Judith Butler finds Michel Foucault's ideas about the body incoherent: the body is both constituted and causally constructed by culture. The alleged incoherence stems from this double role that culture supposedly plays in relation to body. On the one hand, if we take constitution as the primary relation between culture and body, then they are inseparable; the body is so to speak made of culture. If, on the other hand, we take construction as primary, culture and body are separate entities - culture works on the body. In order to avoid this paradox, Butler introduces the concept materialization. This paper argues that for the notion of materialization to be comprehensible, it has to be interpreted as a dually constructive and constitutive notion. Nevertheless, the paradoxical nature of the body-culture relation is not reinstated. With a suitable understanding of the notion of constitution no paradox follows from the claims ascribed to Foucault. In addition, if we understand the concept of constitution as a quasi-transcendental condition, most of Butler's objectives are preserved, despite the rejection of materialization.
Alan Gibbard's influential expressivistic meta-ethical theory relies on a certain understanding of emotions (Wise Choices, Apt Feelings 1990; Thinking How to Live 2003): Moral judgments are explained in terms of emotions, hence emotions may not essentially involve judgments. "It is wrong to do x" is analysed as "it makes sense to feel guilt if one does x" or "it makes sense to feel anger towards someone who does x". Gibbard discusses briefly two different kinds of theories, adaptive syndromes theories and attributional theories, which he believes to be compatible with his expressivism, but, of course, clearly despises of so-called judgmental theories. However, there are, explicitly and implicitly, substantial criteria an account of emotion has to fulfil to fit into Gibbard's expressivism: i) Senseless, irrational emotions, going against our beliefs or judgments, are possible. ii) To be, for example, afraid is to be in a state where a "mechanism of fear" is operating. The mechanism is pointed out by - but not identical with - fearful circumstances; symptoms of fear; tendencies/actions to avoid what is fearful. iii) Emotions are internal states, they are "emotional mechanisms" (presumably neuronal and endocrinal). iv) Emotions are directed or intentional; they have a focus (an object). This paper discusses, firstly, whether these criteria are coherent, which seems inter alia to depend on how the intentionality of emotion is spelled out, and, secondly, whether the best non-cognitive theories of today, for example Jesse Prinz', match Gibbard's views.
I styrdokument som rör skola och utbildning likställs jämställdhet med samma möjligheter till utbildning och karriär. Det som hindrar jämställdhet antas vara traditionella könsnormer. Vad betyder ’samma möjligheter’ i denna kontext och vad krävs för att realisera detta? Utbildnings- och karriäralternativ ska avkönas, vilket analyseras som att de dels ha samma betydelser för könen, dels vara lika realiserbara. Detta verkar kräva kvantitativ jämställdhet inom varje alternativ. Vad är det då som hindras av könsnormerna? Enligt dokumenten är det individernas autentiska val. Detta analyseras som förverkligandet av antingen den mänskliga naturen eller det individuella självets autentiska önskningar. Båda dessa vägar visar sig vara återvändsgränder. Slutsatsen blir att kvantitativ jämställdhet är det enda substantiella jämställdhetsbegreppet.
Feminist theory needs a constructivist account of biological sex for at least two reasons. The first is that as long as female and male are the only two sexes that are taken for granted, being cisgender, heterosexual, and preferably a parent will be the norm, and being intersexed, transgender, bi- or homosexual, infertile or voluntarily childless will be deemed failure. The second is the fact that, usually, sex and gender come together in the way that is expected, i.e. the fact that most females are women and most males are men needs to be explained. This paper provides a constructivist theory of sex, which is that the sex categories depend on norms of reproduction. I argue that, because the sex categories are defined according to the two functions or causal roles in reproduction, and biological functionis a teleological concept involving purposes, goals, and values, female and male are normative categories. As there are no norms or values in nature, normative categories are social constructions; hence, female and male are not natural but social categories. Once we understand that biological normativity is social, biological norms of heterosexuality, fertility, and so on are no longer incontestable. In addition, as many gender norms also concern reproduction - socially mediated reproduction - this simple theory of sex explains the common confluence of sex and gender.
In a literature review of Hume’s psychology of the passions, Elisabeth Radcliff calls for a consistent understanding of his accounts of the indirect passions, the structural and the introspective. Hume gives a structural account of the indirect passions as he locates them within a causal structure of perceptions. Since many readers find the causal relation of passion and (sort of intentional) object mistaken they, identify the passion with the entire structure why the object is constitutive of the passion for logical or conceptual reasons. Hume however regards the passions as simple impressions only contingently related to other perceptions, and defines them by how they feel. That is the introspective account. In this paper, I present a reading of Hume’s theory that makes use of the structural account and consistently unites it with the introspective. Unlike other commentators, I argue that Hume distinguishes between having feelings of pride and being proud. Combined with an understanding of causation as event causation in opposition to species causation, this distinction is enough to save him from criticism.
In the Treatise, Hume writes several seemingly incompatible things about the moral sentiments, thus there is no general agreement about where they fit within his taxonomy of the perceptions. Some passages speak in favor of the view that moral sentiments are indirect passions, a few infavor of the view that they are direct passions, and yet a couple of explicit statements strongly suggest otherwise. Due to these tensions in Hume's text, we find at least five competing characterizations in the literature:
This paper assesses each of these interpretations. When their virtues are brought together, a new interpretation of the origin of moral sentiments starts to emerge.
Hume's mysterious words, "we must distinguish betwixt personal identity, as it regards our thought or imagination, and as it regards our passions or the concern we take in ourselves" have been the focus of a variety of different interpretations, some more creative than others. But the solution to this interpretative problem is indeed very simple, too simple to occur to most readers. What Hume has in mind is actually nothing but the different ways association works with regard to, on the one hand, imagination, and, on the other hand, passion. Hence, one may easily read the entire Treatise as containing just one idea of self, that is, the bundle of perceptions discussed in "On personal identity." Contrary to what many scholars have recently suggested, this idea may very well be "the idea, or rather impression" of self at play in the mechanism of sympathy, as well as the object of pride and humility. This faithful but dull reading makes Hume coherent, probably more coherent than any two-ideas interpretation does.