Is racism really that different from classism, ableism, etc?

They are all social system of group oppression, and this is no superficial ontological feature. Thus the question can be neither whether they are different or not, nor even how deep these differences go. The question has to be how useful is it to treat these systems together, and when it is good to separate them or treat them in smaller groups

Should we stop talking of race, gender, etc.?

Does rejecting the metaphysical reality of races committees us to “resist a policy of providing support to black-owned businesses, or any other race-based prioritization”, presumably, because we would be committed to reject as false the race-talk behind such measures. 

Peter Singer and the Mystique of Bioethics, Part 2

As I indicated in Part 1, although feminist bioethicists and so-called disability bioethicists too insist that Peter Singer’s claims about disability are morally reprehensible, they maintain that the field of bioethics itself is a noble and progressive enterprise within which one can selectively adopt a neutral stance on certain bioethical issues (Scully 2021). Indeed, disability […]

Peter Singer and The Mystique of Bioethics, Part 1

In recent years, philosophers have increasingly engaged with each other in impassioned discussions about academic freedom in the discipline and profession of philosophy and across academia more broadly, as well as participated in heated debates with members of the broader public about freedom of speech in society more generally. The topics around which the most […]

Social Ontology is Ontology

Social ontology is ontology. This might seem too much a truism to be worth stating, but its consequences are far-reaching. On the one hand, its methodology is completely on a par with other fields of ontology, like the ontology of abstract objects, midsize objects, the mind, etc. The consensual methodology in these fields is to […]

On This International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The sterilization and extermination of disabled people by the Nazis during the Second World War are often overlooked in remembrances of the Holocaust. Indeed, although many disabled people died in Auschwitz and other camps, thousands of disabled people were sterilized and murdered before the establishment of the camps, as disabled author Kenny Fries, among others, […]

Philosophy of Disability at the CPA

It occurred to me that readers and listeners of BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, especially readers and listeners of the blog who are members of the Canadian Philosophical Association (CPA), might be interested in knowing what is planned for “Disabling Philosophy in the Canadian Context,” the symposium that I have organized for the upcoming meeting of the CPA […]