Neurobiology Meets Social Psychology: An Explanation of Feminists’ Attitudes Toward Abuse

Why might traumatic events during childhood, such as child abuse, be related to strong identification with more radical feminist beliefs? One explanation may lie in the changes in morphology and physiology of the brain in individuals with a history of child abuse. These changes in the limbic system specifically may influence cognition, affect, and behaviors that are consistent with radical feminist ideology

Rethinking Epistemic Relativism

‘Relativism’ is often treated as a dirty word in philosophy. Showing that a view entails relativism is almost always considered tantamount to showing that it is nonsensical. However, relativistic theories are not entirely unappealing – they have features which might be tempting if they weren’t thought to be outweighed by problematic consequences. In this paper I argue that it’s possible to secure the intuitively appealing features of at least one kind of relativism – epistemic relativism – without having to accept any problematic consequences. I do this by defending what I call 'stratified relativism'