wrong about what is said. On this sort of notion, psychological reality is not a requirement. So objections to Grice based on a requirement of psychological reality will fail. Once Grice's project and that of relevance theorists are seen as distinct, it will be clear that they can happily coexist.2They are simply discussing different subject matters. One may start to wonder, however, about who is really discussing what is said, a topic that both camps claim. I will not attempt a conclusive answer to this question. But I will suggest that Grice's view, despite certain shortcomings, has advantages which seem all too often to have gone unnoticed.

Abstract:
Marjorie Jeuck Rice, a most unlikely mathematician, died on 2 July 2017 at the age of 94. She was born on 16 February 1923 in St. Petersburg, Florida, and raised on a tiny farm near Roseburg in southern Oregon. There she attended a one-room country school, and there her scientific interests were awakened and nourished by two excellent teachers who recognized her talent. She later wrote, ‘Arithmetic was easy and I liked to discover the reasons behind the methods we used.… I was interested in the colors, patterns, and designs of nature and dreamed of becoming an artist’?

Abstract:
Scheman argues against individualism, the thesis that psychological states are intrinsic objects that can exist independently from the context in which the individual lives. Scheman argues that while individualism is taken as de facto theory about the ontology of psychological objects given its alignment with physicalism, individualism is an ideological position rooted in a patriarchal system. According to Scheman, individualism prevents us from wholly considering psychological objects in relation to socially embedded norms. Scheman advocates for an anti-individualist position by examining how individualist approaches arise as a result of an embedment of liberal individualism and patriarchal culture.

Abstract:

This is a revision of Scheman's seminal paper originally published in 2000 which provides one of the first pieces showing how mainstream philosophy of mind can benefit from the insertion of feminist thought in its practices. In this article, Scheman criticises mainstream physicalism as ignoring the social context in its explanations of the mental. According to Scheman, this dismissal is a mistake since "beliefs, desires, emotions, and other phenomena of our mental lives are the particulars that they are because they are socially meaningful [...]".

Abstract:
The term "Sapphire" is frequently used to describe an age-old image of Black women. The caricature of the dominating, emasculating Black woman is one which historically has saturated both the popular and scholarly literature. The purpose of this paper is debunk the "Sapphire" caricature as it has been projected in American social science. By exposing the racist and sexist underpinnings of this stereotype, it is hoped that more students and scholars might be sensitized and encouraged to contribute to the development of a nonracist and non-sexist social science.

Abstract: Prenatal screening, consisting of maternal serum screening and nuchal translucency screening, is on the verge of expansion, both by being offered to more pregnant women and by screening for more conditions. The Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have each recently recommended that screening be extended to all pregnant women regardless of age, disease history, or risk status. This screening is commonly justified by appeal to the value of autonomy, or women's choice. In this paper, I critically examine the value of autonomy in the context of prenatal screening to determine whether it justifies the routine offer of screening and the expansion of screening services. I argue that in the vast majority of cases the option of prenatal screening does not promote or protect women's autonomy. Both a narrow conception of choice as informed consent and a broad conception of choice as relational reveal difficulties in achieving adequate standards of free informed choice. While there are reasons to worry that women's autonomy is not being protected or promoted within the limited scope of current practice, we should hesitate before normalizing it as part of standard prenatal care for all.

Abstract:
In recent years, the removal of monuments which glorify historical figures associated with racism and colonialism has become one of the most visible and contested forms of decolonisation. Yet many have objected that there is educational value in leaving such monuments standing. In this paper, I argue that public monuments can be understood as speech acts which communicate messages to those who live among them. Some of those speech acts derogate particular social groups, contributing to their marginalisation in much the way that slurs do. Comparing derogating monuments to slurs is also productive in suggesting morally appropriate responses to their harms. I explore the limits of the use-mention distinction in relation to the harmfulness of slurs and apply this to show that attempting to recontextualise harmful monuments in situ—by, for example, changing the text on an accompanying plaque in order to retain the monument for its educational value—will not solve the problem in most cases. I conclude that the removal of slurring monuments, or their relocation to museum exhibitions dedicated to presenting a more critical view of history, is a more robust and reliable way of protecting against harm, and that this consideration outweighs any purported educational value in leaving monuments in place.