Society for Women in Philosophy (SWIP) UK Session

The SWIP Session is a special panel which draws together papers that further the aims of SWIP (the Society for Women in Philosophy UK) broadly construed. This includes papers on feminism and related emancipatory philosophies, on women in the history of philosophy, and on achieving gender justice and related forms of justice in the profession.

Pornography without Dehumanization
Inga Bones, Karlsruhe

Neufeld (forthcoming) claims that pornography dehumanizes women by essentializing them as beings with no or reduced capacity for self-determination and that it does so, in many cases at least, through linguistic means, notably by use of gender-specific pejoratives targeting women. As opposed to Neufeld, I argue that gender-specific pejoratives are not plausibly construed as essentializing expressions and that any further linguistic evidence provided by Neufeld (forth-coming) does not suffice to establish the claim that pornography dehumanizes women, either.

Pornography without Dehumanization (PDF)

Normativity and Gender Identity
Richard Rowland, Leeds

According to Jenkins’ influential account of gender identity, for A to have the gender identity G is for A to experience the norms that are associated with G in her social context as relevant to her. I argue that: (i) in order for this account to make good on its aims an account of what such experiences of norm relevancy are is needed; (ii) we should reject a natural view of such experiences; and (iii) we should understand these experiences of norm relevancy as experiences of non-instrumental normative reasons to conform with the norms associated with the relevant gender.

“My black friend says it’s fine”: Reflections on Disagreement, Ideology, and Testimony
Azita Chellappoo, LSE

Our social location shapes our perspective as a knower, and therefore what we are in a position to know. When individuals of different social locations disagree on a claim relevant to their social location, we can refer to their social location in understanding why one is justified in their belief and the other is not. However, a problem arises when individuals of the same social location disagree. I consider these, and other problem cases, arguing that the solution given by standpoint theorists and others to these cases is mistaken in that devalues the particular role of lived experience and testimony.

Emotion, Epistemic Justification, and Oppressive Structures
Eilidh Harrison, Glasgow

According to a promising view in the philosophy of emotion, an emotional experience is capable of justifying one’s evaluative belief iff the emoter manifests both generative and doxastic emotional competence in the formation of that emotion and the corresponding belief. One problem for this view is that it cannot account for the epistemic value of emotions experienced by members of oppressed groups in light of the corrosive effects of an oppressive socio-political climate on the emotional competences of subordinated individuals. This paper will explore this challenge and propose a tentative solution based on the notion of emotional learning.

Emotion, Epistemic Justification, and Oppressive Structures (PDF)

The SWIP UK Annual General Meeting is Monday 13 July 2020, 14.00 BST, on Microsoft Teams. SWIP members only are welcome to join. Please contact Suki.Finn@rhul.ac.uk for the agenda and the event link.