Many private business relationships are increasingly characterized by claims that certain actions should not be permitted since particular right claims are involved. Such claims should be taken seriously, but are they always ethically legitimate? This paper analyzes one context, the use of age as a rating variable in the pricing of automobile insurance, where such claims are made. By identifying, evaluating and assessing the relevant basis for the differentiation, actuarial equity, it is concluded that there is an ethical basis for (...) such a practice. The analysis also provides an equivalent means for considering other such analogous claims where actuarial equity is involved. (shrink)

It is always awkward when someone asks me informally what I’m working on and I answer that I’m trying to figure out what gender is. For outside a rather narrow segment of the academic world, the term ‘gender’ has come to function as the polite way to talk about the sexes. And one thing people feel pretty confident about is their knowledge of the difference between males and females. Males are those human beings with a range of familiar primary and (...) secondary sex characteristics, most important being the penis; females are those with a different set, most important being the vagina or, perhaps, the uterus. Enough said. Against this background, it isn’t clear what could be the point of an inquiry, especially a philosophical inquiry, into “what gender is”. (shrink)

A philosophically useful account of social structure must accommodate the fact that social structures play an important role in structural explanation. But what is a structural explanation? How do structural explanations function in the social sciences? This paper offers a way of thinking about structural explanation and sketches an account of social structure that connects social structures with structural explanation.

Racism, sexism, and other forms of injustice are more than just bad attitudes; after all, such injustice involves unfair distributions of goods and resources. But attitudes play a role. How central is that role? Tommie Shelby, among others, argues that racism is an ideology and takes a cognitivist approach suggesting that ideologies consist in false beliefs that arise out of and serve pernicious social conditions. In this paper I argue that racism is better understood as a set of practices, attitudes, (...) social meanings, and material conditions, that systematically reinforce one another. Attitudes play a role, but even the cognitive/affective component of ideologies should include culturally shared habits of mind and action. These habits of mind distort, obscure, and occlude important facts about subordinated groups and result in a failure to recognize their interests. How do we disrupt such practices to achieve greater justice? I argue that this is sometimes, but not always, best achieved by argument or challenging false beliefs, so social movements legitimately seek other means. (shrink)

Across the humanities and social sciences it has become commonplace for scholars to argue that categories once assumed to be “natural” are in fact “social” or, in the familiar lingo, “socially constructed”. Two common examples of such categories are race and gender, but there many others. One interpretation of this claim is that although it is typically thought that what unifies the instances of such categories is some set of natural or physical properties, instead their unity rests on social features (...) of the items in question. Social constructionists pursuing this strategy—and it is these social constructionists I will be focusing on in this paper—aim to “debunk” the ordinary assumption that the categories are natural, by revealing the more accurate social basis of the classification.2 To avoid confusion, and to resist some of the associations with the term ‘social construction’, I will sometimes use the term ‘socially founded’ for the categories that this sort of constructionist reveals as social rather than natural. (shrink)

Recent work on social injustice has focused on implicit bias as an important factor in explaining persistent injustice in spite of achievements on civil rights. In this paper, I argue that because of its individualism, implicit bias explanation, taken alone, is inadequate to explain ongoing injustice; and, more importantly, it fails to call attention to what is morally at stake. An adequate account of how implicit bias functions must situate it within a broader theory of social structures and structural injustice; (...) changing structures is often a precondition for changing patterns of thought and action and is certainly required for durable change. (shrink)

Theorists analyzing the concepts of race and gender disagree over whether the terms refer to natural kinds, social kinds, or nothing at all. The question arises: what do we mean by the terms? It is usually assumed that ordinary intuitions of native speakers are definitive. However, I argue that contemporary semantic externalism can usefully combine with insights from Foucauldian genealogy to challenge mainstream methods of analysis and lend credibility to social constructionist projects.

Experiences of solidarity have figured prominently in the politics of the modern era, from the rallying cry of liberation theology for solidarity with the poor and oppressed, through feminist calls for sisterhood, to such political movements as Solidarity in Poland. Yet very little academic writing has focused on solidarity in conceptual rather than empirical terms. Sally Scholz takes on this critical task here. She lays the groundwork for a theory of political solidarity, asking what solidarity means and how it (...) differs fundamentally from other social and political concepts like camaraderie, association, or community. Scholz distinguishes a variety of types and levels of solidarity by their social ontologies, moral relations, and corresponding obligations. Political solidarity, in contrast to social solidarity and civic solidarity, aims to bring about social change by uniting individuals in their response to particular situations of injustice, oppression, or tyranny. The book explores the moral relation of political solidarity in detail, with chapters on the nature of the solidary group, obligations within solidarity, the “paradox of the privileged,” the goals of solidarity movements, and the prospects for global solidarity. ��. (shrink)

Sally Sedgwick presents a fresh account of Hegel's critique of Kant's theoretical philosophy. She argues that Hegel offers a compelling critique of and alternative to the conception of cognition that Kant defended in his 'Critical' period, and explores Hegel's claim to derive from Kantian doctrines clues to a superior form of idealism.

How do we achieve social justice? How do we change society for the better? Some would argue that we must do it by changing the laws or state institutions. Others that we must do it by changing individual attitudes. I argue that although both of these factors are important and relevant, we must also change culture. What does this mean? Culture, I argue, is a set of social meanings that shapes and filters how we think and act. Problematic networks of (...) social meanings constitute an ideology. Entrenched ideologies are resilient and are barriers to social change, even in the face of legal interventions. I argue that an effective way to change culture is through social movements and contentious politics, and that philosophy has a role to play in promoting such change. (shrink)

Are sagging pants cool? Are cows food? Are women more submissive than men? Are blacks more criminal than whites? Taking the social world at face value, many people would be tempted to answer these questions in the affirmative. And if challenged, they can point to facts that support their answers. But there is something wrong about the affirmative answers. In this chapter, I draw on recent ideas in the philosophy of language and metaphysics to show how the assertion of a (...) generic claim of the sort in question ordinarily permits one to infer that the fact in question obtains by virtue of something specifically about the subject so described, i.e., about women, or blacks, or sagging pants. In the examples I’ve offered, however, this implication inference is unwarranted. The facts in question obtain by virtue of broad system of social relations within which the subjects are situated, and are not grounded in intrinsic or dispositional features of the subjects themselves. The background relations are obscured, however, and as a result, the assertion is at least systematically misleading; a denial functions to block the problematic implication. Revealing such implications or presuppositions and blocking them is a crucial part of ideology critique. (shrink)

Contemporary discussions of race and racism devote considerable effort to giving conceptual analyses of these notions. Much of the work is concerned to investigate a priori what we mean by the terms ‘ race ’ and ‘racism’ ; more recent work has started to employ empirical methods to determine the content of our “folk concepts,” or “folk theory” of race and racism. In contrast to both of these projects, I have argued elsewhere that in considering what we mean by these (...) terms we should treat them on the model of kind terms whose reference is fixed by ordinary uses, but whose content is discovered empirically using social theory; I have also argued that it is not only important to determine what we actually mean by these terms, but what we should mean, i.e., what type, if any, we should be tracking. My own discussion of these issues, however, has been confused and confusing. In giving an account of race or gender, is the goal to provide a conceptual analysis? Or to investigate the kinds we are referring to? To draw attention to different kinds? To stipulate new meanings? Jennifer Saul has raised a series of powerful objections to my accounts of gender and race, suggesting that they are neither semantically nor politically useful, regardless of whether we treat them as revisionary proposals, or as elucidations of our concepts. Joshua Glasgow has also offered a critique of my externalist approach to race as an effort to capture “our concept”. I agree with much of what they say, but I also believe that there is something I was trying to capture that. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant's Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals of 1785 is one of the most profound and important works in the history of practical philosophy. In this introduction to the Groundwork, Sally Sedgwick provides a guide to Kant's text that follows the course of his discussion virtually paragraph by paragraph. Her aim is to convey Kant's ideas and arguments as clearly and simply as possible, without getting lost in scholarly controversies. Her introductory chapter offers a useful overview of Kant's (...) general approach to practical philosophy, and she also explores and clarifies some of the main assumptions which Kant relies on in his Groundwork but defends in his Critique of Pure Reason. The book will be a valuable guide for all who are interested in Kant's practical philosophy. (shrink)

It is a great honor to have such excellent commentary on my book, and I am happy to have the opportunity to discuss these issues with others who have done such important work on the topics. I will reply to the commentaries separately, beginning with the critique by Charles Mills (2013) and moving on to Karen Jones’s (2013). Reply to MillsRevisiting my projectMills considers four views that pose challenges to my account of race as a hierarchical social category.(1) Kitcher (2007) (...) and Andreasen (1998) (and others) argue that there is a biological reality to race. If, as I argue, it is not helpful to draw a sharp boundary between the social and the natural, should we embrace their framework and allow that race is both social and biological? Or is biologism’s history too troublesome for that? Am I implicitly committed to a problematic naturalism about race myself, given that I embrace a broad naturalism?So a remapping of this contrast would be something like the “natural” unmediated by hum .. (shrink)

This paper reviews the current commitment of accounting academics to teaching accounting ethics. In the course of the review it assesses the recent initiative of the American Accounting Association; namely, Ethics in the Accounting Curriculum: Cases and Readings, 1994. This collection of cases has not been widely adopted despite an identified lack of case materials available to those teaching accounting ethics. The question becomes whether the lack of adoption suggests that accounting academics are not particularly interested in incorporating ethical issues (...) in the classroom or whether there are difficulties with the quality of the collection. The paper continues by examining the current state of research in accounting ethics and again asks what this tells us about commitment to teaching accounting ethics. While the conclusions of this examination are far from definitive, there are signs that all is not well with the accounting ethics discipline. (shrink)

This is one in a series of books which explains to the Western reader and illustrates the basics of the teachings and deities of the world's many religions and philosophies. This text covers Confucius, a famous Chinese thinker and social philosopher.

How should we explore the relationship between race and educational opportunity? One approach to the Black-White achievement gap explores how race and class cause disparities in access and opportunity. In this paper, I consider how education contributes to the creation of race. Considering examples of classroom micropolitics, I argue that breakdowns of trust and trustworthiness between teachers and students can cause substantial disadvantages and, in the contemporary United States, this happens along racial lines. Some of the disadvantages are academic: high (...) achievement is more difficult when one faces mistrust, ego depletion, effort pessimism, and insult. And within a knowledge economy, exclusion from knowledge work makes one vulnerable to injustice. But the problem goes deeper than achievement, for schools are contexts in which we develop self-understandings and identities that situate us as members of society. If students of color are systematically denied full participation in trusting conversations that create shared knowledge—especially, knowledge that holds power within the dominant culture—they are unjustly deprived resources to form flourishing selves that are suited to the positions of power and authority. The argument suggests that knowledge is not best understood simply as a commodity to be distributed, and opportunity is not just a matter of access. Moreover, even if access is granted, those who are motivated and talented can fail: they drain their willpower by coping with insults, or reasonably lose optimism about their efficacy. Over time, motivation may shift away from achievement, and under the circumstances this can be a rational response. The barriers to achievement are many, but true opportunity is impossible without trust and trustworthiness. (shrink)

Gender is the social meaning of a person’s sex, and race is the social meaning of a person’s color. This paper reviews some accounts of these social meanings. It is argued that there are important differences between race and gender that count against treating them as parallel.

The volume provides a comprehensive discussion of enduring and emerging challenges to ethical journalism worldwide. The collection highlights journalism practice that makes a positive contribution to people's lives, investigates the link between institutional power and ethical practices in journalism, and explores the relationship between ethical standards and journalistic practice. Chapters in the volume represent three key commitments: 1) ensuring practice informed by theory, 2) providing professional guidance to journalists, and 3) offering an expanded worldview that examines journalism ethics beyond traditional (...) boundaries and borders. With input from over 60 expert contributors, it offers a global perspective on journalism ethics and embraces ideas from well-known and emerging journalism scholars and practitioners from around the world. The Routledge Companion to Journalism Ethics serves as a one-stop shop for journalism ethics scholars and students as well as industry practitioners and experts. (shrink)

Anthropological studies of folk cultures have been made not only on the content of their dreams but also on their interpretations. While there is a wide variance in the understanding of dreaming by cultures other than our own, there is a large set which might be called the classic dream interpretation of folk societies, which was first noted by Tylor in the nineteenth century. Its main tenet is that dreams are the experiences or travels of the soul, and that the (...) soul is distinct from the waking ego who recounts the dream. The dream is a narrative about real things, not something of a fantasy nature. This leads to a different epistemological basis of dreaming than the Western framework. This paper details the extent and nature of this interpretation, and explores the psychological and philosophical issues raised by it. (shrink)

The paper reiterates the account of Aristotle's conception of eudaimonia to be found in my monograph Virtue and Reason in Plato and Aristotle, and then faces the charge that it makes the agent's motivation unattractively egocentric (viz. on his own eudaimonia).

Strip clubs have rarely been analyzed in terms of their gendered organization. Instead, the literature on stripping emphasizes interaction-based perspectives that focus on strippers, patrons, and broader macro-structural trends. Although interaction-based perspectives are valuable, they often neglect to consider the context in which these interactions take place, the strip club itself. Such studies also tend to neglect the larger cast of club characters who own, manage, and work. This study explores workplace dynamics in The Lion's Den, a club featuring nude (...) female dancers who perform primarily for male patrons. Informed by feminist and gendered organizational theory, this research utilizes sociologist Joan Acker's framework for studying gendered organizations as a way of augmenting interaction-based perspectives. Applying her approach to a strip club, an overtly gendered setting, this research demonstrates the importance of context in facilitating particular gendered processes, stereotypes, and gendered substructures. (shrink)

This study examined the recall of car and food advertisements within either a car or food television program to investigate the relationship between recall, program content, and viewer involvement. The participants, 92 sixth-form students, aged between 16–17 years, were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. As predicted, advertisements placed within a program of dissimilar content were recalled significantly better than if placed within a program of similar content. A gender bias in recall was found with females recalling female-orientated products (...) significantly better than males. Viewer-involvement ratings factored onto three factor clusters: enjoyable, cheerful, and humorous. Negative correlations were shown between cheerfulness and recall in the car program, and positive correlations were shown between cheerfulness and recall in the food program. Finally, implications of the results were considered. (shrink)

We examined developmental changes in British children’s (8- to 10-year-olds) and adolescents’ (13- to 15-year-olds,N = 340; FemaleN = 171, 50.3%) indirect bystander reactions (i.e., judgments about whether to get help and from whom when witnessing social exclusion) and their social-moral reasoning regarding their reactions to social exclusion. We also explored, for the first time, how the group membership of the excluder and victim affect participants’ reactions. Participants read a hypothetical scenario in which they witnessed a peer being excluded from (...) a school club by another peer. We manipulated the group membership of the victim (either British or an immigrant) and the group membership of the excluder (either British or an immigrant). Participants’ likelihood of indirect bystander reactions decreased from childhood into adolescence. Children were more likely to get help from a teacher or an adult than getting help from a friend, whereas adolescents were more likely to get help from a friend than getting help from a teacher or an adult. For both indirect bystander reactions, children justified their likelihood of responding by referring to their trust in their teachers and friends. Adolescents were more likely to refer to group loyalty and dynamics, and psychological reasons. The findings support and extend the Social Reasoning Developmental (SRD) approach by showing the importance of group processes with age in shaping children’s judgments about how to respond indirectly by asking for help from others, when they are bystanders in a situation that involves exclusion. The findings have practical implications for combating social exclusion and promoting prosocial bystander behavior in schools. (shrink)

Independence is a fundamental concept to the audit. There is a clear relationship between independence and conflict of interest in all professions. This paper examines this relationship in the auditing profession and in the context of three specific practices. The paper analyses these practices by using the Davis model of conflict of interest. The results of this analysis give rise to some interesting questions for the ethical practices of the auditing profession.