Philosophy Faculty Research

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This collection contains some of the work undertaken by faculty in the Department of Philosophy.

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Open Access
Response to Feder and Mills
(Philosophy Today, 2020) Russell, Camisha
Open Access
Bioethicists Should be Helping Scientists Think About Race
(Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2021) Russell, Camisha
In this essay, I argue that bioethicists have a thus-far unfulfilled role to play in helping life scientists, including medical doctors and researchers, think about race. I begin with descriptions of how life scientists tend to think about race and descriptions of typical approaches to bioethics. I then describe three different approaches to race: biological race, race as social construction, and race as cultural driver of history. Taking into account the historical and contemporary interplay of these three approaches, I suggest an alternative framework for thinking about race focused on how the idea of race functions socially. Finally, using assisted reproductive technologies as an example, I discuss how bioethicists and scientists might work together using this framework to improve not only their own but broader perspectives on race.
Open Access
Positivism and Progress in Firmin’s Equality of the Human Races
(Journal of Pan African Studies, 2014) Russell, Camisha
With The Equality of Human Races , Haitian intellectual Anténor Firmin offered the world its first sustained, philosophical, book-length response to scientific European racism. With the publication of the English translation in 2000, we in the Anglophone world finally have the opportunity to reclaim Firmin and his work as a part of Black intellectual history. What is perhaps most striking for the modern day reader is Firmin’s critical project. Firmin proceeds systematically through the key “scientific arguments ” in favor of racial inequality, casting doubt on the methodologies, countering what passes for evidence, and revealing the underlying assumptions, prejudices and ideologies behind them. Along with this critical project, however, Firmin puts forward an original thesis about the origin, development, advancement, and ultimate equality of the human races. In this essay, I discuss Firmin’s notion of progress , the idea at the heart of that positive thesis, situating him relative to several key figures of his time. On the one hand, progress is the key to the difference between Arthur de Gobineau’s Inequality of Human Races and Firmin’s Equality of Human Races—the latter viewing it as an absolute certainty, the former as an idealistic illusion. On the other hand, progress is what unites Firmin with such key nineteenth century figures as Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, who clearly serve as models for the type and scope of Firmin’s positivist project. Progress is also that for which Firmin must provide a new, anti-racist theory in order to successfully counter the social Darwinist arguments of scholars like Clémence Royer (while positioning himself as proponent of Darwin’s theories).
Open Access
The Race Idea in Reproductive Technologies: Beyond Epistemic Scientism and Technological Mastery
(Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2015) Russell, Camisha
This paper explores the limitations of epistemic scientism for understanding the role the concept of race plays in assisted reproductive technology (ART) practices. Two major limitations center around the desire to use scientific knowledge to bring about social improvement. In the first case, undue focus is placed on debunking the scientific reality of racial categories and characteristics. The alternative to this approach is to focus instead on the way the race idea functions in ART practices. Doing so reveals how the race idea (1) helps to define the reproductive “problems” different groups of women are experiencing and to dictate when and how they should be “helped”; (2) helps to resolve tensions about who should be considered the real parents of children produced by ARTs; and (3) is used to limit ART use where that use threatens to denaturalize the very sociopolitical landscape the race idea has created. In the second case, scientific knowledge regarding reproduction is thought to call for technological control over that reproduction. This leads to an overemphasis on personal responsibility and a depoliticization of racialized social inequalities.
Open Access
Thin Skin, Thick Blood: Identity, Stability and the Project of Black Solidarity
(Journal for Peace and Justice Studies, 2009) Russell, Camisha
In this essay I argue for the role of positive, community-based black identities (in the plural) in the creation and maintenance of black solidarity. I argue against Tommie Shelby’s attempts to reduce the notion of black identity as it relates to solidarity from something social or cultural to something entirely political—“thin” black identity. As an alternative, I propose a model for the relationship between “thin” and “thicker” (social or cultural) identities based on Rawls’ contention that the stability of overlapping political consensus is produced by different groups’ adherence to, rather than denial of, a plurality of comprehensive doctrines. I also discuss the benefits of positive, community-based black identities in terms of “black love” and show why, even if not possessed by each and every black American, such identities are ultimately indispensible to any black solidarity project.
Open Access
Questions of Race in Bioethics: Deceit, Disregard, Disparity, and the Work of Decentering
(Philosophy Compass, 2016) Russell, Camisha
Philosophers working in bioethics often hope to identify abstract principles and universal values to guide professional practice, relying on ideals of objectivity and impartiality, and on the power of rational (individual, autonomous) deliberation. Such a focus has made it difficult to address issues arising from group-based, sociohistorical differences like race and ethnicity. This essay offers a survey of some of the major issues concerning race in the field of bioethics. These issues include a long history of racialized abuse in medical and scientific research, reproductive injustice and abuse against women of color, and persistent racial and ethnic disparities in U.S. health and healthcare. The essay also argues that the field of bioethics as a whole would be improved by taking the experience of racial minorities into account in all its theorizing. Philosophers can aid in this task by expanding their theoretical focus beyond questions of individual rights to questions of social justice, beyond informed consent to community collaboration, and beyond cultural competency to both structural competency and cultural humility.
Open Access
Rights-Holders or Refugees? Do Gay Men Need Reproductive Justice?
(Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, 2018) Russell, Camisha
A thriving North American industry has emerged designed to help gay men become biological parents through surrogacy and egg donation. Taking as given that gay men have the same ethical right to pursue such reproductive technologies as heterosexual couples or individuals, this article asks whether access to egg donation and surrogacy for gay men specifically could be considered a matter not just of (consumer) rights, but of justice. The idea of shifting discourse about reproduction from the language of ‘rights’ to that of ‘justice’ is most notably articulated by women of colour. Their call for reproductive justice seeks to expand discussion beyond the narrow right to an abortion (as a negative privacy right) to encompass broader, positive rights, such as the rights to bear healthy children and to raise them in safe environments. What, if anything, might we learn from reproductive justice movements about how to frame gay men's desire/demand for access to surrogacy? While I find several productive connections between the two groups, two factors lead me to argue against understanding gay access to surrogacy as a matter of justice: first, the necessary reliance on women's reproductive labour; and second, the largely nonstructural causes of gay couples' inability to reproduce. Nevertheless, by considering two driving forces behind gay male assisted reproduction – social norms favouring biological family formation and the need for family security – I ultimately conclude that a basis for solidarity exists between gay men and reproductive justice movements. That basis is a concept like ‘procreative liberty’.
Open Access
On Black Women, ‘In Defense of Transracialism,’ and Imperial Harm
(Hypatia, 2019) Russell, Camisha
This essay is a response to the events surrounding Hypatia's publication of “In Defense of Transracialism.” It does not take up the question of “transracialism” itself, but rather attempts to shed light both on what some black women may have experienced following from the publication of the article and on how we might understand this experience as harm. It also suggests one way for feminist journals to reduce the likelihood of similar harms occurring in the future. I begin by describing a discussion that occurred in my classroom that bears some resemblance to the much larger debate that emerged around Hypatia. Next, I elaborate a concept of imperial harm. I then address how this concept comes to be relevant to the experience of black women within the discipline of philosophy in general, before briefly describing how academic feminism (including feminist philosophy) has served as a particular site of imperial harm for black women. Finally, touching on the idea of expressive harm, I conclude with an appeal for the adoption of more feminist publication ethics.
Open Access
Which Lives Matter in Reproductive Biomedicine?
(Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online, 2021)
The most recent Black Lives Matter moment provides an important opportunity for consideration of the interlocking social and political systems that contribute to ongoing racism and racial inequality. What does this mean in the context of reproductive biomedicine? Which lives do reproductive biomedicine devalue and how? In this commentary, I address why reproductive biomedicine is an important site for reflection on race, and how the Reproductive Justice Movement calls on us to shift our thinking. I argue for the need to recognize the deep connections between reproductive biomedicine and eugenics, and then offer some examples of racialization in reproductive biomedicine through assisted reproductive technology. Finally, I consider what steps practitioners might take to be part of the change for which this Black Lives Matter moment calls.
Open Access
Meeting the Moment: Bioethics in the Time of Black Lives Matter
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2021) Russell, Camisha
In this article, I begin by describing what I call this Black Lives Matter moment in the US. I then offer three reasons for considering racism as a bioethical issue, the least discussed of which is the way in which racism acts as a barrier to the creation of better healthcare systems. Next, I argue that the concept of race itself constitutes a bioethical issue in a way that is not fully reducible to racism. Finally, I discuss how we, both bioethicists and health care professionals, might meet this moment by identifying individual points of responsibility (beyond liability) for structural injustice.
Open Access
Philosophy and Disaster
(Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS), 2006-04) Zack, Naomi, 1944-
Philosophers have traditionally written from the perspective of ordinary people and they are as vulnerable to fear as other members of the public. Academic philosophers can contribute to the multi-disciplinary field of homeland security and disaster studies through extensions of social contract theory from political philosophy, and applications of moral systems. The idea of a state of nature is relevant to government’s role in disaster preparation, response and planning, because disasters often result in a second state of nature. All three of the main ethical systems of virtue ethics, deontology, and consequentialism, are relevant to disaster-related situations in ways that suggest the importance of being able to combine all three. Both the applications of political philosophy and moral theory can be augmented by John Rawls’s idea of distributive justice and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s idea of the common good. Finally, the inevitability of human mortality, as emphasized by existentialist philosophers, can create a wider perspective on disaster.
Open Access
Singing the World in a New Key: Merleau-Ponty and the Ontology of Sense
(Trivium Publications, 2004) Toadvine, Ted, 1968-
To what extent can meaning be attributed to nature, and what is the relationship between such “natural sense”and the meaning of linguistic and artistic expressions? To shed light on such questions, this essay lays the groundworkfor an “ontology ofsense ” drawing on the insights of phenomenology and Merleau-Ponty’s theory of expression. We argue that the ontological continuity of organic life with the perceived world of nature requires situating sense at a level that is morefundamental than has traditionaly been recognized. Accounting for the genesis of this primordial sense and the teleology of expressive forms requires the development of an ontology ofbeing as interrogation, as suggested by Merleau-Ponty’s later investigations.
Open Access
Human Values as a Source for Sustaining the Environment
(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002) Zack, Naomi, 1944-
Open Access
Talking Back to Feminist Postmodernism Toward a New Radical Feminist Interpretation of the Body
(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2003) Mann, Bonnie
Open Access
Dependence on Place, Dependence in Place
(Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2002) Mann, Bonnie
Open Access
How Moral Psychology Changes Moral Theory
(MIT Press, 1996) Johnson, Mark, 1949-
Open Access
A Philosophically Serious Comparison of the Ontologies of Race and Gender
(2005-12) Zack, Naomi, 1944-
Race and gender are not ontologically or epistemologically symmetrical. Ontologies of human races are more recent historical ideas than male-female taxonomies of gender, although ontologies of gender that include intersexuals, trans-sexuals and non-sexuals are new. Taxonomies of race rely on justification from the physical sciences, while taxonomies of gender have been more dependent on ordinary life. Current biological science does not support racial ontologies, although belief in biological race is recalcitrant. I explain this with criticism of “the new biology” of race as advanced by Michael Hardimon and Robin Andreasen in recent Journal of Philosophy articles that are related to a 1999 anthology article by Philip Kitcher. It is not necessary to have a biological notion of race to talk about or oppose racism. However, even politically viable racial identities could not address that rule by men through their gender constructions, which is violent and exploitative. But with gender, post intersectionality, it may be possible to revise men’s rule given a unifying relational definition of women, based on their history. Women are those human beings who are assigned to or identify with the disjunction of biological mothers or men’s heterosexual choices or females birth designees (category FMP). As FMP, women constitute over 50% of democratic electorates and we should look toward a gender change in the now hyper-masculine constructions of high politics, via global women’s political parties.
Open Access
Law Incarnate
(Brooklyn [Brooklyn Law School], 2002) Johnson, Mark, 1949-
Open Access
Race and Mixed Race
(Temple University Press, 1993) Zack, Naomi, 1944-
In the first philosophical challenge to accepted racial classifications in the United States, Naomi Zack uses philosophical methods to criticize their logic. Tracing social and historical problems related to racial identity, she discusses why race is a matter of such importance in America and examines the treatment of mixed race in law, society, and literature. Zack argues that black and white designations are themselves racist because the concept of race does not have an adequate scientific foundation. The "one drop" rule, originally a rationalization for slavery, persists today even though there have never been "pure" races and most American blacks have "white" genes. Exploring the existential problems of mixed race identity, she points out how the bi-racial system in this country generates a special racial alienation for many Americans. Ironically suggesting that we include "gray" in our racial vocabulary, Zack concludes that any racial identity is an expression of bad faith.
Open Access
Inquiry and Analysis: Dewey and Russell on Philosophy
(Springer Science+Business Media B.V., 1998-06) Pratt, Scott L.
In an environment characterized by the emergence of new and diverse (and often opposed) philosophical efforts, there is a need for a conception of philosophy that will promote the exchange and critical consideration of divergent insights. Depending upon the operative conception, philosophical efforts can be viewed as significant, insightful and instructive, or unimportant, misguided and not real philosophy. This paper develops John Dewey's conception of philosophy as a mode of inquiry in contrast with Bertrand Russell's conception of philosophy as a mode of analysis. I argue that while Russell's analytic conception of philosophy justifies the dismissal of non-analytic philosophies, Dewey's conception of philosophy provides a theoretical framework for the comparison, evaluation and interaction of alternatives.