Jan Narveson Interview

While searching through old posts at Against Politics, one of my common haunts, I came across an interview featuring Jan Narveson, professor of philosophy emeritus at the University of Waterloo. Dr. Narveson, whose work I encountered via the work of Robert Nozick and David Gauthier, is an anarcho-capitalist and the author of the influential The Libertarian Idea. Among other things, Dr. Narveson addresses in the interview why natural rights should be rejected and offers his list of the most influential texts in libertarian political philosophy. Here is the link to the interview, a significant portion of which I excerpt here:

The contractarian and utilitarian approaches to libertarianism are often confused. What are the differences between these two views?

Contractarian is not the same as utilitarian, and does not give similar results. The Utilitarian, as in Bentham and Mill, holds that (1) everyone’s utility is cardinally measurable, in principle, and (2) for social and moral purposes, we should count an equal amount of anyone’s utility as equal to anyone else’s, intrinsically.

Utilitarianism is, actually, equivalent to another natural rights perspective—that’s why I stopped being a utilitarian.

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Being a Woman in Philosophy

This is worth reading — particularly stunning at times.  (HT: Jon Jacobs via Kari Theurer)

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Ada Lovelace Day

Today is Ada Lovelace Day, a day to celebrate women’s accomplishements in science and techonology. Ada Lovelace was the inventor of the first computer program. From Feminist Philosophers we learn more about her:

Who was Ada?

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace was born on 10th December 1815, the only child of Lord Byron and his wife, Annabella. Born Augusta Ada Byron, but now known simply as Ada Lovelace, she wrote the world’s first computer programmes for the Analytical Engine, a general-purpose machine that Charles Babbage had invented. Ada had been taught mathematics from a very young age by her mother and met Babbage in 1833. Ten years later she translated Luigi Menabrea’s memoir on Babbage’s Analytical Engine, appending notes that included a method for calculating Bernoulli numbers with the machine – the first computer programme. The calculations were never carried out, as the machine was never built. She also wrote the very first description of a computer and of software.

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A Blog of Her Own

Four popular female bloggers dicuss the ins and out of blogging in this interesting panel discussion.

(HT: Feminist Philosophers)

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Is Feminist Philosophy Narrow and Lacking of Rigor?

Brandon argues: Nope.

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Female WWII Pilots

The running stats are that women are only about 20% of philosophers, but at a meeting I went to at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, I learned that their local student body is about 97% male. In light of that, and yesterday being International Women’s Day, I thought it would be nice to post a story NPR is running about female WWII pilots:

In 1942, the United States was faced with a severe shortage of pilots, and leaders gambled on an experimental program to help fill the void: Train women to fly military aircraft so male pilots could be released for combat duty overseas.

The group of female pilots was called the Women Airforce Service Pilots — WASP for short. In 1944, during the graduation ceremony for the last WASP training class, the commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry “Hap” Arnold, said that when the program started, he wasn’t sure “whether a slip of a girl could fight the controls of a B-17 in heavy weather.”

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Thinning Out Our Concept of the Ideal American Indian

Thick concepts are generally thought of as concepts that are both descriptive and normative. They describe something and, at the same time, say what something should be. Thinner concepts are concepts, then, that pull apart the normative and descriptive. In this essay, I want to use ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ in different ways than these terms of art. I shall be using the terms thick and thin to mean equivocal concepts that are bundled together and can be pulled apart.

The notion of the ‘ideal’ American Indian is a concept, in my terms, that is very thick; very loaded. As I have explained before, there are at least five different ways American Indians are conceived; in religious, cultural, racial, genetic and political terms. The idea of what I shall call ‘the ideal American Indian’ merges all of these together into one single body. The ideal American Indian, then, (that is, the particular individual or concept that epitomizes the American Indian) includes all of these different forms of identity. (We could include, too, that the ideal American Indian is generally understood to be male.)

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Ownership of the People, by the People, and for the People

“Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good.” H. L. Mencken

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Toward a Clearer Understanding of Universal Human Rights

It was never the people who complained of the universality of human rights,
nor did the people consider human rights as a Western or Northern imposition.
It was often their leaders who did so.
-Kofi Annan, United Nations Secretary-General

 

When considering the subject of human rights it seems to me most likely that an individual would begin by considering how she would like to be treated by others. After all it is in herself, excepting perhaps her children, in which she has the greatest interest, has made the greatest investment, and is the greatest stakeholder. This question is of primary concern to the individual almost from the moment of birth. Only after a careful consideration of self-interest would the question of how others should then be treated reasonably arise.

It is because humans have been created with an overarching sense of self interest that God links the standard for our behavior in all aspects of life to it.

“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for these sums up the Law and the Prophets. (Matt 7:12, NIV) ¹

The “others” referred to being the individuals within her immediate sphere. Given an increase in intellect and maturity, that number may progressively expand until she should arrive at the question, “How then should all the people of the world rightly be treated?” ² The influence of family and cultural traditions may have a profound impact upon such reasoning depending upon the individual’s strength of intellect and character. The normative claims that we make regarding what comprises right and just conduct of humans toward each other subsequently gives rise to all the specific definitions of human rights and responsibilities.

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A Graduate Conference for Feminist Philosophers, Call for Papers

I was visiting the web-page of the Philosophy Department at the University of Western Ontario, and noticed that they had an open call for papers for an upcoming graduate student conference on feminist philosophy (Sept. 18-20). The Keynote speaker is Alice MacLachlan (York University).

 Here is an excerpt of their description of the conference: “This conference aims to bring together graduate students from across North America who share an interest in feminism, post-coloniality, queer theory, critical race theory, philosophy of disability and anti-oppression theory in general, regardless of their primary area of research. ”

The deadline for submissions is on June 15th. Click here for more information.

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I love being a woman!

Just stopping by the blog with some girl power to my sisters across the world to celebrate International Women’s Day. I hope each and every one of us get to live to see the day when women are no longer beaten, forced to bear children, battered, forced into prostitution, abused, discriminated against, held in slavery, raped, mutilated, ridiculed, bonded in marriage, circumcised, sold, and traded.

I long for the day when women are no longer blamed for the clothes they wore when they were raped, the words they spoke when they were beaten by their partners and the helplessness they feel when they are isolated in their marriages. I wish that one day women aren’t the only ones held responsible for pregnancies. I hope that young women will one day go to college solely for the purpose of an education and not at all for the purpose of finding someone to marry. I want to live to see that women will go to work and get equal pay.

I think women are astonishing creations. Being a woman is one of the things in my life that I am most proud of. Being part of the world’s largest minority, however, is not. And so the fight must go on..!

http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

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Miranda Fricker on Epistemic Injustice

An interview at Philosophy Bites:

Testimonial injustice occurs when others fail to treat you seriously as a source of knowledge. In this interview Miranda Fricker, author of a recent book on the topic, explains this concept which lies at the intersection between epistemology and political philosophy.

This interview is from 2007, but I just found out about it via Feminist Philosophers. And here’s a review of her book, Epistemic Injustice:

Epistemology and Ethics have traditionally been kept apart. This book brings them together. Miranda Fricker focuses on two kinds of epistemic injustice: the injustice that occurs when someone is not treated seriously as a possible source of knowledge (testimonial injustice) and the injustice that occurs when a society lacks a conceptual framework for understanding the experiences of someone who has been treated badly (hermeneutic injustice). An example of the first kind is when someone stopped by the police is not believed because he is black; an example of the second type is when someone is a victim of sexual harrassment in a society that still lacks that concept. Both are kinds of epistemic injustice in Fricker’s terms. That is they are harms that an individual suffers that relate to that individual’s potential to give knowledge and to be a subject of social understanding.

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“The Obama Effect”

Readers who have followed recent philosophical discussions on implicit bias and schema disruption (here, for example) may be interested in this study reported at The Situationist attempting to test whether having an African-American president has changed the way African-American students perform on tests, and whether it has enhanced their ability to overcome stereotype threats that decrease academic performance.

The inspiring role model that Mr. Obama projected helped blacks overcome anxieties about racial stereotypes that had been shown, in earlier research, to lower the test-taking proficiency of African-Americans, the researchers conclude in a report summarizing their results.

“Obama is obviously inspirational, but we wondered whether he would contribute to an improvement in something as important as black test-taking,” said Ray Friedman, a management professor at Vanderbilt University, one of the study’s three authors. “We were skeptical that we would find any effect, but our results surprised us.”

Readers who haven’t followed the discussions on implicit bias and schema disruption or who aren’t familiar with the relevant psychological literature may wish to follow the links at the end of the entry at The Situationist.

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Academeology: A Book by Female Science Professor

An academic blogger, Female Science Professor, began blogging anonymously in 2006. Her blog postings have been collected in a book which might interest our readers who like reading and thinking about science, intersections of philosophy and science, the production of scientific knowledge and the workings of academia. Female Science Professor is, well, a female scientist who, as a female, is a member of an underrepresented group in her specialization. Here’s a review of her book, Academeology:

Pseudonymous blogger Female Science Professor (FSP) first introduced herself in May 2006: “I do not look my age, I do not look like a professor, I do not look like a scientist. My colleagues are, with a few exceptions, very kind and polite to me, and some (many? most?) even like me … but they do not take me seriously.”

That post set the tone for what has become a collection of more than 500 short essays describing her experiences as a scientist, a professor and one of the few women working in her field of science. […] FSP’s blog has steadily gained popularity, with her clear writing style, candid revelations and often humorous musings. The blog’s comment section allows her readers to share their own academic experiences.

(HT: Feminist Philosophers)

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CFP: Ethics and the Environment

CALL FOR PAPERS

Ethics & the Environment is considering papers for a special issue in honor of Val Plumwood. We welcome submissions on Plumwood’s philosophy, ecofeminism, indigenous environmental ethics, ecological perspectives on rationality, and other relevant topics.

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Haslanger on Bloggingheads

Here’s an interesting discussion with Sally Haslanger (MIT).

(HT: Leiter)

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Happy Halloween!

And don’t eat too much candy!

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Simone de Beauvoir in Philosophy Now

The current issue of Philosophy Now marks the 100th birthday of Simone de Beauvoir with several informative articles about her work.

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Pornography Symposium

The Symposia in Race, Gender and Philosophy has a new symposium on Anne Eaton’s “A Sensible Anti-Porn Feminism” with commentary by Patrick D. Hopkins, Rae Langton, Ishani Maitra, Laurie Shrage. Check it out here (Spring no. 2).

Jender at Feminist Philosophers comments:

Eaton’s paper is an exceptionally careful exploration of what a sensible anti-porn feminism should look like: how such a view should define ‘pornography’, what conception of causation it should use, what sorts of causal claims it should make/explore, what sorts of rigorous testing would be needed to actually establish these claims, and what sorts of remedies it should advocate (not necessarily legal ones). It’s well worth reading even for feminists who are not anti-pornography, partly because it provides a new and interesting foil, but mostly because it raises so many fascinating and important methodological points.

(HT: Feminist Philosophers)

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Winona LaDuke on Climate Change and Sustainability

Here’s a lecture LaDuke gave last year (Sept, 2007) at UCF on climate change, sustainability and some of the things native communities are doing to create sustainable societies.

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Cognitive Neuroscience, Moral Psychology and Psychopathology

Interesting stuff right here.

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Sweet Deal

Via the wonderful SWIP-L list, I’m informed of a new collection of essays called Global Ethics: Seminal Essays (Eds. Pogge and Horton). Here’s a blurb from the publisher:

In recent decades, there has been an explosion of interest in global ethics — the study of ethical issues with significant global dimensions. This book, a companion volume to Global Justice: Seminal Essays, provides a sample of the best recent work on those issues. Topics treated include whether individuals and governments in rich countries should give more aid to people in poor countries, and what the nature of any such duties might be; the causes of persistent poverty in certain countries; the conditions under which military action aimed at protecting human rights in foreign countries might be morally justified; the moral basis for the right to self-determination; whether attitudes such as patriotism and nationalism are morally justified in today’s world, and if so, what justifies them; what “development” is; whether there could be a genuinely universal consensus on human rights; and what response might be morally required to such global problems as population growth and climate change.

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Very Good News!

We are very pleased to announce that Chloe Taylor (Ph.D., Toronto; Post-Doc McGill) will be joining the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at UNF next fall. Professor Taylor’s research interests are in social and political philosophy, more generally, and in the areas of 20th century French philosophy as well as race and gender, more specifically. We look forward to her arrival.

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Is There An Eidos of Women: Part 2

Some arguments from biology try to reduce a woman to what she is in society. However, no man or woman within society has escaped its powers to shape them as people. And as people are in society is in no way related to biology. One can hardly imagine a woman in the state of nature dreaming of a Channel purse. Rather, the way we are is directly related to the way that the world is given to us. Whoever a person is, is somehow a response to the rules of society. Moreover, the rules of societies are somewhat fluid. If the rules that help to shape people are always in flux, we can infer that the people themselves are the same way.

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Is There an Eidos of Women?

This is a paper I wrote for my phenomenology class and I will post it in two parts (one today and one next Monday). When I first wrote this I felt really confident that my answer to the above question would be “no,” but the more I discuss this topic with other people the more I am unsure of my own conclusion. I would be interested to hear what you think on the subject…

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