This is part of a 3-part series. You can find the second and third posts here and here. This post is dedicated to the generous philosofriends who refereed papers for me. Last month, I finished editing a special issue of Feminist Philosophy Quarterly on feminist perspectives on moral responsibility, which is (miraculously) scheduled to be published in […]
Capitalist Elites Are Capturing Higher Education: Where Are the Critics?
Philosophers need to speak up about the capture of philosophy by capitalist elites, with the help of corporate shills in the profession. The term “elite capture” is used by Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò to describe “how political projects can be hijacked in principle or in effect by the well-positioned and resourced,” as well as “how public […]
A Philosophical Defense of Youth Suffrage
The following is an edited translation of an interview that I gave to Die Tageszeitung, a cooperative-owned German daily newspaper. The interviewer was Valérie Catil. A philosopher on children’s right to vote For the philosopher Mich Ciurria, not letting children vote is a form of discrimination. She demands voting rights from birth. Wochentaz: Dr. Ciurria, the governing parties […]
Nothing about Us without Us: Did Philosophers Get the Memo?
Nothing about Us without US (NAUWU) By now, most people are familiar with the slogan “nothing about us without us” (NAUWU). As a call for disability justice, NAUWU was popularized by disabled activists in the 1990s. The slogan means that nondisabled people should not produce content about disabled people without involving disabled people. As James Charlton says, NAUWU is […]
Disabled People Should Define Disability
The dominant definition of disability in our society is the medical one. On the medical model, a disability is an impairment or functional limitation of an individual’s body. The medical model sees disability as something that should be fixed, cured, or accommodated. It locates the problem in the individual rather than the built environment. The […]
Impostor Syndrome & the False Idol of Intelligence
*I want to thank Meghan Schrader and Neil Levy for commenting on earlier drafts of this post. Neil Levy recently published an interesting take on impostor syndrome, explaining why it’s so common. He says that “pretense is an unavoidable element of coming to occupy a professional role.” So, in a sense, we’re all faking it. I […]
Transhumanism is Eugenics for Educated White Liberals
Transhumanism as “newgenics” Vice just published an article on how “prominent AI philosopher and ‘father’ of longtermism,” Nick Bostrom, “sent very racist email to a 90s philosophy listserv.” Bostrom “said that ‘Blacks are more stupid than whites,’ adding, ‘I like that sentence and think it is true,’ and used a racial slur.” The article mentions that the […]
Happy New Year! Is 2023 the Year for Non-linear Time?
Kinship Time I’ve been seeing a lot of progress reports on social media. In light of this, let me remind you that linear time is a social construct. You do not need to live up to a productivity schedule that follows a linear timeline. Indigenous philosopher Kyle Whyte of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation writes that […]
How Medico-capitalism Fuels Over-diagnosis and Over-medication
I’m surprised that there’s controversy over the claim that people are over-diagnosed and over-medicated in a laissez-faire capitalist society. The medical establishment is part of a capitalist order that classifies and commodifies everything for profit, including human emotions and behaviours. Capitalism also suppresses dissent and resistance in order to maximise profit at the expense of […]
Beautyism as Ableist Eugenics… and the Mystique of “Choice Feminism”
Introduction I recently came across this article on Vice.com asking filmmakers to “stop making hot actors play normal people.” The author indicts filmmakers for casting too few “normal” people. I think that this is a much-needed critique, but it lacks philosophical nuance, which I intend to provide here. My analysis will explore the harms of mainstream beauty […]