{"id":7840,"date":"2014-07-14T11:33:47","date_gmt":"2014-07-14T11:33:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/14\/philosophy-and-feminism-spencer-case-replies-to-critics\/"},"modified":"2014-07-14T11:33:47","modified_gmt":"2014-07-14T11:33:47","slug":"philosophy-and-feminism-spencer-case-replies-to-critics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2014\/07\/14\/philosophy-and-feminism-spencer-case-replies-to-critics\/","title":{"rendered":"Philosophy and Feminism: Spencer Case Replies to Critics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Excerpt<\/a>:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

I am critical of giving feminism and race the extra attention and insulation from criticism that comes from designating these topics as \u201centire sub-disciplines of philosophy.\u201d Given that it\u2019s considered impolitic to criticize \u201centire sub-disciplines of philosophy,\u201d we should vigorously debate what deserves to be considered as such. Knowledge, ethics, and being-qua-being deserve that distinction. It\u2019s not obvious that feminism and race do.<\/span><\/p>\n

As many suspected, I am an expert in neither philosophy of race nor feminist philosophy. I need not be. One could have principled reservations about a discipline called \u201cconservative studies\u201d without being an Edmund Burke scholar. If you know that conservatism is a position in political philosophy, you might reasonably think it shouldn\u2019t also be a discipline unto itself.<\/span><\/p>\n

That is essentially the point I\u2019m pressing against feminism as a sub-discipline of philosophy. Let feminism be discussed alongside conservatism, libertarianism, liberalism, fascism, and socialism in political-philosophy classes. Why must feminism, alone among these \u201cisms,\u201d also have its own brand of epistemology, ethics, literary theory, and biology? I doubt feminists would tolerate libertarian counterparts to any of these.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I think Case is making two logically distinct points here, points that ought to be explicitly distinguished.<\/span><\/p>\n

The first is that, just as conservatism is not a philosophical subdiscipline unto itself, neither should feminism be.  The second is that, whether or not feminism is its own subdiscipline, it is dubious to suppose that it entails its own epistemology, ethics, and ontology.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second point invites parody.  If Jewish philosophy implied its own epistemology, etc., what would that look like?<\/span><\/p>\n

Jewish epistemology:  Your mother has privileged access.<\/span>
Jewish ethics: \u2018can\u2019 implies \u2018don't.'<\/span>
Jewish logic: if not p<\/em>, what? q<\/em> maybe?<\/span>
Jewish decision theory: maximize regret.<\/span><\/p>\n

(These are Morgenbesserisms<\/a>.)<\/span><\/p>\n

What principles would a feminist ontology include?  That male entities are entia non grata<\/em>?  That they are unnecessary posits?  I am tempted to make further jokes about razors and nomological danglers, but I'll leave that to the reader.
<\/span><\/p>\n

Surprisingly, Brian Leiter adopts a civil tone in his discussion of Case.  Perhaps the taste of his own medicine administered by me and others has had a salutary effect on him.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Excerpt: I am critical of giving feminism and race the extra attention and insulation from criticism that comes from designating these topics as \u201centire sub-disciplines of philosophy.\u201d Given that it\u2019s considered impolitic to criticize \u201centire sub-disciplines of philosophy,\u201d we should vigorously debate what deserves to be considered as such. Knowledge, ethics, and being-qua-being deserve that … Continue reading “Philosophy and Feminism: Spencer Case Replies to Critics”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52,394,242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academia","category-feminism","category-humor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7840\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}