Social philosophers often invoke the concept of false consciousness in their analyses, referring to a set of evidence-resistant, ignorant attitudes held by otherwise sound epistemic agents, systematically occurring in virtue of, and motivating them to perpetuate, structural oppression. But there is a worry that appealing to the notion in questions of responsibility for the harm suffered by members of oppressed groups is victim-blaming. Individuals under false consciousness allegedly systematically fail the relevant rationality and epistemic conditions due to structural distortions of reasoning or knowledge practices, undermining their status as responsible moral agents.

But attending to the constitutive mechanisms and heterogeneity of false consciousness enables us to see how having it does not in itself render someone an inappropriate target of blame. I focus here on the 1889 antisuffragist manifesto “An Appeal against Female Suffrage,” arguing that its signatories, despite false consciousness, satisfy both conditions for ordinary blameworthiness. I consider three prominent signatories, observing that the irrationality characterization is unsustainable beyond group-level diagnoses, and that their capacity to respond appropriately to reasons was not compromised. Following recent work on epistemic injustice, I also argue that culpable mechanisms constituted their false consciousness, rendering them blameworthy for the Appeal.

Dependency functions as a keyword in care theory. However, care theorists have spelled out the ontological and moral ramifications of dependency in different and often conflicting ways. In this article, I argue that conceptual disputes about dependency betray a fundamental discordance among authors, rooted in the empirical premises of their arguments. Hence, although authors appear to share a vocabulary of dependency, they are not writing about quite the same phenomenon. I seek to elucidate these differences by teasing out and comparing different conceptions of dependency found in the literature. Borrowing a phrase from Eva Kittay, I trace four “paradigm cases” of dependency: the infant, the physically disabled person, the profoundly intellectually disabled person, and the refugee. These paradigm cases serve as the empirical touchstone from which theorists extract their conceptions of dependency. Each paradigm case, moreover, permits (or even implores) a particular ethical sensibility toward care. How we understand and value dependency thus seems to determine how we understand and value care, and vice versa. In this way, I contend, our normative orientation toward care might influence what sorts of dependency we see—and, by extension, which forms of dependency we fail to notice.

This article has two aims: (i) to bring Judith Butler and Wilfrid Sellars into conversation; and (ii) to argue that Butler's poststructuralist critique of feminist identity politics has metaphilosophical potential, given her pragmatic parallel with Sellars's critique of conceptual analyses of knowledge. With regard to (i), I argue that Butler's objections to the definitional practice constitutive of certain ways of construing feminism is comparable to Sellars's critique of the analytical project geared toward providing definitions of knowledge. Specifically, I propose that moving away from a definition of woman to what one may call poststructuralist sites of woman parallels moving away from a definition of knowledge to a pragmatic account of knowledge as a recognizable standing in the normative space of reasons. With regard to (ii), I argue that the important parallels between Butler's poststructuralist feminism and Sellars's antirepresentationalist normative pragmatism about knowledge enable one to think of her poststructuralist feminism as mapping out pragmatic cognitive strategies and visions for doing philosophy. This article starts a conversation between two philosophers whom the literature has yet to fully introduce to each other.

Mary Parker Follett was a feminist-pragmatist American philosopher, a social-settlement worker, a founding figure in the community centers movement, a mediator of labor disputes, and a theorist of political and social organization and management. I argue that she is a model for a certain kind of public philosopher, and I unpack the respects in which she serves as such a model. I emphasize both her virtues as a public thinker and the role played in her work by the process of integration and the creative process.

Aging transcends and intersects all structured social differences as a fluid complex of positionalities: a temporal situatedness in relation to gender, class, race, and sexuality. Age's operation as an organizing principle of power remains undertheorized in feminist philosophy. This article employs a geographical lens to spatialize feminist thought on old age to enrich understanding of factors underpinning expectations and practices of what particular bodies can and should do in particular spaces. Vignettes from twelve months of ethnographic fieldwork with six older individuals in a midwestern American city demonstrate the utility of advancing not just an embodied feminist philosophy of aging, but one that is emplaced to deepen understanding of the body as situated in time and space. A person's situatedness in dynamic place-events, ranging from daily life at home and engagement in supportive social spaces to experiences of discrimination and even inclement weather, produce distinct ways of being old. Investigating intimate geographies of later life from the micro to macro scale can help destabilize and challenge the objectification, control, and Othering of old people, the majority of whom are female. This article contributes greater “body a-where-ness” to feminist philosophy and stimulates novel investigation into the spatiotemporal situatedness of later life.

The COVID-19 pandemic affects everyone, a statement that is true by definition, yet woefully unhelpful in our understanding of it and its effects today and in the future. Thus we find ourselves in a moment unprepared for the fast-approaching, unanticipated future. Under stable conditions, we might operate with a “good working model of an anticipated ‘future’” to speculate on our preparedness for the possible (Adams, Murphy, and Clarke 2009, 247). Or we may speculate in order to reimagine social relations within new ethical frameworks (Jones 2015). We anticipate what we imagine and envision as possible (Adams, Murphy, and Clarke 2009). We are writing and thinking about this not under stable conditions, but in the early moments of the COVID-19 pandemic when anticipation of and speculation about what is to come is being challenged and contradicted daily in the news cycle by government officials, experts, and everyday citizens. Our thinking, as well as this contribution to the scholarship on the COVID-19 crisis, is defined by an ineluctable tension about what is and what might be. In this musing, we attempt to flesh out just one aspect of the COVID-19 crisis: the anticipatory and speculative nature of COVID-19 thinking. We direct our attention during this time of crisis to how different forms of ethical thinking are joining up, interweaving, and braiding. By framing ethics in the context of anticipation, our aim is to capture threads of anticipation and speculation that may be used to tether attempts to create the future with, after, or beyond the novel coronavirus and/or the next crisis.

Noninvasive prenatal testing (NIPT) promises to enhance women's reproductive autonomy by providing genetic information about the fetus, especially in the detection of genetic impairments like Down syndrome (DS). In practice, however, NIPT provides opportunities for intensified manipulation and control over women's reproductive decisions. Applying Miranda Fricker's concept of epistemic injustice to prenatal screening, this article analyzes how medical professionals impair reproductive decision-making by perpetuating testimonial injustice. They do so by discrediting positive parental testimony about what it is like to raise a child with DS. We argue that this testimonial injustice constitutes a twofold harm: (1) people with DS and their family members who claim that parenting a child with DS may be a rewarding and joyous experience are harmed when they are systematically silenced, disbelieved, and/or denied epistemic credibility by medical professionals, and (2) pregnant women are harmed since they might make poorly informed choices without access to all relevant information. The broader implication of the analysis is that epistemic justice is a precondition of reproductive autonomy. We conclude by calling for federal oversight of the acquisition and dissemination of information that prospective parents receive following a positive diagnosis of DS to ensure that it is comprehensive and up to date.

Feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero claims in her book Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence that the core of the horror of Auschwitz is constituted by the figure of the Muselmann. I argue that Cavarero's lack of an accurate historical engagement with this figure in particular and with Auschwitz in general leads her to a speculative turn, thereby universalizing the phenomenon of the Muselmann by making it the example of Auschwitz, and moreover, the key factor to explain its singularity. I show that the phenomenon of the Muselmann, although a particular horrible effect of Auschwitz, is not limited to this concentration and extermination camp system. Consequently, the characteristic that makes Auschwitz a unicum cannot be found in the Muselmann. Rather, as I elucidate, the singularity of Auschwitz and the Shoah in general must be understood in relation to the true goal of this camp: the final extermination of European Jewry.

Iris Marion Young presents a social connection model on which those, and only those, who participate in structural processes that produce injustice have a forward-looking responsibility to redress the resulting injustice by challenging the structures that produce it (she sometimes calls this a political responsibility [Young 2011]). In Young's view, this is an all-things-considered, albeit discretionary, responsibility. I argue that participation in a structural process that produces injustice is neither necessary nor sufficient for having political responsibilities, and that therefore the social connection model must be rejected. A subtler model is needed, one that depicts participation in a structural process that produces injustice as sufficient (but not necessary) for having pro tanto forward-looking responsibilities to redress the process, unless the participating agent satisfies certain excusing conditions. I suggest the intuitive force of the thought that mere participation gives us political responsibilities can be explained by more fundamental considerations. Hastily, we might conclude that all participants have political responsibilities simply because most of them satisfy at least one of the following conditions: they cause injustice to continue, they are morally responsible for injustice, they benefit from injustice, they have communal ties with the victims of injustice, or they have the capacity to redress injustice.

Miranda Fricker's account of hermeneutical injustice and remedies for this injustice are widely debated. This article adds to the existing debate by arguing that theories of recognition can fruitfully contribute to Fricker's account of hermeneutical injustice and can provide a framework for structural remedy. By pairing Fricker's theory of hermeneutical injustice with theories of recognition, I bring forward a modest claim and a more radical claim. The first concerns a shift in our vocabulary; recognition theory can give a name to the seriousness of the long-term effects of hermeneutical injustice. The second claim is more radical: thinking of hermeneutical injustice as preventing what I call “self-recognition” provides a structural remedy to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice. Because hermeneutical injustice is first and foremost a structural injustice, I contend that every virtue theory of hermeneutical justice should be complemented by structural remedies in terms of recognition. Finally, what I argue sheds light on the seriousness of cases of exclusion of and discrimination against women in academia and helps to draw our attention to new ways to combat such problems.

Teresa of Avila's desire for suffering cannot be interpreted as the mere passive assumption of a feminine sacrificial role. On the contrary, Teresa was able to transform her suffering into the incarnated performance of her relationship with God: By desiring suffering and by understanding it and her ability to confront it as proof of divine love, she was able to reinforce her self‐confidence and strength. This article discusses Teresa of Avila's experience and interpretation of suffering in the context of the female ascetic‐mystic Christian tradition. It criticizes Teresa's positive conceptualization of suffering but examines in depth the potential of her ability to actively manage and control it. Although Teresa was able to affirm her personality through ascetic practices such as self‐humiliation and mortification, the general applicability of such practices to the management of suffering is fraught since they leave the suffering individual in a vulnerable position. Although Teresa of Avila finds fulfillment and, paradoxically, self‐actualization through self‐denial and the surrender of her will, such practices entail the substantial risk of total self‐annihilation.

Elizabeth Grosz's interpretation of Darwinian evolutionary theory to ground a feminist ontology of biology has been particularly controversial. Most critics have understood Grosz as supporting her theory with empirical evidence, and they criticize her for being either inaccurate or uncritical of and overly dependent on science. I argue that Grosz reads Darwin as a philosopher in a Deleuzian and Irigarayan sense, and that Grosz's project is therefore better understood in terms of its ethical and political goals rather than in terms of empirical adequacy. Employing this evaluative framework leads to a novel route for critique of Grosz's ontology in terms of its reliance on the Darwinian distinction between organism and environment. I conclude that Grosz's work is valuable for the way it maintains ethical and political considerations in feminist ontological debates, and that introducing a more sensitive understanding of the organism–environment relation will lead us closer to a truly feminist ontology of biology.

In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir argues that women are often complicit in reinforcing their own unfreedom. But why women become complicit remains an open question. The aim of this article is to offer a systematic analysis of complicity by focusing on the Heideggerian strands of Beauvoir's account. I begin by evaluating Susan James's interpretation of complicity qua republican freedom, which emphasizes the dependent situation of women as the primary cause of their complicity. I argue that James's analysis is compelling as far as it goes, but that it implies complicity is the inevitable outcome of women's current existence and fails to adequately account for Beauvoir's claim that women actively embrace their own unfreedom. I then draw out the Heideggerian strands of Beauvoir's analysis, demonstrating how this enables us to systematize Beauvoir's account of women's oppressive situation with her claims regarding the active role women can play in reinforcing their own unfreedom. I argue that this approach preserves the strengths of the republican interpretation, but provides a better account of cases where complicity may not be inevitable and yet some women still act to reinforce rather than resist their own unfreedom.

What if it doesn't get better? Against more hopeful and optimistic views that it is not just ideal but possible to put an end to what John Rawls calls “the great evils of human history,” I aver that when it comes to evils caused by human beings, the situation is hopeless. We are better off with the heavy knowledge that evils recur than we are with idealizations of progress, perfection, and completeness; an appropriate ethic for living with such heavy knowledge could include resisting evils, improving the lives of victims, and even enjoying ourselves. Better conceptions of the objects of hope, and the good life, inform a praxis‐centered, nonideal, feminist ethic, supportive of sustained moral motivation, resilience, and even cheer. I connect elements of stoic and pessimistic philosophy in order to outline some normative recommendations for living with evils. A praxis‐centered ethic would helpfully adjust our expectations from changing an uncontrollable future to developing better skills for living in a world that exceeds our control. As Aldo Leopold once said, “That the situation is hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.”

Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, that is, the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight? In this article, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such an ideology have been overlooked. To do so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths—and the two‐tier system itself—manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co‐constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reason to organize against the casualization of academic work.

This article explores twelve short narrative films created by women and trans people living with disabilities and embodied differences. Produced through Project Re•Vision, these micro documentaries uncover the cultures and temporalities of bodies of difference by foregrounding themes of multiple histories: body, disability, maternal, medical, and/or scientific histories; and divergent futurities: contradictory, surprising, unpredictable, opaque, and/or generative futures. We engage with Alison Kafer's call to theorize disability futurity by wrestling with the ways in which “the future” is normatively deployed in the service of able‐bodiedness and able‐mindedness (Kafer 2013), a deployment used to render bodies of difference as sites of “no future” (Edelman 2004). By re‐storying embodied difference, the storytellers illuminate ongoing processes of remaking their bodily selves in ways that respond to the past and provide possibilities for different futures; these orientations may be configured as “dis‐topias” based not on progress, but on new pathways for living, uncovered not through evoking the familiar imaginaries of curing, eliminating, or overcoming disability, but through incorporating experiences of embodied difference into time. These temporalities gesture toward new kinds of futures, giving us glimpses of ways of cripping time, of cripping ways of being/becoming in time, and of radically re‐presencing disability in futurity.

In this paper we look at the implications of an emerging technology for the case in favor of, or against, postmenopausal motherhood. Technologies such as in vitro derived gametes (sperm and eggs derived from nonreproductive cells) have the potential to influence the ways in which reproductive medicine is practiced, and are already bringing new dimensions to debates in this area. We explain what in vitro derived gametes are and how their development may impact on the case of postmenopausal motherhood. We briefly review some of the concerns that postmenopausal motherhood has raised—and the implications that the successful development, and use in reproduction, of artificial gametes might have for such concerns. The concerns addressed include arguments from nature, risks and efficacy, reduced energy of the mother, and maternal life expectancy. We also consider whether the use of in vitro derived gametes to facilitate postmenopausal motherhood would contribute to reinforcing a narrow, geneticized account of reproduction and a pro‐reproductive culture that encourages women to produce genetically related offspring at all costs.