Philosophy.,
Gendered practico-inert objects: A defense of the vandalism of public restroom facilities
The issue of Transracialism: How ‘black-passing’ is an issue for Haslangerian race
It’s not personal, it’s just business: Against Zwolinski’s defense of price gouging
Heideggerian Hermeneutics: Understanding as Thrown Projection
Butlerian Hermeneutics & Injurious Speech: Combatting narrow instances of ‘hate speech’
Mill’s Quality of Happiness: Is the delineation of ‘low’ & ‘high’ useful?
Kantian Moral Worth: The cheerful philanthropist, & self-interest
Socio-Spatial Disadvantage within Melbourne: An argument against housing as a market commodity
Simone de Beauvoir: What is ‘Woman’ ?
Tṛ́ṣṇā: Buddhist Philosophy & the Solution to Mental Health
Immanuel Kant: Beauty, The Sublime & The Subjective Universal
Hegelian Metaphilosophy: A discussion on the implications of Absolute Truth
What is Philosophy? Transcendental extension of thought & toward conscious unknowing
Gendered practico-inert-objects:
A defense of the vandalism of
public restroom facilities
Within the present paper I aim to add to the discussion of how women are still by and large suffering from ideological oppression despite substantial progress in conceptually re-engineering notions of gender. I will be utilising both the work of Iris Marion Young in relation to Sartre’s practico-inert realities, coupled with Haslanger’s hierarchically defined gender analysis to argue the built environment, and more specifically, public restroom facilities, act as a practico-inert that persistently constrains aspects of action by perpetuating oppressive past-praxis and ideologies of gender. Due to the placement of baby-change apparatuses I will claim these facilities bear some responsibility for the current subordination of women, and ought to be disrupted, via political vandalism, in order to offer a counter-speech to the problematic and normative embedded ideology in such material spaces.
A comment before I continue. The reader may be questioning why it is that I have committed to a blended approach of both Haslanger and Young in order to substantiate my claims. Whilst for Haslanger it is the gendered body (when bodily features are ideologically, and for the most part, essentially, associated with ‘biological roles’) that acts symbolically to distribute ‘appropriate’ hierarchical treatment, for Young, in conceiving ‘women’ as a serialised collective, the activity of ‘gendering’ reality, and material objects, does not start and finish with the physical body. It entails also, the embedding of past gender ideologies in other material ‘things.’ Borrowing from the work of John Paul Sartre and the notion of the practico-inert, Young is able to bridge the divide between our ideological and material worlds, and how oppression can traverse this intersection.
The Issue of Transracialism: How ‘black-passing’ is an issue for Haslangerian race
Since 2018, folk discussion on racial justice has found itself occupied with the phenomena of ‘blackfishing,’ or rather, the conscious decision of women of European descent, to manipulate their bodily appearance so to ‘permanently pass’ as members of African, or Latino racialized groups. Such lay conversation has aimed at revealing the ‘real’ race of accused perpetrators, effectively ‘revoking’ their artificial memberships, as is the case with entertainers Ariana Grande, Rita Ora, Emma Hallberg and the Kardashian family, but also more recently, with academics, Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug. Unfortunately, within critical race theory, debate over whether transracialism is an issue for Haslangerian race metaphysics has centred entirely on permanent ‘white passing.’ Haslanger proposes that the bodily appearance of certain racialized groups, given context, takes on evaluative significance by “marking” the individual for ‘appropriate’ correlative hierarchical treatment. Yet, if the relationship of bodily appearance and hierarchical treatment is as straight forward as Haslanger proposes, in the above cases, the individuals would experience oppression along some dimension on the basis of their new ‘black’ bodily features. Yet, they do not.
It’s Not Personal, It’s Just Business: Against Zwolinski’s Defense of
Price Gouging
Hayekians argue the issue of economic distribution is dependent upon address of the knowledge problem. In allocation of resources, the question is not necessarily whether or not assistance ought to be provided, but how and by whom. The tradition conceives of the market as exchanges by individuals engaged with one another for the end of their own self-interest. Accordingly, considering these ends “whose relative importance only these individuals know” any effort to establish a centralised distributive plan would fail in virtue of incomplete knowledge. The price system, it is reasoned, is the solution to conveying the “knowledge of a particular circumstances of time and place” to all market players, with fluctuations in price conveying the quality, scarcity and urgency of need, of the particular good. Within the ‘The Ethics of Price Gouging’ Zwolinski utilises such rationale in an argument to establish that ‘we ought to consider price gouging as a morally praiseworthy act’, as it holds the essential function of information signalling. In this paper I claim Zwolinski has ill-considered the difference between emergency and normal market conditions and as such has not only mistaken the success of Hayekian price signals in such a context, but has also failed to explicate a positive argument for the morality of price gouging.
In an argument that positions price gouging as providing a “great benefit to those in desperate need,” Zwolinski employs a case study example of price gouging in North Carolina during Hurricane Fran in 1996, whereby four individuals attempted to sell 500 bags of ice at an inflated rate of $12 each.
Heideggerian Hermeneutics: Understanding as Thrown Projection
According to traditional hermeneutics, interpretation functions as a means to the end of Ideal understanding. Contra to this however, Heidegger posits understanding, and further, interpretation, as the “basic mode of Dasein’s Being,” essentially arguing for an ontological hermeneutics. In regard to textual understanding, often the foci of hermeneutical investigation, if a passage was not comprehended, interpretation was resorted to in order to enable the telos of understanding. In a move against what can be referred to as the detached spectator position, Heidegger asserts that understanding is existentially driven by Dasein’s thrown-projection. Put simply, understanding is thrown projection. In his own terms, “Dasein, as essentially understanding, is proximally alongside what is understood.”. In this essay I will argue that the initial understanding, if conceived of as ‘thrown projection,’ is inescapable, and in agreement with Heidegger, that in Dasein’s thrownness, an initial lens is created that colours all future interpretation. By concentrating on paragraphs 31 and 32 of Being and Time, often cited as the basis of Heidegger’s hermeneutics, I will first elucidate what Heidegger means when he suggests understanding is ‘thrown projection,’ in order to explicate the consequences for interpretation and hermeneutics in general.
Butlerian Hermeneutics & Injurious Speech: Combatting narrow instances of ‘hate speech’
Within her text, ‘Excitable Speech’, Butler addresses the connection between speech acts and injury, asking how is it that words have the potential to wound? By calling upon the theories of Althusser and Austin in order to answer such a complex question however, I believe Butler addresses an even larger, and more serious question of ‘how it is that language wounds?’ Consequently, I suggest Butler offers two notions of injurious speech: differing in scope of narrow and broad definitions of ‘injury,’ where the former is associated closely with acts of hate speech, and the later with the ontologically essential quality of interpellation. In the present essay I will argue such a distinction is necessary to understanding only narrow instances of injurious speech have potential for reestablishment. However, by introducing the notion of hermeneutical injustice, I will elucidate whether Butler is ever able to successfully establish a normative theory of how we ought to combat such utterances of hate speech.
Mill’s Quality of Happiness: Is the delineation of ‘low’ & ‘high’ useful?
Within Hedonism, Mill argues that within the utilitarian doctrine, in which morally right action is positioned as the action that produces the most utility (good), the concept of utility ought to be considered in relation to the Greatest Happiness Principle. Or rather, in Mill’s own words, “actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness.” And moreover, “By happiness is intended pleasure, and the absence of pain.” In this essay I will argue that in the delineation of ‘low’ and ‘high’ pleasures and the introduction of quality, in addition to quantity of such, Mill runs into three main issues, the impossibility of interpersonal utility calculations, the issue of conservative bias and lastly, the issue of contingency and exposure to experience, subsequently doing more harm than use for his hedonistic doctrine. Firstly, prior to analysing Mill’s moral hedonism and the issues therein, I believe it pertinent to address why it was necessary for Mill to find the need for such a distinction.
According to Mill, pleasure is the only thing pursued by humans as an end, with all other goods, pursued only in relation to being desirable as a means towards pleasure. However, of course, such a stance becomes clearly open to the objection that if morality is grounded upon “pleasure, and freedom from pain”[4] what is to save us from becoming say, a happiness monster?, who, in path to happiness, is able to justify pain towards others.
Kantian Moral Worth: The cheerful philanthropist, & self-interest
Within the present essay I will be discussing Kant’s famous passage within the Groundwork concerning a depressed philanthropist and the moral worth of his beneficence. I argue in agreement with Kant that actions involving amiability are not morally worthy.
The main contention within this passage is in the claim that only upon the philanthropist losing inclination to be charitable that his action “first has its genuine moral worth.” Such an assertion prima facie immediately suggests that beneficent acts are not, all things considered, always moral. And yet, in our daily lives we seem to constantly praise acts of kindness and gratitude. However, importantly I do not believe that Kant here is suggesting the ‘cheerful’ philanthropist was immoral in his actions, but rather, that his action lacked moral content. And yet, how it is possible that the morality of the philanthropist’s act changed despite no change in the act itself? The only notable difference is that upon the agent falling depressed he no longer held an inclination towards giving. But he gives, nonetheless. Why? Kant suggests the depressed philanthropist was motivated “simply from duty.” Thusly, the ‘goodness’, and ‘morally worthiness’ of an action does not lie externally in the act itself, nor upon the consequences of said act, but upon the motivation of the agent to act from duty. But, what of ‘duty’? In alignment with Baron’s interpretation of Kantian morality, I suggest ‘from duty’ not to be thought of as an unreflective and dogmatic adherence to what one has to do, but rather an acknowledgement of what one ought to do as morality requires.
Socio-Spatial Disadvantage within Melbourne: An argument against housing as a market commodity
Housing has long been thought a basic need for survival. When discussed in relation to rights, it is believed that without access to adequate shelter, other subsequent fundamental basic rights become compromised, including the right to life, liberty and personal security and the right to an adequate living standard as well as the right to freedom of movement and to participate in the cultural life of community. However, within a capitalist economy housing is treated merely as a commodity to be traded or sold in order to engender wealth.
The present essay has been organised into four components. I will begin first with a discussion on the conception of housing as a good to form a foundation to later discuss the contention of housing traded within the commodity market. I will then discuss Rawlsian ideals of distributive justice; firstly, as it is commonly discussed as the benchmark for egalitarian distribution of goods, but also in regard to the difference principle in an argument that highlights the importance of branching away from theories reliant upon market economics. In the next part of the present study, I briefly attempt to dispel myths of government interventions that support claims of housing affordability and rental support. In the final section I will undertake an analysis of disadvantaged suburbs in the context of Melbourne, Australia with the help of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, in an attempt to answer, ‘to what extent are market forces responsible for the generation of socio-spatial division?’ Ultimately, it will be argued that housing ought not to be treated as a market commodity if we are to avoid the formation of neighbourhoods of grave disadvantage that subsequently begin to ghettoise Greater Melbourne.
Just War Theory: to what extent does immovable Cultural Property need to be discussed within proportionality calculations
Whilst the destruction of Cultural Property (CP) during warfare is by no means a new phenomenon, evident throughout history as far back as the concept of war itself, from the Persians, Greeks, Vandals and Romans, in times past, such devastation was owed to either collateral effects or military negligence. However, since the twenty-first century there has been a clear paradigm shift in the modus operandi of how CP is treated during warfare. Indeed, since 2015 we have witnessed the Islamic State utilise ancient sites and monuments across Iraq and Syria as a ‘weapon of war’ in an even larger wanton attack against culture, religion, identity and freedom. Unfortunately, currently accepted international law in the preference of the protection of antiquities and artwork over immovable architectural buildings and ancient monuments, has inadequately responded to such threats. Moreover, the concept of property has been but a footnote in the discussion of both traditional and revisionist Just War Theory. This essay has been organised into two components. I will begin first with a discussion and adoption of the definition of Cultural Property by the Hague Convention in argument that we have a normative responsibility to protect CP during armed conflict. I then examine current legal provisions to display how, in reliance upon the ‘principle of military necessity’ The 1954 Hague Convention is ineffective in the protection of immovable CP. The second component of this paper will attempt to intercept CP into Just War Theory, answering the more philosophical question, ‘to what extent does immovable CP need to be discussed within proportionality calculations?’ Ultimately it will be argued, JWT concepts of wide and narrow proportionality help begin to resolve the ethical dilemmas involved in the protection of CP during armed conflict.
Simone de Beauvoir: What is ‘Woman’ ?
In “The Second Sex” de Beauvoir states the dilemma of ‘woman’ is that she finds herself in a world where value and meaning have been ascribed by men. In the present essay I shall argue, firstly through an analysis of the dualistic concepts, immanence (in-itself) and transcendence (for-itself), and subsequently through a critical reflection on how we ought to consider the gender-construct, ‘woman,’ that, in agreement with de Beauvoir, authentic projects are essential in the emancipation of women.
By calling upon her own lived experience, de Beauvoir suggests there is no universal metaphysical essence that can ever define ‘woman.’ Rather, it is social construct fashioned through woman’s subordinate and circumscribed role in society. De Beauvoir argues that women have been relegated to a life of ‘immanence’; a concept that suggests women are passive, static, and ‘within themselves.’ This is in stark opposition to the male-dominated notion of ‘transcendence’, understood as an extension outward, a becoming, and an entity ‘for itself.’
Cartesian Metaphysics; A refutation of the cosmological & ontological argument of the existence of God
Often cited as the father of modern philosophy, René Descartes repudiated against his Aristotelian inheritance, grounding metaphysics in analytic geometry and mathematical reasoning, to offer alternative arguments to the existence of God. Descartes’ ‘Meditations on First Philosophy’ argues two proofs of God’s existence: Meditation Three on ‘Concerning God’, and Meditation Five on ‘Concerning the Essence of Material Things, and Again Concerning God, That He Exists.’ I will argue through first an analysis of both meditations, and subsequently through the objections raised by Immanuel Kant, Pierre Gassendi and A. J. Ayer, Cartesian metaphysics is fraught with linguistic misapplications and tautologies.
Tṛ́ṣṇā: Buddhist Philosophy & the Solution to Mental Health
Buddhist Philosophy has long posited the universal truth of life is suffering.[1] I will argue, through first an analysis of tṛ́ṣṇā, and a subsequent critical reflection on its application in modern context, that despite the obscurity of many Buddhist philosophical texts, the notion of tṛ́ṣṇā, is paramount to the reduction of mental health disorders.
Immanuel Kant: Beauty, The Sublime & The Subjective Universal
Immanuel Kant famously states within his ‘Critique of Judgment,’ “Beautiful is what, without concept, is liked universally.” His claim is that judgments of taste, especially those of the beautiful or sublime, can be differentiated from judgments of cognition or the agreeable, through notions of disinterest, and subjective universality. I will argue, whilst critically assessing both The First and Second Moments, three objections to Kant’s aesthetics; that his account of beauty separate from interest is unconvincing, that beauty can never be known to be universal, and finally, that his account of beauty focuses exclusively on positive judgments.
Hegelian Metaphilosophy: A discussion on the implications of Absolute Truth
Since ancient Greek philosophy the dialectical method, popularised by Plato and further adopted by medieval and modern philosophers alike, including Aristotle, Hegel and Marx, has been utilised as a process to either verify or falsify a priori theses. Yet, in a departure from the Socratic Method, Hegel asserted that contradictions and points of difference are vital in the reconciliation of aporia. Through a unification of both ideas and tensions, Hegel claims his absolute idealist conception of philosophy is able to move beyond relativistic views and subjective weltanschauungs to arrive at a final Truth. Furthermore, by adopting a ‘teleological account of history’ and a dynamic ‘coming-to-be’ of human thought, Hegel essentially shifts the goalposts of his predecessors, asserting that philosophy ought, and as such can, arrive with certainty at one single universal that underpins Being. In this essay I will analyse the Hegelian corpus regarding metaphilosophical claims to garner whether such conceptions are tenable. This will be conducted first through an assessment of the methodology of the Hegelian dialectic, with focus on both the philosopher’s theory of Truth and the centrality of historicism.
What is Philosophy? Transcendental extension of thought & toward conscious unknowing
One of the aims of philosophy, despite differences in approach or methodology, has long been to arrive at foundational ‘truths’ or ‘givens’ about the universe. Gifted the name philosophia (philo- ‘loving’ and -sophia ‘knowledge’) by the Ancient Greeks, the discipline has been synonymous with the pursuit of knowledge ever since.
Yet, despite efforts, the question of ‘what is philosophy?’ has hardly found resolve. In formulating an answer to this question, boundaries and limitations are set, not just on the descriptive dimension of what philosophy has been or is, but also to what philosophy ought to be. Though, by virtue of design, normative claims also intrinsically suggest a negative element of what philosophy ought not to be. And so, if philosophy avoids certain particulars or conditions, can it really be called philosophy? As, in the formulation of ‘truths,’ if metaphilosophy remains limited, so will the results be partial and narrow. For is not philosophy the willingness to critically explore all perspectives.
Thus, it would follow philosophy intrinsically resists definition.