At the end of 2017, Kristen Roupenian’s short story, Cat Person, went viral. Published at the height of the #MeToo movement, it depicted a ‘toxic date’ and a disturbing sexual encounter between Margot, a college student, and Robert, an older man she meets at work. The story was widely viewed as a relatable denunciation of women’s powerlessness and routine victimization. In this paper, I push against this common reading. I propose an alternative feminist interpretation through the lens of Simone de (...) Beauvoir’s notion of narcissism: a form of alienation that consists in making oneself both the subject and the ultimate project of one’s life. Framing Margot as a narcissist casts her as engaging, not in subtly coerced, undesired sex, but rather in sex that is desired in a tragically alienated way. I argue that Beauvoir’s notion of narcissism is an important tool for feminists today – well beyond the interpretation of Cat Person. It presses us to see systematic subordination not just as something done to women, but also as something women do to themselves. This in turn highlights the neglected role of self-transformation as a key aspect of feminist political resistance. (shrink)

One of the key insights of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex is the idea that gender-based subordination is not just something done to women, but also something women do to themselves. This raises a question about ethical responsibility: if women are complicit, or actively implicated in their own oppression, are they at fault? Recent Beauvoir scholarship remains divided on this point. Here, I argue that Beauvoir did, in fact, ethically criticize many women for their complicity, as a sign of (...) what she called “bad faith”. I challenge recent accounts by Nancy Bauer and Manon Garcia, who both read Beauvoir as exonerating complicit women. According to this reading, women emerge as human “freedoms” within a social world where a “destiny” of inferiority is already prepared for them. Their self-subordination is then an inevitable product of acting in a patriarchal world. I argue, however, that this interpretation generates a crucial tension, leading Bauer and Garcia to call on women to stop being complicit, while also claiming they cannot avoid complicity. I propose instead a different interpretation, on which feminine complicity is often fueled by criticizable ethical attitudes that are far from inevitable. By revisiting Beauvoir’s notion of “bad faith”, I show that this account is compatible with recognizing the limitations imposed on women’s agency and I show that this feminist ethical criticism is itself an important part of a collective project of social transformation. (shrink)

In recent years, online “involuntary celibate” or “incel” communities have been linked to various deadly attacks targeting women. Why do these men react to romantic rejection with not just disappointment, but murderous rage? Feminists have claimed this is because incels desire women as objects or, alternatively, because they feel entitled to women’s attention. I argue that both of these explanatory models are insufficient. They fail to account for incels’ distinctive ambivalence toward women—for their oscillation between obsessive desire and violent hatred. (...) I propose instead that what incels want is a Beauvoirian “Other.” For Beauvoir, when men conceive of women as Others, they represent them as simultaneously human subjects and embodiments of the natural world. Women function then as sui generis entities through which men can experience themselves as praiseworthy heroes, regardless of the quality of their actions. I go on to give an illustrative analysis of Elliot Rodger’s autobiographical manifesto, “My Twisted World.” I show how this Beauvoirian model sheds light on Rodger’s racist and classist attitudes and gives us a better understanding of his ambivalence toward women. It therefore constitutes a powerful and overlooked theoretical alternative to accounts centered on objectification and entitlement. (shrink)

How are patriarchal regimes perpetuated and reproduced? Kate Manne’s recent work on misogyny aims to provide an answer to this central question. According to her, misogyny is a property of social environments where women perceived as violating patriarchal norms are ‘kept down’ through hostile reactions coming from men, other women and social structures. In this paper, I argue that Manne’s approach is problematically incomplete. I do so by examining a recent puzzling social phenomenon which I call (post-)feminist backlash: the rise (...) of women-led movements reinstating patriarchal practices in the name of feminism. I focus on the example of ‘raunch feminist’ CAKE parties and argue that their pro-patriarchal dimension cannot be adequately explained by misogyny. I propose instead a different story that emphasizes the continued centrality of gender distinctions in our social normative life, even as gendered social meanings become increasingly contested. This triggers meaning vertigo, a distinct form of social anxiety and the reactionary impulse at the heart of (post)-feminist backlash. Meaning vertigo both complicates the answer to Manne’s main question—“why is misogyny still a thing?”—and suggests the need and opportunity for a different kind of feminist political intervention. (shrink)

Este trabajo investiga las interrelaciones entre la regulación y los as-pectos económicos y ambientales en una comunidad de agricultores familiares en la región conocida como Zona da Mata Mineira, en el estado brasileño de Minas Gerais. El estudio es producto de una acti-vidad de extensión realizada entre 2016 y 2018, y tuvo como objetivo asesorar a los pequeños productores en el proceso de adecuación legal de la producción. Durante este período se realizaron cerca de cinco reuniones entre investigadores y comuneros, (...) en las que se analizaron las dificultades encontradas por los pequeños productores en relación con el referido proceso. Las experiencias reportadas fueron confron-tadas con el régimen legal regulatorio para la actividad acuícola en Brasil, tomando como categorías de análisis los atributos de norma-tividad y facticidad del sistema legal. Se concluyó que la regulación ambiental en el área de la acuicultura en Brasil, diseñada para grandes productores, carga de manera desproporcionada a los pequeños pro-ductores, generando un desequilibrio económico injustificado. Como aporte a la teoría, se propone, en definitiva, la formulación de un con-cepto de regulación jurídica inclusiva, cuyos rasgos distintivos inclu-yen la participación social y la promoción de la alfabetización jurídica como derecho fundamental. (shrink)

We gratefully thank Filipa Matos Wunderlich for the permission to republish this text, which was first published in a shorter version in KOHT ja PAIK/PLACE and LOCATION Studies in Environmental Aesthetics and Semiotics VI, 2008.: Temporality is a fundamental characteristic of urban places. An attribute of nature, people and space, place-temporality consolidates and emerges out of their dynamic relationship in urban space. Temporality is place-specific and a result of compounds - Urbanisme – Nouvel article.

Les Arts et les Images se veut une introduction aux principaux terrains d’investigation de Dominic McIver Lopes, philosophe canadien contemporain, figure incontournable de l’esthétique et de la philosophie de l’art en langue anglaise au cours des vingt dernières années. Il ouvre une réflexion sur les méthodes employées en esthétique et philosophie de l’art aujourd’hui, qu’on soit un philosophe dit « analytique » ou bien « continental », Lopes cherchant à penser le lien entre les deux traditions. -/- À (...) travers leur textes respectifs, Laure Blanc-Benon, Jacques Morizot et Frédéric Pouillaude instaurent un dialogue avec Dominic McIver Lopes, sur plusieurs de ses livres : Understanding Pictures (1996), ouvrage de référence sur la question philosophique des images et de la représentation, Beyond Art (2014), livre qui traite de la question classique au XXe siècle de la définition de l’œuvre d’art, et Four Arts of Photography (2016) dans lequel Dominic Lopes met en avant une nouvelle philosophie de la photographie. À ce dialogue s’ajoutent trois textes de Lopes inédits en français, portant sur la méthode de l’esthétique et de la philosophie de l’art et également sur la question de la beauté et de la valeur esthétique. (shrink)

Ziel meines Aufsatzes ist es, die Frage zu stellen, ob die Art und Weise, wie Nietzsche sich auf das Verhältnis zwischen Philosophie und Wissenschaft bezieht, mithilfe des zeitgenössischen methodologischen Naturalismus beschrieben werden kann. Leiter (2009) hat diese Frage mit einem entschiedenen Ja beantwortet, ohne jedoch die Spannungen, die eine solche Antwort mit sich bringen, ausführlich zu diskutieren. Zumindest aus zwei Gründen scheint die Philosophie Nietzsches sich mit der stärkeren Version des methodologischen Naturalismus nicht so leicht in Einklang bringen zu lassen: (...) Erstens aufgrund des Prinzips des Willens zur Macht, das die These impliziert, dass das Intentionalitätsvokabular primitiver bzw. gründlicher als das physikalistische Vokabular sei, als einer Konsequenz aus der Verwendung des pragmatischen Prinzips der Sparsamkeit auf die ontologische Debatte (JGB 36, KSA 5, 54 f.); zweitens aufgrund Nietzsches Auffassung der spezifischen Aufgabe der Philosophie als einer normativen Aufgabe (JGB 211, KSA 5, 144 f.; GM I Anmerkung, KSA 5, 289). Gegen die starke Interpretation Leiters werden hier die folgenden Thesen vertreten: Nietzsche kann nur insofern als ein Vertreter des methodologischen Naturalismus betrachtet werden, als er der Auffassung ist, dass der Philosoph epistemische Tugenden erst dann gewinnt, wenn er sich mit einer wissenschaftlichen Methode vertraut macht (MA I 256, KSA 2, 212). Das bedeutet, dass er sich zumindest vorläufig den Regeln unterwirft, die innerhalb einer bestimmten wissenschaftlichen Gemeinschaft gelten (MA I 635, KSA 2, 360 f.; JGB 188, KSA 5, 108 ff.). Der Philosoph soll dies tun, um die epistemischen Tugenden zu erlangen, die für die normative Aufgabe der Philosophie unentbehrlich sind. Diese epistemischen Tugenden sind wesentlich skeptischer Natur. Sie zu kultivieren, bedeutet sicherlich, epistemische Werte zu fördern, nicht aber unbedingt für sie (AC 54, KSA 6, 236 f.), geschweige denn für ein kausales, bzw. monokausales Erklärungsmodell Exklusivität beanspruchen zu müssen (JGB 21, KSA 5, 35 f.). (shrink)

The therapeutic misconception has been seen as presenting an ethical problem because failure to distinguish the aims of research participation from those receiving ordinary treatment may seriously undermine the informed consent of research subjects. Hence, most theoretical and empirical work on the problems of the therapeutic misconception has been directed to evaluate whether, and to what degree, this confusion invalidates the consent of subjects. We argue here that this focus on the understanding component of informed consent, while important, might be (...) too narrow to capture the ethical complexity of the therapeutic misconception. We show that concerns about misplaced trust and exploitation of such trust are also relevant, and ought to be taken into account, when considering why the therapeutic misconception matters ethically. (shrink)

Forensic DNA phenotyping is a genetic technology that might be used in criminal investigations. Based on DNA samples of the human body found at crime scenes, it allows to infer externally visible characteristics (such as eye, hair and skin colour) and continental-based biogeographical ancestry. By indicating the probable visible appearance of a criminal suspect, forensic DNA phenotyping allows to narrow down the focus of a criminal investigation. In this article, drawing on interviews with forensic geneticists, we explore how their narratives (...) translate contemporary focus on criminal molecularized bodies. We propose the concept of (de)materialization to approach three aspects of the forensic geneticists’ views. The first regards considering bodies as mutable entities. The second relates to socially contingent meanings attributed to bodies. The third regards to controversies surrounding data reliability. By reflecting upon the (de)materialization of criminal bodies, forensic geneticists juxtapose the defence and unsettling of forensic DNA phenotyping claims. (shrink)

The lack of public support for climate change policies and refusals to vaccinate children are just two alarming illustrations of the impacts of dissent about scientific claims. Dissent can lead to confusion, false beliefs, and widespread public doubt about highly justified scientific evidence. Even more dangerously, it has begun to corrode the very authority of scientific consensus and knowledge. Deployed aggressively and to political ends, some dissent can intimidate scientists, stymie research, and lead both the public and policymakers to oppose (...) important public policies firmly rooted in science. -/- To criticize dissent is, however, a fraught exercise. Skepticism and fearless debate are key to the scientific process, making it both vital and incredibly difficult to characterize and identify dissent that is problematic in its approach and consequences. Indeed, as de Melo-Martín and Intemann show, the criteria commonly proposed as means of identifying inappropriate dissent are flawed and the strategies generally recommended to tackle such dissent are not only ineffective but could even make the situation worse. -/- The Fight Against Doubt proposes that progress on this front can best be achieved by enhancing the trustworthiness of the scientific community and by being more realistic about the limits of science when it comes to policymaking. It shows that a richer understanding of the context in which science operates is needed to disarm problematic dissent and those who deploy it. This, the authors argue, is the best way forward, rather than diagnosing the many instances of wrong-headed dissent. (shrink)

Resenha: MELO, Amarildo José de. Jansenismo no Brasil : traços de uma Moral rigorista. Santuário em Aparecida/SP. 2014, 343p.

Este trabalho apresenta algumas considerações do pensador italiano Gianni Vattimo acerca da religião na idade contemporânea. O referido filósofo tem como base de suas reflexões a ideia de uma filosofia pós-moderna que se caracteriza pela desconstrução da metafísica da tradição moderna. Nesse sentido, o autor visualiza nas filosofias de Nietzsche e Heidegger a inauguração de uma nova orientação do pensamento ocidental, marcada por esse rompimento com as filosofias totalizantes e pela consideração do ser como resultado das circunstancias eventuais que compõem (...) a experiência existencial. A religião, por sua vez, não acompanhou tal movimento, mas conservou um pensamento marcado ainda pela estrutura da metafísica tradicional, por isso, não se encontra em condições de responder às atuais demandas deste mundo plural. O autor sinaliza para a necessidade da abdicação das estruturas dogmáticas e dos fundamentalismos da religião como meio para a abertura ao diálogo inter-religioso e intercultural. (shrink)

In this paper, I reconstruct the reasons why Aristotle thinks that musical education is important for moral education. Musical education teaches us to enjoy appropriately and to recognize perceptually fine melodies and rhythms. Fine melodies and rhythms are similar to the kind of movements fine actions consist in and fine characters display. By teaching us to enjoy and recognise fine melodies and rhythms, musical education can train us to recognize and to take pleasure in fine actions and characters. Thus, musical (...) education can, up to a point, lead us toward the actions and character dispositions a virtuous life requires. (shrink)

Reprogenetic technologies, which combine the power of reproductive techniques with the tools of genetic science and technology, promise prospective parents a remarkable degree of control to pick and choose the likely characteristics of their offspring. Not only can they select embryos with or without particular genetically-related diseases and disabilities but also choose embryos with non-disease related traits such as sex. -/- Prominent authors such as Agar, Buchanan, DeGrazia, Green, Harris, Robertson, Savulescu, and Silver have flocked to the banner of reprogenetics. (...) For them, increased reproductive choice and reduced suffering through the elimination of genetic disease and disability are just the first step. They advocate use of these technologies to create beings who enjoy longer and healthier lives, possess greater intellectual capacities, and are capable of more refined emotional experiences. Indeed, Harris and Savulescu in particular take reprogenetic technologies to be so valuable to human beings that they have insisted that their use is not only morally permissible but morally required. -/- Rethinking Reprogenetics challenges this mainstream view with a contextualised, gender-attentive philosophical perspective. De Melo-Martín demonstrates that you do not have to be a Luddite, social conservative, or religious zealot to resist the siren song of reprogenetics. Pointing out the flawed nature of the arguments put forward by the technologies' proponents, Rethinking Reprogenetics reveals the problematic nature of the assumptions underpinning current evaluations of these technologies and offers a framework for a more critical and skeptical assessment. (shrink)

In ‘Sight and Sensibility: Evaluating Pictures’ Dominic Lopes attempts two things. First, he attempts to solve the ‘Puzzle of Mimesis’: why do we value looking at pictures over looking at the things they depict? Second, he defends ‘interactionism’: the view that some aesthetic evaluations of pictures imply evaluations in moral and cognitive terms. I argue that the attempt to solve the Puzzle turns on the notion of ‘inflection’, and that that notion is more problematic than Lopes admits. I (...) further argue that Lopes’s defence of interactionism in fact establishes a thesis weaker than desired. (shrink)

It is argued here that bioethicists might inadvertently be promoting genetic determinism: the idea that genes alone determine human traits and behaviours. Discussions about genetic testing are used to exemplify how they might be doing so. Quite often bioethicists use clinical cases to support particular moral obligations or rights as if these cases were representative of the kind of information we can acquire about human diseases through genetic testing, when they are not. On other occasions, the clinical cases are presented (...) in simplistic ways that portray genetic testing as yielding information more accurate than it actually is. It is concluded that, because of the problematic implications that the ideology of genetic determinism might have for individuals’ wellbeing and for our public policies, bioethicists should be careful to present these issues in ways that do not promote questionable ideas about the causal role of genes in human diseases and behaviours. (shrink)

An increase in global violence has forced the displacement of more than 70 million people, including 26 million refugees and 3.5 asylum seekers. Refugees and asylum seekers face serious socioeconomic and healthcare barriers and are therefore particularly vulnerable to physical and mental health risks, which are sometimes exacerbated by immigration policies and local social discriminations. Calls for a strong evidence base for humanitarian action have encouraged conducting research to address the barriers and needs of refugees and asylum seekers. Given the (...) role of epigenetics factors to mediate the effect of psychological and environmental exposures, epigenetic modifications have been used as biomarkers for life adversity and disease states. Therefore, epigenetic research can be potentially beneficial to address some of the issues associated with refugees and asylum seekers. Here, we review the value of previous and ongoing epigenetic studies with traumatized populations, explore some of the ethical challenges associated with epigenetic research with refugees and asylees and offer suggestions to address or mitigate some of these challenges. Researchers have an ethical responsibility to implement strategies to minimize the harms and maximize the short and long-term benefits to refugee and asylee participants. (shrink)

This essay argues that Callicles is depicted by Plato in the Gorgias as a potential tyrant from a psychological standpoint. To this end I will contend that the Calliclean moral psychology sketched at 491e-492c points towards the analysis of the tyrannical individual pursued by Plato in books VIII and IX of the Republic based upon the tripartite theory of the soul. I will thereby attempt to show that (i) in the Gorgias, Callicles does not actually personify the ideal of the (...) superior person advocated by himself insofar as he is still susceptible to shame, as evinced by Socrates' cross-examination (494c-495a); and that (ii) looking forward to the Republic, he can be understood for this same reason as being precisely on the threshold between the democratic and the tyrannical soul. (shrink)

ResumenSe trata, en esta investigación, de hacer una aproximación moral, política y filosófica al teatro español del Siglo de Oro a través de dos de sus más paradigmáticos creadores: Lope de Vega y Calderón de la Barca. Me apoyo para ello en una definición política de lo trágico que se encuentra arraigada en la tradición greco-latina del género. Se investigará si en las obras analizadas de Lope y Calderón lo trágico aún se encuentra delimitado por lo político, deduciéndose, como se (...) verá, que en Lope tal relación ha desaparecido, mientras que en Calderón se mantiene, pero eliminándose el enfoque dialéctico debido a la afirmación de los códigos del Honor.Palabras claveTragedia española, tradición clásica, estética, teoría de la literatura, literatura comparadaThis paper is a moral, philosophical and political approach to the theatre of Spanish Golden Age based on a philosophical and political conception of the tragic literature. We focus our attention on two classic authors: Lope de Vega and Calderon de la Barca. A comparative approach between Greek tragedy and the Spanish plays will help us define if the tragic bias is limited by a political aspect in Lope and Calderon. Finally, we intend to deduce that politics have disappeared in Lope´s plays and still exist in Calderon, although not in a dialectical way due to the code of Honour.KeywordsSpanish Tragedy, classical tradition, Aesthetics, Literary Theory, Comparative Literature. (shrink)

Com a finalidade de refletir sobre a reatualização de autores clássicos da filosofia como forma de se enfrentar os desafios contemporâneos da democracia e do pensamento político, o artigo pretende apresentar a interpretação feita por John Rawls de aspectos da filosofia prática de Kant. Três conceitos são particularmente importantes nessa articulação entre a filosofia kantiana e o projeto rawlsiano de justificação normativa do liberalismo político: a concepção de pessoas morais autônomas, a fundamentação normativa ancorada em um procedimento de construção de (...) tipo kantiano e a ideia de razão pública que orienta a deliberação racional dos cidadãos em uma democracia constitucional. Procuraremos problematizar se a pretensão de justificação normativa baseada no ponto de vista moral imparcial e representada pelo procedimento de construção pode ser mantida juntamente com a necessidade de também tratar a justificação dos princípios do liberalismo político como derivada de ideias intuitivas fundamentais consideradas latentes na cultura política pública. (shrink)