This paper suggests that the contemporary feminist debate on relational autonomy is best understood as an attempt at ameliorative inquiry—the concept of autonomy is defined in order to secure political and theoretical advantages. Most theorists adopt some sort of constructionist, or relational, account precisely because of the political and theoretical advantages relational accounts are meant to offer. But there are also significant drawbacks to this approach. I argue that there are reasons to be skeptical of ameliorative inquiries into the concept (...) of autonomy: first, the goals of inquiry have not been made explicit and may not be shared; second, because ameliorative inquiries are guided by unclear and unshared goals, the debate will continue to pull feminists in conflicting directions; and finally, the normative and aspirational nature of ameliorative inquiry unacceptably threatens the exclusion of some women from the category of autonomous agents. (shrink)

The concept of self-gaslighting has recently become prevalent in popular discourse but has yet to be subjected to detailed philosophical analysis. In this paper, I examine one context in which self-gaslighting is often discussed: situations in which someone has experienced trauma. I argue that the phenomenon currently described as self-gaslighting fails to display core features of manipulative gaslighting and that therefore we should seek other conceptual resources for understanding such cases. I suggest that self-gaslighting, at least in some paradigmatic cases, (...) amounts to either extremely successful interpersonal gaslighting or to internalized oppression. Utilizing these concepts instead of self-gaslighting avoids conceptual difficulties and also has a significant practical payoff. By moving away from the language of self-gaslighting we can move away from feelings of self-blame that so often accompany trauma. (shrink)

Rawlsian political liberalism famously requires a prohibition on truth. This has led to the charge that liberalism embraces non-cognitivism, according to which political claims have the moral status of emotions or expressions of preference. This result would render liberalism a non-starter for liberatory politics, a conclusion that political liberals themselves disavow. This conflict between what liberalism claims and what liberalism does has led critics to charge that the theory is disingenuous and functions as political ideology. In this paper, I explore (...) one way that this charge unfolds: critics charge that liberalism utilizes an individualistic and identity-insensitive social ontology, which in turn yields epistemic deficiencies that render it incapable of detecting oppression. The theory’s claim to freestandingness then shields it from necessary critique. I argue that this objection relies on constructing a conflict between liberalism’s professed non-cognitivism and its actual cognitivist commitments. By demonstrating that Rawlsian political liberalism explicitly endorses substantive moral truths, and that the method of avoidance applies only to public justification for coercive state action, I show that the theory is openly and foundationally cognitivist, and thus that the charge of disingenuousness does not stick. (shrink)

The idea that the ancient Stoics are feminists is relatively common. Even those critical of this position acknowledge that certain features of Stoicism render the philosophical program appropriate for a feminist reimagining. Yet less attention has been paid to developing a positive theory of Stoic feminism. I begin this task by outlining Stoic insights for a feminist conception of personal autonomy. I argue that, present in the Stoic doctrine of prohairesis, we find a dual conception of personal autonomy according to (...) which socially constructed selves maintain an individualist autonomy. This individualist view of autonomy is in line with Stoic compatibilism about freedom and selfhood, which I use as structural analogies to motivate my account. I then highlight potential feminist payoffs of a Stoic-inspired view, particularly for the contemporary feminist debate about autonomy under oppression. (shrink)