This collection of original essays explores the social and relational dimensions of individual autonomy. Rejecting the feminist charge that autonomy is inherently masculinist, the contributors draw on feminist critiques of autonomy to challenge and enrich contemporary philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility. The essays analyze the complex ways in which oppression can impair an agent's capacity for autonomy, and investigate connections, neglected by standard accounts, between autonomy and other aspects of the agent, including self-conception, self-worth, memory, and the (...) imagination. (shrink)

One of the challenges facing complex democratic societies marked by deep normative disagreements and differences along lines of race, gender, sexuality, culture and religion is how the perspectives of diverse individuals and social groups can be made effectively present in the deliberative process. In response to this challenge, a number of political theorists have argued that empathetic perspective-taking is critical for just democratic deliberation, and that a well-functioning democracy requires the cultivation in citizens of empathetic skills and virtues. In this (...) paper, we begin by distinguishing several kinds of imaginative projection and corresponding kinds of empathy. On the basis of this analysis, we suggest that genuine empathetic perspective-taking, especially across gendered, racial and embodied differences, is more challenging than is often assumed in the literature. This poses a dilemma for theorists who place great store on the role of empathetic imagination to overcome the challenges of democratic deliberation. On the one hand, placing responsibilities for empathetic perspective-taking primarily on the socially privileged raises risks of inaccurate and inappropriate projection. On the other hand, mitigating the risks of projection by calling on the socially marginalised to articulate their experiences and feelings in a way that can engage the imagination of the socially privileged, risks perpetuating epistemic injustice. We suggest that while this dilemma may be difficult to overcome, its effects can nevertheless be mitigated through both the cultivation of individual deliberative virtues and pragmatic institutional responses. (shrink)

Contemporary liberal political justification is often accused of preaching to the converted: liberal principles are acceptable only to people already committed to liberal values. Catriona McKinnon addresses this important criticism by arguing that self-respect and its social conditions should be placed at the heart of the liberal approach to justification. A commitment to self-respect delivers a commitment to the liberal values of toleration and public reason, but self-respect itself is not an exclusively liberal value.

Climate change creates unprecedented problems of intergenerational justice. What do members of the current generation owe to future generations in virtue of the contribution they are making to climate change? Providing important new insights within the theoretical framework of political liberalism, Climate Change and Future Justice presents arguments in three key areas: Mitigation: the current generation ought to adopt a strong precautionary principle in formulating climate change policy in order to minimise the risks of serious harm from climate change imposed (...) on future generations Adaptation: the current generation ought to create a fund to which members of future generations may apply for compensation if the risks of climate change harm imposed on them by the current generation ripen into harms Triage: future generations ought to keep alive hope for a return to the framework of justice for the social cooperation of future people less burdened by climate change harms. This work presents agenda-setting applications of important principles of democratic equality to the most serious set of political challenges ever faced by human society. It should be required reading for political theorists and environmental philosophers. (shrink)

Why should we be tolerant? What does it mean to ‘live and let live’? What ought to be tolerated and what not? Catriona McKinnon presents a comprehensive, yet accessible introduction to toleration in her new book. Divided into two parts, the first clearly introduces and assesses the major theoretical accounts of toleration, examining it in light of challenges from scepticism, value pluralism and reasonableness. The second part applies the theories of toleration to contemporary debates such as female circumcision, French (...) Headscarves, artistic freedom, pornography and censorship, and holocaust denial. Drawing on the work of philosophers, such as Locke, Mill and Rawls, whose theories are central to toleration, the book provides a solid theoretical base to those who value toleration, whilst considering the challenges toleration faces in practice. It is the ideal starting point for those coming to the topic for the first time, as well as anyone interested in the challenges facing toleration today. (shrink)

In the face of accelerating climate change and the parlous state of its politics, despair is tempting. This paper analyses two manifestations of despair about climate change related to (1) the inefficacy of personal emissions reductions, and (2) the inability to make a difference to climate change through personal emissions reductions. On the back of an analysis of despair as a loss of hope, the paper argues that the judgements grounding each form of despair are unsound. The paper concludes with (...) consideration of the instrumental value of hope in effective agency to tackle climate change. Overall, the paper’s assessment of personal despair about climate change as philosophically unjustified provides a fresh perspective on aspects of the debate about how to frame climate change in public debate. (shrink)

abstract In this paper we question the basis on which judgements are made about the ‘quality’ of the lives of people whose embodied experience is anomalous, specifically in cases of impairments. In moral and political philosophy it is often assumed that, suitably informed, we can overcome epistemic gaps through the exercise of moral imagination: ‘putting ourselves in the place of others’, we can share their points of view. Drawing on phenomenology and theories of embodied cognition, and on empirical studies, we (...) suggest that there are barriers to imagining oneself differently situated, or imagining being another person, arising in part from the way imagination is constrained by embodied experience. We argue that the role of imagination in moral engagement with others is to expand the scope of our sympathies rather than to enable us to put ourselves in the other's place. We argue for explicit acknowledgement that our assessments of others’ QOL are likely to be shaped by the specifics of our own embodiment, and by the assumptions we make as a consequence about what is necessary for a good quality of life. (shrink)

Theories of collective intentionality and theories of relational autonomy share a common interest in analyzing the social dynamics of agency. However, whereas theories of collective intentionality conceive of social groups primarily as intentional and voluntarily willed, theories of relational autonomy claim that autonomous agency is both scaffolded and constrained by social forces and structures, including the constraints imposed by nonvoluntary group membership. The question raised by this difference in view is whether social theorizing that overlooks the effects of nonvoluntary social (...) group membership on individual and joint agency overlooks crucial aspects of the social dynamics of agency. To explore this question, this article first evaluates Michael Bratman's planning analysis of individual agency from the perspective of relational autonomy theory and compares it with a narrative self‐constitution account of temporally extended agency. It then evaluates Bratman's analysis of shared agency and discusses Shaun Gallagher and Deborah Tollefsen's concept of we‐narratives, which extends the notion of narrative construction to shared agency. Overall, the argument aims to show that if we are interested in understanding the social dynamics of agency, it is critical to attend to the way that agents exercise their intentional agency in relation to internalized and external social constraints. (shrink)

While some trust theorists have adverted to the vulnerabilities involved in trust, especially vulnerability to betrayal, the literature on trust has not engaged with recent work on the ethics of vulnerability. This paper initiates a dialogue between these literatures, and in doing so begins to explore the complex interrelations between vulnerability and trust. More specifically, it aims to show how trust can both mitigate and compound vulnerability. Through a discussion of two examples drawn from literary sources, the paper also investigates (...) the effects of pathogenic vulnerability on the psychic economies of trust and distrust. (shrink)

This volume breaks new ground by investigating the ethics of vulnerability. Drawing on various ethical traditions, the contributors explore the nature of vulnerability, the responsibilities owed to the vulnerable, and by whom.

In the Anthropocene, human beings are capable of bringing about globally catastrophic outcomes that could damage conditions for present and future human life on Earth in unprecedented ways. This paper argues that the scale and severity of these dangers justifies a new international criminal offence of ‘postericide’ that would protect present and future people against wrongfully created dangers of near extinction. Postericide is committed by intentional or reckless systematic conduct that is fit to bring about near human extinction. The paper (...) argues that a proper understanding of the moral imperatives embodied in international criminal law shows that it ought to be expanded to incorporate a new law of postericide. (shrink)

In the recent neuroethics literature, there has been vigorous debate concerning the ethical implications of the use of neurotechnologies that may alter a person’s identity. Much of this debate has been framed around the concept of authenticity. The argument of this chapter is that the ethics of authenticity, as applied to neurotechnological treatment or enhancement, is conceptually misleading. The notion of authenticity is ambiguous between two distinct and conflicting conceptions: self-discovery and self-creation. The self-discovery conception of authenticity is based on (...) a problematic conception of a static, real inner self. The notion of self-creation, although more plausible, blurs the distinction between identity and autonomy. Moreover, both conceptions are overly individualistic and fail sufficiently to account for the relational constitution of personal identity. The authors propose that a relational, narrative understanding of identity and autonomy can incorporate the more plausible aspects of both interpretations of authenticity, while providing a normatively more illuminating theoretical framework for approaching the question of whether and how neurotechnologies threaten identity. (shrink)

Why should I let the toad work Squat on my life? Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork And drive the brute off? Six days of the week it soils With its sickening poison — Just for paying a few bills! That's out of proportion. From Philip Larkin, ‘Toads’. ABSTRACT This paper mounts a Rawlsian argument for unconditional basic income on the grounds that it maximins the distribution of income and wealth understood as a social basis of self‐respect. The (...) most important objection to this argument available to Rawlsians is that basic income violates the demands of reciprocity, where reciprocity in any scheme of distribution is a requirement of justice. The second half of the paper addresses this objection. It is argued there that even if the objection can be made successfully by Rawlsians (and this is not clear), it is not sufficient to divest them of a commitment to basic income, given some practical considerations about the implementation of alternatives to basic income. (shrink)

The application of in vivo genetic lineage tracing has advanced our understanding of cellular mechanisms for tissue renewal in organs with slow turnover, like the lung. These studies have identified an adult stem cell with very different properties than classically understood ones that maintain continuously cycling tissues such as the intestine. A portrait has emerged of an ensemble of cellular programs that replenish the cells that line the gas exchange (alveolar) surface, enabling a response tailored to the extent of cell (...) loss. A capacity for differentiated cells to undergo direct lineage transitions allows for local restoration of proper cell balance at sites of injury. We present these recent findings as a paradigm for how a relatively quiescent tissue compartment can maintain homeostasis throughout a lifetime punctuated by injuries ranging from mild to life‐threatening, and discuss how dysfunction or insufficiency of alveolar repair programs produce serious health consequences like cancer and fibrosis. (shrink)

Environmentalism is traversed by a dilemma between a movement toward identity politics and the impossibility of a speaking natural subject; this dilemma calls into question both the relevance of identity politics for ecological struggle and dominant classical constructions of the subject itself. Using Lacanianinspired insights on subjectivity, and the works of Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe on radical democracy, I investigate the alternative versions of the subject implicit in ecological discourses and suggest that it is through these alternatives that environmentalism (...) can forge necessary alliances with other movements oriented toward human liberation. In particular, the very impossibility of a natural speaking subject suggests that the ecological project of redefining humanity’s relationships to nonhuman nature(s) is always contingent on reorienting human subjectivity itself; this fact highlights the centrality of political coalition between ecological and other social movements. (shrink)

Recent work on diachronic agency has challenged the predominantly structural or synchronic approach to agency that is characteristic of much of the literature in contemporary philosophical moral psychology. However, the embodied dimensions of diachronic agency continue to be neglected in the literature. This article draws on phenomenological perspectives on embodiment and narrative conceptions of the self to argue that diachronic agency and selfhood are anchored in embodiment. In doing so, the article also responds to Diana Meyers' recent work on corporeal (...) selfhood. (shrink)

This enlightening study examines the relationship between being and God in Aristotle and Heidegger. Focusing on the methodology of each thinker, Catriona Hanley contrasts their beliefs on the infinite or finite nature of being, and on God’s role therein. The author also offers some indication of how modern thinkers might rethink the relation of the finite to the infinite, based on the work of these two philosophers. Being and God in Aristotle and Heidegger is a valuable book for philosophers (...) of religion. (shrink)

In courses in the twenties and early thirties, Heidegger argues that in Aristotle the question of the being of beings (ontology) and that of the unity of beings (theology) are distinct. Although he treated the two questions as part of one science, prôtē philosophía, Aristotle did not, in Heidegger's view, discuss the way in which these questions belong together. Being is determined theoretically as presence; and God, the first mover, is an aítion, an explanatory ground of motion in sensible ousía. (...) God is required as a ground for the presence of beings as a whole. Heidegger no longer seeks explanatory grounds, nor does he prioritize theory. Rather, he inquires into the essence of ground, and the poietical involvement of Dasein in understanding being. The unity of Aristotle's questions is found in a groundless ground: Dasein as transcendence. The metaphysical god is thus no longer required in Heidegger's phenomenology. (shrink)

Feminists have argued that the association made between teenage childbearing and long-term lower socioeconomic status hides a multitude of socially constructed inequalities. I extend this position by analyzing how the association is linked in the South African literature on teenage pregnancy to economic security. I utilize Foucault's conceptualization of the method of security. Security refers to institutions and practices that defend and maintain a national population as well as secure the economic, demographic, and social processes of that population. I analyze (...) how the traits of the method of security are deployed with regard to teenage pregnancy; how reproductive adolescents are viewed as disrupting the production of the economic self and fracturing population control, thereby threatening economic security; and how the invocation of economic security allows for the legitimation of various regulatory practices. (shrink)

Catriona McKinnon; Graduate Paper from the Joint Session 1996: Self-Respect and the Stepford Wives, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 97, Issue 1.

In this paper we defend the notion of narrative identity against Galen Strawson's recent critique. With reference to Elyn Saks's memoir of her schizophrenia, we question the coherence ofStrawsons conception of the Episodic self and show why the capacity for narrative integration is important for a flourishing life. We aho argue that Scú put pressure on narrative theories that specify unduly restncúve constraints on self-constituting narratives, and chrify the need to distinguish identity from autonomy.

Words refer to objects in the world, but this correspondence is not one-to-one: Each word has a range of referents that share features on some dimensions but differ on others. This property of language is called underspecification. Parts of the lexicon have characteristic patterns of underspecification; for example, artifact nouns tend to specify shape, but not color, whereas substance nouns specify material but not shape. These regularities in the lexicon enable learners to generalize new words appropriately. How does the lexicon (...) come to have these helpful regularities? We test the hypothesis that systematic backgrounding of some dimensions during learning and use causes language to gradually change, over repeated episodes of transmission, to produce a lexicon with strong patterns of underspecification across these less salient dimensions. This offers a cultural evolutionary mechanism linking individual word learning and generalization to the origin of regularities in the lexicon that help learners generalize words appropriately. (shrink)

It is standard in feminist commentaries to argue that Wollstonecraft's feminism is vitiated by her commitment to a liberal philosophical framework, relying on a valuation of reason over passion and on the notion of a sex-neutral self. I challenge this interpretation of Wollstonecraft's feminism and argue that her attempt to articulate an ideal of self-governance for women was an attempt to diagnose and resolve some of the tensions and inadequacies within traditional liberal thought.1.

This article provides an account of some of the education provisions by Irish women religious, in the Anglophone world, in the nineteenth century. Although many orders sent Sisters around the globe, to both establish and run schools for English-speaking children, the main focus of this article is on two Irish orders, the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Sisters of Mercy. While the work of other female congregations is noted, the focus on these two orders (...) reflects the fact that they spread quickly around the globe, attracting many Irish vocations and eventually making a substantial contribution to education. The Sisters of Mercy were also known for their work in health care; however, the focus of this article is on education. The article commences with a review of the research in the field and the approaches taken by historians. The article also notes some lacunae in research and points to areas that merit more attention. The article then examines the experience of Irish nuns overseas and the contribution of the Mercy and Presentation nuns. (shrink)

This paper sets out to examine political thinking in post-totalitarian Slovakia. Using the discourse theory and signification of Laclau and Mouffe, it considers the sign národ (a specific conception of the Slovak nation) in relation to democracy and the EU. Seeking to pinpoint political thinking amongst the general populace, it bases its analysis on an examination of newspaper articles on “Building the State” published in the 1990s. It traces the roots of the sign from the 1960s to the present day (...) and predicts that the EU signifier will impact on the content of the floating signifier of národ. (shrink)

This paper responds to recent work on moral blame, which has drawn attention to the ambivalent nature of our blaming practices and to the need to ‘civilize’ these practices. It argues that the project of civilizing blame must engage with a further problematic feature of these practices, namely, that they can be implicated in structures of social oppression, and distorted by epistemic and discursive injustice. The paper also aims to show that engaging with this problem raises questions about the Strawsonian (...) equation of moral responsibility with liability to praise or blame. (shrink)