Cognitive Disability, Capabilities, and Justice

I argue that capabilities approaches are useful in formulating a political theory that takes seriously the needs of persons with severe cognitive disabilities (PSCD). I establish three adequacy criteria for theories of justice that take seriously the needs of PSCD: A) understanding PSCD as oppressed, B) positing a single standard of what is owed to PSCD abled individuals, and C) concern with flourishing as well as political liberty. I claim that conceiving valued capabilities as the end of social distribution may help a political theory to meet these criteria. I posit three further adequacy criteria: D) refusing to see PSCD as less than human, E) valuing moral powers other than practical reason, and F) securing space for care and dependency relationships. I show that how well Elizabeth Anderson and Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approaches meet these criteria depends on their divergent conceptions of what capabilities are for. I sketch another capabilities approach that might better meet the three latter criteria (inspired by Lawrence Becker and Eva Kittay’s work), that conceives capabilities as for agency and relationship

How is Feminist Philosophy Nonideal Theory

Feminist, and other liberatory, moral and political philosophies are widely understood as nonideal theories. But if feminism is just a set of first-order normative commitments, it is unclear why it should produce action-guiding philosophy. I argue that feminist philosophy characteristically takes oppressive salience idealization (OSI) to undermine the means-end consistency of normative theories. OSI involves characterizing the world in ways that give undue weight to the interests and perspectives of the dominant. Our ability to respond to the normative problems our actual world faces us with is undermined by OSI, especially at the levels of problem-framing and selection

Judging others' deprivation: Adaptive preferences, moral diversity, and the good

I develop a justification of intervention by public institutions aimed at transforming adaptive preferences—preferences held by oppressed or deprived persons that seem complicit in perpetuating their oppression and deprivation. International development practitioners must identify and respond to adaptive preferences in order to promote the interests of development beneficiaries. However, identifying and responding to adaptive preferences poses ethical problems. What makes adaptive preferences worthy of special moral treatment? Can intervention to transform adaptive preferences be compatible with respect for personal autonomy and the variety of conceptions of the good across cultures? I claim that we need a perfectionist conception of the good rather than a conception of autonomy to diagnose and appropriately respond to adaptive preferences. I offer an account of the apparent inauthenticity of adaptive preferences based on the idea that human beings have a propensity toward basic flourishing. This account entails a conception of the good, and I suggest that an appropriately formulated “deliberative perfectionist” conception enables adaptive preference identification without objectionable paternalism

Dekolonialer Feminismus, Unterdrückung und Handlungsfähigkeit: Eine Antwort auf Hänel und Schuppert, Jugov, Reibold und Müller

Ich habe Decolonizing Universalism mit der Absicht geschrieben, eine große Frage zu beantworten – vielleicht die größte normative Frage, die die transnationale feministische Wissenschaft beschäftigt: Wie können wir gleichzeitig Feministinnen und Antiimperialistinnen sein? Anders ausgedrückt: Gibt es eine normative Position, die eine gründliche Kritik des Imperialismus ermöglicht, ohne in sexistischen oder patriarchalen Apologetismus zu verfallen? In diesem Buch entwickle ich eine solche Position. In dieser Antwort versuche ich, einige der von Hänel und Schuppert, Jugov, Müller und Reibold aufgeworfenen Fragen zu beantworten und meine Argumente gegen ihre kritischen Anmerkungen zu verteidigen

Transnational Feminisms, Nonideal Theory, and “Other” Women’s Power

Postcolonial and transnational feminists’ calls to recognize “other” women’s agency have seemed to some Western feminists to entail moral quietism about women’s oppression. Here, I offer an antirelativist framing of the transnational feminist critiques, one rooted in a conception of transnational feminisms as a nonideal theoretical enterprise. The Western feminist problem is not simple ethnocentrism, but rather a failure to ask the right types of normative questions, questions relevant to the nonideal context in which transnational feminist praxis occurs. Instead of asking which forms of power are gender-justice-enhancing, Western feminists are fixated on contrasting “other” cultures to an idealized Western culture. A focus on ideal theorizing works together with colonial epistemic practices to divert Western feminist attention from key questions about what will reduce “other” women’s oppression under conditions of gender injustice and ongoing imperialism. Western feminists need to ask whether “other” women’s power is resistant, and answering this question requires a focus on what Amartya Sen would call “justice enhancement” rather than an ideal of the gender-just culture. I show how a focus on resistance, accompanied by a colonialism-visibilizing hypothesis and a normative vision that allows multiple strategies for transitioning out of injustice, can guide Western feminists toward more appropriate questions about “other” women’s power

Global Gender Justice and The Feminization of Responsibility

This paper morally evaluates the phenomenon Sylvia Chant calls "the feminization of responsibility," wherein women's unrecognized labor subsidizes international development while men retain or increase their power over women. I argue that development policies that feminize responsibility are incompatible with justice in two ways. First, such policies involve Northerners extracting unpaid labor from women in the global South. Northerners are obligated to provide development assistance, but they are transferring the labor of providing it onto women in the global South and expecting them to do it for free. Second, development policies that feminize responsibility increase women's exposure to sexist domination. These two problems are present irrespective of whether policies that feminize responsibility improve women's basic well-being. &nbsp