Shari Clough | Oregon State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Shari Clough

The Ethics, Epistemology, and Politics of Richard Rorty, edited by Giancarlo Marchetti , 2021

I explore the strengths of Rorty's liberal ironist as a model for twenty-first-century peacemakin... more I explore the strengths of Rorty's liberal ironist as a model for twenty-first-century peacemaking. I review the anti-foundationalist, anti-essentialist, and fallibilist commitments underlying Rorty's project and show how understanding these three commitments helps foreground the community-widening, solidarity-building elements of the provocatively titled "ethnocentrism" that drives liberal irony. Without a good grasp of these commitments, Rorty's rhetorical urging of ethnocentrism can be mistaken either as too weak, that is, as a collapse into relativistic refusal to be responsive to any ethical and epistemic commitments at all, or as overstated and imperialistic, that is, as an endorsement of pernicious ethical and epistemic patterns, including settler colonialist violence. Rorty characterizes his view as anti-antiethnocentrism, which I argue, demands a commitment to peace understood as a literacy or phronesis, a skill-set about which we need discipline and strategy. We ought to be liberal ironist peace warriors. It is a self-description that carries with it more ethical weight than is sometimes imagined, at the same time that it demands epistemic humility. It will come as no surprise to the pragmatists among us, that it also requires practice and the building of new habits.

Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 2020

I have argued that political values are beliefs informed, more or less well, by the evidence of e... more I have argued that political values are beliefs informed, more or less well, by the evidence of experience and that, where relevant and well-supported by evidence, the inclusion of political values in scientific theorizing can increase the objectivity of research (e.g., Clough 2003, 2004, 2011). The position I endorse has been called the “values-as-evidence” approach (Goldenberg 2013). In this essay I respond to three kinds of resistance to this approach, using examples of feminist political values. Solomon (2012) questions whether values are beliefs that can be tested, Alcoff (2006) argues that even if our values are beliefs that can be tested, testing them might not be desirable because doing so assigns these important values a contingency that weakens their normative force, and Yap (2016) argues that the approach is too idealistic in its articulation of the role of evidence in our political deliberations. In response, I discuss the ways that values can be tested, I analyze the evidential strength of feminist values in science, and I argue that the evidence-based nature of these values is neither a weakness nor an idealization. Problems with political values affecting science properly concern the dogmatic ways that evaluative beliefs are sometimes held—a problem that arises with dogmatism toward descriptive beliefs as well. I conclude that scientists, as with the rest of us, ought to adopt a pragmatically-inclined appreciation of the fallible, inductive process by which we gather evidence in support of any of our beliefs, whether they are described as evaluative or descriptive.

Approaches to Social Justice Education: Equity and Access in the College Classroom, eds. Nana Osei-Kofi, Bradley Boovy, and Kali Furman, New York: Routledge., 2021

This essay is organized around an art exercise developed by Lawrence (1998) to illustrate the tho... more This essay is organized around an art exercise developed by Lawrence (1998) to illustrate the thorny concept of structural injustice as discussed by McIntosh (1988). I add to the structural analysis a discussion of how individually-held cognitive biases interact with and perpetuate structural levels of injustice. I weave together the structural and cognitive processes using a new framework called Peace Literacy (Chappell 2016). For Chappell, peace requires not only an accurate understanding of structural injustice and cognitive biases, but also an accurate understanding of our shared psychological needs, such as self-worth and belonging, and of the ways that injustice and bias mask our ability to see those needs in others. Peace also involves a skillset–new habits that we need to practice to effectively dismantle structural injustice. Finally, peace requires the development of capacities like empathy, conscience, imagination, and hope that make those new habits and skills more effective. Taken together, Peace Literacy provides teachers and students with the strategic understanding, skills, and capacities needed to learn about and work to dismantle structural injustice.

Now available in the volume Social Epistemology and Relativism, edited by Natalie Ashton, Martin Kusch, Robin McKenna, and Katharina Sodoma, Routledge., 2020

In previous work in the social epistemology of science (e.g., Clough 2003; 2004; 2011), I have ar... more In previous work in the social epistemology of science (e.g., Clough 2003; 2004; 2011), I have argued against relativist worries about the role of political values in science. Utilizing a pragmatist reading of Davidson’s theory of interpretational charity and triangulation (e.g., Davidson 2001; 2004), I have argued that political values can function as empirical claims, and that rather than introducing relativism, political values, where relevant and well-supported by evidence, can actually increase the objectivity of particular scientific theories. In this essay I show what kinds of epistemic practices or virtues are needed for objective evidential deliberations about political values, especially in controversial science policy contexts. Building on feminist pragmatist themes in virtue epistemology, highlighting the work of Tanesini (2018; 2016) and Campelia (2017), and explicated in terms of peace literacy—a new kind of phronesis or practical wisdom, borrowed from Chappell (2012, 2017)—I examine research on deliberations about science claims regarding the safety of childhood vaccines (e.g., Goldenberg 2016; 2019). Vaccine debates can be read as symptomatic of a relativistic undermining of scientific authority and expertise. I argue against this relativist reading and focus instead on epistemic virtues such as empathy and humility and the negative effects of their absence in vaccine debates and science controversies more generally. While the call for empathy and humility might seem a weak response to worries of relativism, I argue that these epistemic virtues are in fact the conditions of objective evidential deliberation.

The Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Editors: Nancy Naples, Renee C. Hoogland, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Angela Wong, 2016

Final Draft of entry for The Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Editors: Nancy Naples,... more Final Draft of entry for The Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Editors: Nancy Naples, Renee C. Hoogland, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Angela Wong.

Key Words: Sexism, race and racism, science, feminisms

Sexism and Racism in Science:

The ideal of science is one of objectivity in the service of advancing knowledge. However, as feminist and anti-racist scholars have documented, the institutions and practices of science often serve instead to maintain a political status quo in the service of white, male, social elites (e.g., Haraway 1989; Schiebinger 1993; Harding 1993). Sexism and racism in science overlap with each other and with other forms of social marginalization and oppression in complex ways. In the Descent of Man, Darwin argued that the pressure of natural selection responsible for the inferiority of white Victorian women compared to their male counterparts, was not in evidence in the " lower races. " Among Africans for example, he found little sex differentiation. According to Darwin, the inferiority of women to men was primarily a product of sexual selection among the " higher races. " His sexism and racism were inextricably intertwined (Clough 2003). Darwin's work is an exemplar of the tight links to be found between science and colonialism...

Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literat... more Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literature. However, that facts are bearers of empirical content, while values are not, remains a firmly-held distinction. I support a more thorough-going holism: both facts and values can function as empirical claims, related in a seamless, semantic web. I address a counterexample from Kourany (2010) where facts and values seem importantly discontinuous, namely, the simultaneous support by the Nazis of scientifically sound cancer research and morally unsound political policies. I conclude that even by the criteria available at the time, Nazi cancer research was empirically weak, and the weaknesses in their research are continuous with their moral failures in just the ways predicted by the holism I support.

Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in scienc... more Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in science. Intemann properly endorses feminist standpoint theory over Longino's empiricism, insofar as the former better addresses embodiment. I argue that a pragmatist analysis further improves standpoint theory. Pragmatism avoids the radical subjectivity that otherwise leaves us unable to account for our ability to share scientific knowledge across bodies of different kinds. It allows us to argue for the inclusion, not just of the knowledge produced from marginalized bodies, but of marginalized people themselves.

The philosophical or theoretical commitments informing psychological research are sometimes chara... more The philosophical or theoretical commitments informing psychological research are sometimes
characterized, even by theoretical psychologists themselves, as nonempirical, outside the bounds
of methodological consideration, and/or nonrational. We argue that this characterization is
incoherent. We illustrate our concern by analogy with problematic appeals to Kuhn’s work that
have been influential in theoretical psychology. Following the contemporary pragmatist tradition,
we argue that our philosophical/theoretical commitments are part of our larger webs of belief,
and that for any of these beliefs to have meaning their content must be informed by our practical
engagement with the world, i.e., they are based on empirical evidence, broadly construed. It is
this empirical basis that allows us to recognize our commitments at all and rationally to assess
and criticize them when necessary. We conclude by demonstrating a rational assessment of
the philosophical/theoretical commitments underlying a recent study in the social psychology
of religion.

Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective Vol. 2, No. 12, 72 - 76, Nov 2013

Out of the Shadows: Analytic Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy, 2012

Social Science and Medicine, Dec 2011

""The hygiene hypothesis offers an explanation for the correlation, well-established in the indus... more ""The hygiene hypothesis offers an explanation for the correlation, well-established in the industrialized nations of North and West, between increased hygiene and sanitation, and increased rates of asthma and allergies. Recent studies have added to the scope of the hypothesis, showing a link between decreased exposure to certain bacteria and parasitic worms, and increased rates of depression and intestinal autoimmune disorders, respectively. What remains less often discussed in the research on these links is that women have higher rates than men of asthma and allergies, as well as many auto-immune disorders, and also depression. The current paper introduces a feminist understanding of gender socialization to the epidemiological and immunological picture. That standards of cleanliness are generally higher for girls
than boys, especially under the age of five when children are more likely to be under close adult supervision, is a robust phenomenon in industrialized nations, and some research points to a crosscultural pattern. I conclude that, insofar as the hygiene hypothesis successfully identifies standards of hygiene and sanitation as mediators of immune health, then attention to the relevant patterns of gender socialization is important. The review also makes clear that adding a feminist analysis of gender
socialization to the hygiene hypothesis helps explain variation in morbidity rates not addressed by other sources and responds to a number of outstanding puzzles in current research. Alternative explanations for the sex differences in the relevant morbidity rates are also discussed (e.g., the effects of estrogens). Finally, new sources of evidence for the hygiene hypothesis are suggested in the form of cross-cultural and other natural experiments.""

Dialogues With Davidson, 2011

Feminist Interpretations of Richard Rorty, 2010

Perspectives on Science, 2008

In assessing the appropriateness of a scientific community’s research effort, Solomon considers a... more In assessing the appropriateness of a scientific community’s research effort, Solomon considers a number of “decision vectors,” divided into the empirical and non-empirical. Value judgments get sorted as non-empirical vectors. By way of contrast, I introduce Anderson’s discussion of the evidential role of value judgments. Like Anderson, I argue that value judgments are empirical in the relevant sense. I argue further that Solomon’s decision matrix needs to be reconceptualized: the distinction should not be between the empirical vs. non-empirical, but between the relevant vs. irrelevant. Whether particular value judgments are relevant or not is an empirical question, to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Journal of Social Philosophy, 2008

Racist beliefs express value judgments. According to an influential view, value judgments are sub... more Racist beliefs express value judgments. According to an influential view, value judgments are subjective, and not amenable to rational adjudication. In contrast, we argue that the value judgments expressed in, for example, racist beliefs, are false and objectively so. Our account combines a naturalized, philosophical account of meaning inspired by Donald Davidson, with a prominent social-psychological theory of values pioneered by the social-psychologist Milton Rokeach. We use this interdisciplinary approach to show that, just as with beliefs expressing descriptive judgments, beliefs expressing value judgments have empirical content, or can be inferentially linked to beliefs that do; the truth or falsity of that content can be objectively assigned; and that assignment is amenable to rational assessment. While versions of this objective view of value judgments have been defended by moral realists of various metaphysical stripes, our argument has the virtue of appealing, instead, to accounts that are as naturalistically informed as possible. And, unlike the influential subjective view of value judgments, and racist beliefs more particularly, our arguments are better able to account for instances where rational, persuasive strategies have been effective in reducing the ubiquity of racism in American culture.

Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy, Jan 2006

Hypatia, A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 2004

The relationship between facts and values-in particular, naturalism and normativity- poses an ong... more The relationship between facts and values-in particular, naturalism and normativity- poses an ongoing challenge for feminist science studies. Some have argued that the fact/value holism of W.V. Quine’s naturalized epistemology holds promise. I argue that Quinean epistemology, while appropriately naturalized, might weaken the normative force of feminist claims. I then show that Quinean epistemic themes are unnecessary for feminist science studies. The empirical nature of our work provides
us with all the naturalized normativity we need.

A House Divided: Analytic and Continental Philosophy, 2003

The works of the later Wittgenstein resonate with aspects of the pragmatist tradition in American... more The works of the later Wittgenstein resonate with aspects of the pragmatist tradition in American philosophy. Davidson’s work is similarly informed. We argue that because of their association with the pragmatist tradition, their work can be put to use by philosophers interested in social justice issues, including, for example, feminism, and critical race theory. Philosophers concerned with social justice continue to struggle between the extremes of an untenable foundationalism and a radical relativism. Given their holistic understanding of knowledge, meaning and communication, the work of Wittgenstein and Davidson is particularly suited to dissolving the foundationalist/relativist dichotomy. We explore how this and other features of their work facilitates philosophy for social change.

Studies in the History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2002

In 1993, biologist Margie Profet captured the attention of the popular press with the publication... more In 1993, biologist Margie Profet captured the attention of the popular press with the publication of her radical thesis: menstruation has a function. Traditional theories, she claims, typically view menstruation as a functionless by-product of cyclic flux. The details of Profet’s functional account are similarly radical: she argues that menstruation has been naturally selected
to defend the female reproductive tract from sperm-borne pathogens. There are a number of weaknesses in Profet’s evolutionary analysis. However, I focus on a set of pragmatic problems that arise prior to any details of her evolutionary account. In arguing for the importance of pragmatic considerations, I draw from the linguistic analyses of Nelson Goodman. I conclude that critical investigation of the evolutionary details of Profet’s pathogen defense account will be more feasible if and when biologists more frequently feature the female system of pathogen defense in their inductive generalisations. The system needs to be better entrenched before its functional components, such as menstruation, can be thoroughly investigated.

The Ethics, Epistemology, and Politics of Richard Rorty, edited by Giancarlo Marchetti , 2021

I explore the strengths of Rorty's liberal ironist as a model for twenty-first-century peacemakin... more I explore the strengths of Rorty's liberal ironist as a model for twenty-first-century peacemaking. I review the anti-foundationalist, anti-essentialist, and fallibilist commitments underlying Rorty's project and show how understanding these three commitments helps foreground the community-widening, solidarity-building elements of the provocatively titled "ethnocentrism" that drives liberal irony. Without a good grasp of these commitments, Rorty's rhetorical urging of ethnocentrism can be mistaken either as too weak, that is, as a collapse into relativistic refusal to be responsive to any ethical and epistemic commitments at all, or as overstated and imperialistic, that is, as an endorsement of pernicious ethical and epistemic patterns, including settler colonialist violence. Rorty characterizes his view as anti-antiethnocentrism, which I argue, demands a commitment to peace understood as a literacy or phronesis, a skill-set about which we need discipline and strategy. We ought to be liberal ironist peace warriors. It is a self-description that carries with it more ethical weight than is sometimes imagined, at the same time that it demands epistemic humility. It will come as no surprise to the pragmatists among us, that it also requires practice and the building of new habits.

Philosophy in the Contemporary World, 2020

I have argued that political values are beliefs informed, more or less well, by the evidence of e... more I have argued that political values are beliefs informed, more or less well, by the evidence of experience and that, where relevant and well-supported by evidence, the inclusion of political values in scientific theorizing can increase the objectivity of research (e.g., Clough 2003, 2004, 2011). The position I endorse has been called the “values-as-evidence” approach (Goldenberg 2013). In this essay I respond to three kinds of resistance to this approach, using examples of feminist political values. Solomon (2012) questions whether values are beliefs that can be tested, Alcoff (2006) argues that even if our values are beliefs that can be tested, testing them might not be desirable because doing so assigns these important values a contingency that weakens their normative force, and Yap (2016) argues that the approach is too idealistic in its articulation of the role of evidence in our political deliberations. In response, I discuss the ways that values can be tested, I analyze the evidential strength of feminist values in science, and I argue that the evidence-based nature of these values is neither a weakness nor an idealization. Problems with political values affecting science properly concern the dogmatic ways that evaluative beliefs are sometimes held—a problem that arises with dogmatism toward descriptive beliefs as well. I conclude that scientists, as with the rest of us, ought to adopt a pragmatically-inclined appreciation of the fallible, inductive process by which we gather evidence in support of any of our beliefs, whether they are described as evaluative or descriptive.

Approaches to Social Justice Education: Equity and Access in the College Classroom, eds. Nana Osei-Kofi, Bradley Boovy, and Kali Furman, New York: Routledge., 2021

This essay is organized around an art exercise developed by Lawrence (1998) to illustrate the tho... more This essay is organized around an art exercise developed by Lawrence (1998) to illustrate the thorny concept of structural injustice as discussed by McIntosh (1988). I add to the structural analysis a discussion of how individually-held cognitive biases interact with and perpetuate structural levels of injustice. I weave together the structural and cognitive processes using a new framework called Peace Literacy (Chappell 2016). For Chappell, peace requires not only an accurate understanding of structural injustice and cognitive biases, but also an accurate understanding of our shared psychological needs, such as self-worth and belonging, and of the ways that injustice and bias mask our ability to see those needs in others. Peace also involves a skillset–new habits that we need to practice to effectively dismantle structural injustice. Finally, peace requires the development of capacities like empathy, conscience, imagination, and hope that make those new habits and skills more effective. Taken together, Peace Literacy provides teachers and students with the strategic understanding, skills, and capacities needed to learn about and work to dismantle structural injustice.

Now available in the volume Social Epistemology and Relativism, edited by Natalie Ashton, Martin Kusch, Robin McKenna, and Katharina Sodoma, Routledge., 2020

In previous work in the social epistemology of science (e.g., Clough 2003; 2004; 2011), I have ar... more In previous work in the social epistemology of science (e.g., Clough 2003; 2004; 2011), I have argued against relativist worries about the role of political values in science. Utilizing a pragmatist reading of Davidson’s theory of interpretational charity and triangulation (e.g., Davidson 2001; 2004), I have argued that political values can function as empirical claims, and that rather than introducing relativism, political values, where relevant and well-supported by evidence, can actually increase the objectivity of particular scientific theories. In this essay I show what kinds of epistemic practices or virtues are needed for objective evidential deliberations about political values, especially in controversial science policy contexts. Building on feminist pragmatist themes in virtue epistemology, highlighting the work of Tanesini (2018; 2016) and Campelia (2017), and explicated in terms of peace literacy—a new kind of phronesis or practical wisdom, borrowed from Chappell (2012, 2017)—I examine research on deliberations about science claims regarding the safety of childhood vaccines (e.g., Goldenberg 2016; 2019). Vaccine debates can be read as symptomatic of a relativistic undermining of scientific authority and expertise. I argue against this relativist reading and focus instead on epistemic virtues such as empathy and humility and the negative effects of their absence in vaccine debates and science controversies more generally. While the call for empathy and humility might seem a weak response to worries of relativism, I argue that these epistemic virtues are in fact the conditions of objective evidential deliberation.

The Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Editors: Nancy Naples, Renee C. Hoogland, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Angela Wong, 2016

Final Draft of entry for The Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Editors: Nancy Naples,... more Final Draft of entry for The Encyclopedia of Gender and Sexuality Studies. Editors: Nancy Naples, Renee C. Hoogland, Maithree Wickramasinghe, Angela Wong.

Key Words: Sexism, race and racism, science, feminisms

Sexism and Racism in Science:

The ideal of science is one of objectivity in the service of advancing knowledge. However, as feminist and anti-racist scholars have documented, the institutions and practices of science often serve instead to maintain a political status quo in the service of white, male, social elites (e.g., Haraway 1989; Schiebinger 1993; Harding 1993). Sexism and racism in science overlap with each other and with other forms of social marginalization and oppression in complex ways. In the Descent of Man, Darwin argued that the pressure of natural selection responsible for the inferiority of white Victorian women compared to their male counterparts, was not in evidence in the " lower races. " Among Africans for example, he found little sex differentiation. According to Darwin, the inferiority of women to men was primarily a product of sexual selection among the " higher races. " His sexism and racism were inextricably intertwined (Clough 2003). Darwin's work is an exemplar of the tight links to be found between science and colonialism...

Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literat... more Fact/value holism has become commonplace in philosophy of science, especially in feminist literature. However, that facts are bearers of empirical content, while values are not, remains a firmly-held distinction. I support a more thorough-going holism: both facts and values can function as empirical claims, related in a seamless, semantic web. I address a counterexample from Kourany (2010) where facts and values seem importantly discontinuous, namely, the simultaneous support by the Nazis of scientifically sound cancer research and morally unsound political policies. I conclude that even by the criteria available at the time, Nazi cancer research was empirically weak, and the weaknesses in their research are continuous with their moral failures in just the ways predicted by the holism I support.

Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in scienc... more Feminist theorists have shown that knowledge is embodied in ways that make a difference in science. Intemann properly endorses feminist standpoint theory over Longino's empiricism, insofar as the former better addresses embodiment. I argue that a pragmatist analysis further improves standpoint theory. Pragmatism avoids the radical subjectivity that otherwise leaves us unable to account for our ability to share scientific knowledge across bodies of different kinds. It allows us to argue for the inclusion, not just of the knowledge produced from marginalized bodies, but of marginalized people themselves.

The philosophical or theoretical commitments informing psychological research are sometimes chara... more The philosophical or theoretical commitments informing psychological research are sometimes
characterized, even by theoretical psychologists themselves, as nonempirical, outside the bounds
of methodological consideration, and/or nonrational. We argue that this characterization is
incoherent. We illustrate our concern by analogy with problematic appeals to Kuhn’s work that
have been influential in theoretical psychology. Following the contemporary pragmatist tradition,
we argue that our philosophical/theoretical commitments are part of our larger webs of belief,
and that for any of these beliefs to have meaning their content must be informed by our practical
engagement with the world, i.e., they are based on empirical evidence, broadly construed. It is
this empirical basis that allows us to recognize our commitments at all and rationally to assess
and criticize them when necessary. We conclude by demonstrating a rational assessment of
the philosophical/theoretical commitments underlying a recent study in the social psychology
of religion.

Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective Vol. 2, No. 12, 72 - 76, Nov 2013

Out of the Shadows: Analytic Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy, 2012

Social Science and Medicine, Dec 2011

""The hygiene hypothesis offers an explanation for the correlation, well-established in the indus... more ""The hygiene hypothesis offers an explanation for the correlation, well-established in the industrialized nations of North and West, between increased hygiene and sanitation, and increased rates of asthma and allergies. Recent studies have added to the scope of the hypothesis, showing a link between decreased exposure to certain bacteria and parasitic worms, and increased rates of depression and intestinal autoimmune disorders, respectively. What remains less often discussed in the research on these links is that women have higher rates than men of asthma and allergies, as well as many auto-immune disorders, and also depression. The current paper introduces a feminist understanding of gender socialization to the epidemiological and immunological picture. That standards of cleanliness are generally higher for girls
than boys, especially under the age of five when children are more likely to be under close adult supervision, is a robust phenomenon in industrialized nations, and some research points to a crosscultural pattern. I conclude that, insofar as the hygiene hypothesis successfully identifies standards of hygiene and sanitation as mediators of immune health, then attention to the relevant patterns of gender socialization is important. The review also makes clear that adding a feminist analysis of gender
socialization to the hygiene hypothesis helps explain variation in morbidity rates not addressed by other sources and responds to a number of outstanding puzzles in current research. Alternative explanations for the sex differences in the relevant morbidity rates are also discussed (e.g., the effects of estrogens). Finally, new sources of evidence for the hygiene hypothesis are suggested in the form of cross-cultural and other natural experiments.""

Dialogues With Davidson, 2011

Feminist Interpretations of Richard Rorty, 2010

Perspectives on Science, 2008

In assessing the appropriateness of a scientific community’s research effort, Solomon considers a... more In assessing the appropriateness of a scientific community’s research effort, Solomon considers a number of “decision vectors,” divided into the empirical and non-empirical. Value judgments get sorted as non-empirical vectors. By way of contrast, I introduce Anderson’s discussion of the evidential role of value judgments. Like Anderson, I argue that value judgments are empirical in the relevant sense. I argue further that Solomon’s decision matrix needs to be reconceptualized: the distinction should not be between the empirical vs. non-empirical, but between the relevant vs. irrelevant. Whether particular value judgments are relevant or not is an empirical question, to be decided on a case-by-case basis.

Journal of Social Philosophy, 2008

Racist beliefs express value judgments. According to an influential view, value judgments are sub... more Racist beliefs express value judgments. According to an influential view, value judgments are subjective, and not amenable to rational adjudication. In contrast, we argue that the value judgments expressed in, for example, racist beliefs, are false and objectively so. Our account combines a naturalized, philosophical account of meaning inspired by Donald Davidson, with a prominent social-psychological theory of values pioneered by the social-psychologist Milton Rokeach. We use this interdisciplinary approach to show that, just as with beliefs expressing descriptive judgments, beliefs expressing value judgments have empirical content, or can be inferentially linked to beliefs that do; the truth or falsity of that content can be objectively assigned; and that assignment is amenable to rational assessment. While versions of this objective view of value judgments have been defended by moral realists of various metaphysical stripes, our argument has the virtue of appealing, instead, to accounts that are as naturalistically informed as possible. And, unlike the influential subjective view of value judgments, and racist beliefs more particularly, our arguments are better able to account for instances where rational, persuasive strategies have been effective in reducing the ubiquity of racism in American culture.

Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy, Jan 2006

Hypatia, A Journal of Feminist Philosophy, 2004

The relationship between facts and values-in particular, naturalism and normativity- poses an ong... more The relationship between facts and values-in particular, naturalism and normativity- poses an ongoing challenge for feminist science studies. Some have argued that the fact/value holism of W.V. Quine’s naturalized epistemology holds promise. I argue that Quinean epistemology, while appropriately naturalized, might weaken the normative force of feminist claims. I then show that Quinean epistemic themes are unnecessary for feminist science studies. The empirical nature of our work provides
us with all the naturalized normativity we need.

A House Divided: Analytic and Continental Philosophy, 2003

The works of the later Wittgenstein resonate with aspects of the pragmatist tradition in American... more The works of the later Wittgenstein resonate with aspects of the pragmatist tradition in American philosophy. Davidson’s work is similarly informed. We argue that because of their association with the pragmatist tradition, their work can be put to use by philosophers interested in social justice issues, including, for example, feminism, and critical race theory. Philosophers concerned with social justice continue to struggle between the extremes of an untenable foundationalism and a radical relativism. Given their holistic understanding of knowledge, meaning and communication, the work of Wittgenstein and Davidson is particularly suited to dissolving the foundationalist/relativist dichotomy. We explore how this and other features of their work facilitates philosophy for social change.

Studies in the History and Philosophy of the Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 2002

In 1993, biologist Margie Profet captured the attention of the popular press with the publication... more In 1993, biologist Margie Profet captured the attention of the popular press with the publication of her radical thesis: menstruation has a function. Traditional theories, she claims, typically view menstruation as a functionless by-product of cyclic flux. The details of Profet’s functional account are similarly radical: she argues that menstruation has been naturally selected
to defend the female reproductive tract from sperm-borne pathogens. There are a number of weaknesses in Profet’s evolutionary analysis. However, I focus on a set of pragmatic problems that arise prior to any details of her evolutionary account. In arguing for the importance of pragmatic considerations, I draw from the linguistic analyses of Nelson Goodman. I conclude that critical investigation of the evolutionary details of Profet’s pathogen defense account will be more feasible if and when biologists more frequently feature the female system of pathogen defense in their inductive generalisations. The system needs to be better entrenched before its functional components, such as menstruation, can be thoroughly investigated.

The Ethics Epistemology and Politics of Richard Rorty, 2023

This book features fourteen original essays that critically engage the philosophy of Richard Rort... more This book features fourteen original essays that critically engage the philosophy of Richard Rorty, with an emphasis on his ethics, epistemology, and politics. Inspired by James’ and Dewey’s pragmatism, Rorty urged us to rethink the role of science and truth with a liberal-democratic vision of politics. In doing so, he criticized philosophy as a sheer scholastic endeavor and put it back in touch with our most pressing cultural and human needs. The essays in this volume employ the conceptual tools and argumentative techniques of analytic philosophy and pragmatism and demonstrate the relevance of Rorty’s thought to the most urgent questions of our time. They touch on a number of topics, including but not limited to structural injustice, rule-following, Black feminist philosophy, legal pragmatism, moral progress, relativism, and skepticism. This book will be of interest to a wide range of scholars across disciplines who are engaging with the work of Richard Rorty.
Papers by Barry Allen, Michael Bacon and Nat Rutherford, Rosa Calcaterra, Sharin Clough, William Curtis, Susan Dieleman, Raff Donelson, Mariane Janack, Douglas Lind, Sabina Lovibond, Carol Rovane, Shannon Sullivan and Chris Voparil