In this article, I explore the question “What is trans philosophy?” by viewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires positioning the question vis à vis Judith Butler's notion of philosophy's Other (that is, the philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy), as trans studies has largely grown from this Other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker's distinction between the mere study of trans phenomena and trans studies as the coming (...) to academic voice of trans people. Finally, it requires thinking about the types of questions that emerge when philosophy is placed within a multidisciplinary context: (1) What does philosophy have to offer? (2) Given that philosophy typically does not use data, what grounds philosophical claims about the world? (3) What is the relation between philosophy and “the literature”? In attempting to answer these questions, I examine the notion of philosophical perplexity and the relation of philosophy to “the everyday.” Rather than guiding us to perplexity, I argue, trans philosophy attempts to illuminate trans experiences in an everyday that is confusing and hostile. Alternative socialities are required, I argue, in order to make trans philosophy possible. (shrink)

Do victims of moral wrongdoing have moral grounds to complain if they have freely committed a similar wrongdoing in the past? This question explores the connection between the moral standing of complainers and their previous deeds. According to Saul Smilansky two equally justifiable competing views create an antinomy with respect to the said question. In this article I present two arguments that attempt to undermine Smilansky's alleged paradox, presenting it as no more than a resolvable moral conflict. My first argument (...) attempts to resolve the conflict in cases where the complaining wrongdoers have already been sanctioned for their past transgression. My second argument challenges the validity of the alleged paradox, based on an alternative explanation of the seemingly paradoxical moral results. (shrink)

This essay examines the stereotype that transgender people are “deceivers” and the stereotype's role in promoting and excusing transphobic violence. The stereotype derives from a contrast between gender presentation and sexed body. Because gender presentation represents genital status, Bettcher argues, people who “misalign” the two are viewed as deceivers. The author shows how this system of gender presentation as genital representation is part of larger sexist and racist systems of violence and oppression.

Trans studies constitute part of the coming-to-voice of transpeople, long the theorized and researched objects of sexology, psychiatry, and feminist theory. Sandy Stone’s pioneering, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto” sought the end of monolithic medical and feminist accounts of transsexuality to reveal a multiplicity of trans-authored narratives. My goal is a better understanding of what it is for transpeople to come to this polyvocality. I argue that trans politics ought to proceed with the principle that transpeople have first-person (...) authority (FPA) over their own gender, and I clarify what this means. (shrink)

The emotions pose many philosophical questions. We don't choose them; they come over us spontaneously. Sometimes emotions seem to get it wrong: we experience wrongdoing but do not feel anger, feel fear but recognise there is no danger. Yet often we expect emotions to be reasonable, intelligible and appropriate responses to certain situations. How do we explain these apparent contradictions? Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason presents a bold new picture of the emotions that challenges prevailing philosophical orthodoxy. (...) class='Hi'>Talia Morag argues that too much emphasis has been placed on the "reasonableness" of emotions and far too little on two neglected areas: the imagination and the unconscious. She uses these to propose a new philosophical and psychoanalytic conception of the emotions that challenges the perceived rationality of emotions; views the emotions as fundamental to determining one's self-image; and bases therapy on the ability to "listen" to one’s emotional episode as it occurs. Emotion, Imagination, and the Limits of Reason is one of the first books to connect philosophical research on the emotions to psychoanalysis. It will be essential reading for those studying ethics, the emotions, moral psychology and philosophy of psychology as well as those interested in psychoanalysis. (shrink)

Maurice Merleau-Ponty is one of the few major phenomenologists to engage extensively with empirical research in the sciences, and the only one to examine child psychology with rigor and in such depth. His writings have recently become increasingly influential, as the findings of psychology and cognitive science inform and are informed by phenomenological inquiry. Merleau-Ponty’s Sorbonne lectures of 1949 to 1952 are a broad investigation into child psychology, psychoanalysis, pedagogy, phenomenology, sociology, and anthropology. They argue that the subject of child (...) psychology is critical for any philosophical attempt to understand individual and intersubjective existence. Talia Welsh’s new translation provides Merleau-Ponty’s complete lectures on the seminal engagement of phenomenology and psychology. (shrink)

Abstract:The randomized response technique (RRT) is used to study the deceptive behavior of purchasing agents. We test the proposition that purchasing agents’ perceptions of organizational expectations influence their behavior. Results indicate that perceived pressure to perform and ethical ambiguity on the part of the firm are correlated with purchasing agents’ unethical behavior, in the form of acknowledged deception of suppliers.

Anatomically detailed dolls have been used to elicit testimony from children in sex abuse cases. However, studies have shown they often provide false accounts in young, preschool-age children. Typically this problem is seen as a cognitive one: with age, children can correctly map their bodies onto a doll due to greater intellectual ability to represent themselves. I argue, along with the work of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, that although certainly cognitive developments aid in representing one’s own body, a discussion of embodiment is (...) required in order to understand the use and abuse of anatomical dolls in forensic interviews. This paper will examine these issues and suggest that a better understanding of embodied perception in both adults and children helps show how phenomenology can provide a more nuanced understanding to a troubling ethical and legal problem. (shrink)

In this article, Bettcher argues that sexual attraction must be reconceptualized in light of transgender experience. In particular, Bettcher defends the theory of “erotic structuralism,” which replaces an exclusively other-directed account of gendered attraction with one that includes a gendered eroticization of self as an essential component. This erotic experience of self is necessary for other-directed gendered desire, where the two are bound together and mutually informing. One consequence of the theory is that the controversial notion of “autogynephilia” is rejected. (...) Another consequence is that the distinction between gender identity and sexual orientation is softened. (shrink)

Academic cheating, a common and consequential form of dishonesty, has puzzled moral psychologists and educators for decades. The present research examined a new theoretical approach to the perceptions, evaluations, and motivations that shape students’ decisions to cheat. We tested key predictions of this approach by systematically examining students’ accounts of their own cheating. In two studies, we interviewed undergraduates in psychology (n = 68) and engineering (n = 123) classes about their past experiences with plagiarism or other cheating. Interviews assessed (...) students’ perceptions of whether they were cheating, their evaluations of whether their actions were okay, and their motivations for doing what they did. Most students did not initially recognize their acts as cheating. While students generally thought cheating was wrong, they often judged the exceptional cases in which they cheated to be acceptable, citing concerns such as assignment goals and task feasibility. The findings suggest that perceptions, evaluations, and competing motivations play a key role in students’ decisions to cheat. (shrink)

This paper focuses on rubbish, especially single-use plastic packaging, and its relation to Hannah Arendt’s categories of the vita activa in The Human Condition (2018), namely, labour, work, and action. I argue that single-use plastic rubbish does not fit into any category of the vita activa, which is indicative of the nature of single-use plastic as a type of object that does not belong anywhere, neither in the earth or the world, in Arendt’s sense of the terms. What allows for (...) plastic waste to be produced while belonging nowhere is an economic system focused on growth, which continues to contribute to our current climate and biodiversity crises. I propose economic degrowth as a potential solution to such issues, with continued reference to Arendt’s various arguments in The Human Condition. (shrink)

This paper examines the puzzling phenomenon of self-directed implicit bias in the form of gender “stereotype threat” (ST). Bringing to light the empirical undecidability of which account of this phenomenon is best, whether a rational or an associationist explanation, the paper aims to strengthen the associationist approach by appeal to a new account of seeing-as experiences. I critically examine “alief” accounts of reason-recalcitrant ST by bringing to bear arguments from the philosophy of emotion. The new account builds on the insights (...) and overcomes the weaknesses of “aliefs” by (a) employing associations that are imaginative and unreliable; and (b) proposing non-conceptual seeing-as experiences. (shrink)

Force and Freedom, a new book by Professor Arthur Ripstein, offers a comprehensive and highly sophisticated articulation of Kant’s legal and political philosophy. While Kant’s thinking on metaphysics and ethics has received paramount attention in the academic discourse, his contribution to legal and political theory has been somewhat marginalized. One reason for Kant’s exclusion from the central canon of political and legal philosophy is the abstract and very complicated nature of Kantian writing on law and political power, most particularly in (...) the Doctrine of Right. Another reason is the difficulties many writers have encountered in their attempts to reconcile Kant’s political and legal writing with his moral philosophy. Against this background, the novelty and importance of Force and Freedom cannot be overstated. (shrink)

The three central themes underlying this issue of Theoretical Inquiries in Law—the privatization of law model, the legal pluralism paradigm, and multiculturalism — are united in their shared opposition, be it descriptive or normative, to the monopolistic concentration of law production power in the hands of the state. The three models focus on dispersion of the social ordering function amongst non-state agents. They advocate the claim that the state has not succeeded at securing a monopoly over law and/or should not (...) secure a monopoly over law. On the policy front, as well, protagonists of the privatization of law model, scholars of the legal pluralism paradigm and writers in the multiculturalism tradition often unite in their plea for recognition of tribal courts or the expansion of the lawmaking capacity of local governments. However, despite their shared underlying assumption that the centralist state law model lacks normative appeal, these three bodies of research diverge significantly. The differences between them have been marginalized in the debate, because each of these models has essentially concentrated on conducting the dialogue with the state law model. Thus far, these models have been solely occupied with taking a particular stance against the centralization model of state law, and have failed to engage in any debate amongst themselves as representatives of alternative legal decentralization schemes. This Article attempts to partially fill the void, by pitting the multiculturalism model of legal decentralization against the privatization model. It will show that the differences in both models’ legal decentralization visions derive from conflicting ontological premises regarding law, community, social life, and the human subject. These theoretical distinctions, which will be drawn between the two decentralization models, have great bearing when considering the social units that ought to supplant the state in its lawmaking capacity. (shrink)

In his canonical articles Against Settlement and The Forms of Justice, Owen Fiss argues that the erosion of civil litigation harms the deliberative process and the elucidation of public values in society. By revealing the hidden public dimension underlying not only public law litigation, but also the adjudication of private law disputes, Fiss’s argument can be conceptualized as posing a challenge to the public/ private distinction. At the same time, Fiss’s critique reinforces the public/private divide by placing settlement and civil (...) litigation on either side of the borderline. In this Article, we set out to dispel the prevalent depiction of settlement as inherently private, and to challenge the binary logic of the private/public distinction as it is understood to apply to settlement. We show how settlements have the capacity to fulfill each and every one of the public functions attributed to the civil trial, including the elaboration of norms, the discovery of facts, the facilitation of democratic participation, and the creation of public narratives. The functional, process-oriented approach we offer depicts settlement as a device that does not stand in opposition to the promotion of rule of law values - but rather as an institution that enhances the articulation of public norms. Our discussion progresses against the background of three settlement arenas: settlement in the classic civil suit context, structural reform suits, and transnational Holocaust litigation. (shrink)

Confessions both hold a great promise and pose a grave danger. When the accused speaks against his interest and assumes responsibility for criminal actions this is viewed as a compelling sign of guilt. It is not, therefore, for naught that the confession has been crowned the "queen of evidence." Yet research conducted in the last few decades has shown that a substantial number of confessions are false, ranking the out of court confession high among the factors leading to the conviction (...) of innocent people. The acceptance of DNA testing, has further substantiated this finding, igniting a renewed interest in out-of-court confessions. It is hard to assess the magnitude of social harm caused by the widespread and persistent resort to obtaining confessions, but one thing is evident from the vast literature on the matter: this evidentiary mechanism is currently overused, much beyond the optimal level. The reasons for this over-use are varied, among them the fact that confessions are readily available for law enforcement officers, and that those in charge of trying the facts tend to overwhelmingly convict based on out-of-court confessions, while underestimating the associated dangers. As a result, confessions have come to play a paramount role in the criminal justice system. Many attempts have been made to deal with confession-based wrongful convictions. Examples include the Miranda rules or the requirements for varying degrees and types of corroborating evidence. To date, all the rules and proposals share a common characteristic: They all attempt to correct the evidentiary fallacies associated with out-of-court confessions by evidentiary means, whether admissibility oriented or weight oriented. In the article we argue that none of the proposed mechanisms is likely to solve the problem. The root of the problem lies in the fact that the entire criminal justice system is currently organized around confessions. Law enforcement officers focus on obtaining confessions and the prosecution uses it as its evidentiary centerpiece. Further restricting admissibility or requiring a higher degree of corroboration will not change this trend. Moreover, the confessional lure is too strong to resist. Like the Sirens' Song, the confession casts a spell on all those subjected to it and, no matter how strong a corroboration we require, we will eventually fall back on the confession. We propose an entirely different solution to the tendency to over-use confessions, one that utilizes penal means to change the incentive structure within the criminal justice system. We propose to incorporate into the sentencing guidelines a mandatory reduction of the criminal sanction whenever an out-of-court confession is introduced into evidence by the prosecution. In other words, our proposal is to elevate the cost of using out-of court confessions, as compared to other types of evidence. The article will demonstrate how placing such a "sentencing price tag" on the use of out-of-court confessions will correct the current bias in favor of using this evidence and induce law enforcement officials to seek extrinsic evidence, thus turning confessions into a residual evidentiary devise. The article will also show that the proposed regime will improve the court's ability to distinguish between true and false confessions. After discussing the proposed model's normative appeal, the article will proceed to deal with possible criticisms which can be leveled against it, whether retributive, utilitarian or expressive. (shrink)

Feminist phenomenology has contributed significantly to understanding the negative impact of the objectification of women’s bodies. The celebration of thin bodies as beautiful and the demonization of fat bodies as unattractive is a common component of that discussion. However, when one turns toward the correlation of fat and poor health, a feminist phenomenological approach is less obvious. In this paper, previous phenomenological work on the objectification of women is paralleled to the contemporary encouragement to discipline one’s body in order to (...) pursue better health. Similar ideologies of free choice in the face of bodily habits run through discussions of health and beauty. The paper uses the work of Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir as well as the contemporary feminist phenomenologists Diaprose, Bartky, Bordo, Young, Grosz, and Carel to explore how women are constrained by health testing and health normalization. It argues that despite the apparent benefits of a focus on modifying health habits, feminists have good reason to be wary of the good health imperative. (shrink)

This paper examines Harold Garfinkel's notion of the natural attitude about sex and his claim that it is fundamentally moral in nature. The author looks beneath the natural attitude in order to explain its peculiar resilience and oppressive force. There she reveals a moral order grounded in the dichotomously sexed bodies so constituted through boundaries governing privacy and decency. In particular, naked bodies are sex-differentiated within a system of genital representation through gender presentation—a system that helps constitute the very boundaries (...) between the public and private. (shrink)

Early work in child psychology -- Phenomenology, gestalt theory, and psychoanalysis -- Syncretic sociability and the birth of the self -- Contemporary research in psychology and phenomenology -- Exploration and learning -- Culture, development, and gender -- Conclusion: an incomparable childhood.

This article introduces trans feminism as an intersectional analysis of sexist and transphobic forms of oppressions as well as current and historical feminist and trans conflicts over the inclusion of trans women. The first half examines recent feminist philosophical efforts to provide an analysis of the concept woman that is inclusive of trans women. The second examines recent responses to trans-exclusive feminist positions. The article concludes with an assessment of the current state of trans feminist philosophy and outlines challenges for (...) the future. (shrink)

Nearly all students believe academic cheating is wrong, yet few students say they would report witnessed acts of cheating. To explain this apparent tension, the present research examined college students’ reasoning about whether to report plagiarism or other forms of cheating. Study 1 examined students’ conflicts when deciding whether to report cheating. Most students gave reasons against reporting a peer (e.g., social and physical consequences, a lack of responsibility to report) as well as reasons in favor of reporting (e.g., concerns (...) about welfare, justice, and fairness). Study 2 provided experimental confirmation that the contextual factors referenced by Study 1 participants in fact influenced decisions about whether to report cheating. Overall, the findings indicate that students often decide against reporting peers’ acts of cheating, though not due to a lack of concern about integrity. Rather, students may refrain from reporting because of conflicting concerns, lack of information about school policy, and perceived better alternatives to reporting. (shrink)

Criminal law conceptualizes guilt and the finding of guilt as purely categorical phenomena. At the end of trial, the defendant is pronounced either “guilty” or “not guilty” of the charges made against her, excluding the possibility of judgment of degree. Judges or juries cannot calibrate findings of guilt to various degrees of epistemic certainty by pronouncing the defendant “probably guilty,” “most certainly guilty,” or “guilty by preponderance of the evidence.” Nor can decision makers qualify the verdict to reflect normative or (...) legal ambiguities. Findings of guilt are construed as asserting factual and legal truths. The penal results of conviction assume similar “all or nothing” properties: punishment can be calibrated, but not with the established probability of guilt. The prevailing decision-making model, with its ‘on-off’ formulation of guilt, is so broadly established that it is considered an axiom— but there is nothing natural or pre-political about it, nor about the derivative distribution of punishment. This Article attempts to expose the hidden potential rooted in the construal of criminal verdicts as judgments of degree, by drawing three hypothetical manifestations of a linear conceptualization of conviction and punishment in the criminal trial and plea-bargaining arena. It also offers a normative assessment of converting criminal verdicts from categorical decisions to continuities. (shrink)

pThis essay recounts my intellectual development from undergraduate study until present. The first section discusses my early life and my introduction to philosophy at Glendon College. The second discusses my graduate career at UCLA and my gender transition midway through the program. The third concerns my philosophical development as a professor at Cal State LA until 2012. It details my shift from early modern philosophy to what would eventually be called “trans philosophy.” The final discusses my intellectual growth since then (...) as well as the emergence of trans philosophy as a subfield./p. (shrink)

The future of trial lies in customization. Throughout the Anglo-American world, the public model of criminal and civil procedure is gradually giving way to a private contractual paradigm, one which allows the litigating parties to tailor the evidentiary and procedural landscape of trial to fit their specific needs and preferences. Procedural and evidence rules are shifting from mandatory safeguards of public values to default rules and bargaining chips within the hands of the litigating parties. There is growing recognition in the (...) ability of litigating parties in civil trials and of defendants in criminal trials to waive evidentiary and procedural rights, such as the right of cross-examination, the right to trial by jury, or the right to appeal. Courts are exhibiting a willingness to enforce choice of procedure and choice of evidence agreements, such as agreements to restrict the presentation of otherwise admissible evidence or to allow for presentation of otherwise inadmissible evidence. (shrink)

How did the Great War affect psychoanalysis? The common approach to this question has to do with assessing the extent to which psychoanalysis has influenced the medical and military understanding of the soldiers diagnosed with shell shock after the war, as well as the extent to which that influence further contributed to the new interest in Freudian psychoanalysis in Britain. If we take a conceptual approach and ask about the impact of the Great War on the theory of psychoanalysis, we (...) find ourselves investigating the more specific question: how did the Great War influence Freud’s psychoanalysis? For no matter how severely Freud has been and still is criticized, all psychoanalytic texts and schools lead back to his writings. When one examines Freud’s writings as a whole, comparing his pre-war work to his post-war writings, one can notice quite a few significant shifts. Perhaps most conspicuous is the shift in the theory of the mind as divided, a shift that is consolidated and articulated in The Ego and the Id. Prior to the war the main division was “topographical,” postulating more or less metaphorical “places” in the mind: consciousness, pre-consciousness, and the unconscious. After the war, the mind is divided “structurally” into three agencies, each with their own motivational functions: the Id, Ego and Super-Ego. The previous division, or rather the previous conception of the unconscious, was not abandoned. The Id, as well as parts of the Ego and the Super-Ego were said to be unconscious. But the main division of the mind was changed, especially since Freud came to understand that his conception of the unconscious did not lend itself to a unified definition. (shrink)

This paper considers phenomenological descriptions of health in Gadamer, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Svenaeus. In these phenomenologies of health, health is understood as a tacit, background state that permits not only normal functioning but also philosophical reflection. Nietzsche’s model of health as a state of intensity that is intimately connected to illness and suffering is then offered as a rejoinder. Nietzsche’s model includes a more complex view of suffering and pain as integrally tied to health, and its language opens up the (...) possibility of many ‘healths,’ providing important theoretical support to phenomenological accounts of the diversity and complexity of health and illness. (shrink)

Until the 1970s, models of early infancy tended to depict the young child as internally preoccupied and incapable of processing visual-tactile data from the external world. Meltzoff and Moore's groundbreaking studies of neonatal imitation disprove this characterization of early life: They suggest that the infant is cognizant of its external environment and is able to control its own body. Taking up these experiments, theorists argue that neonatal imitation provides an empirical justification for the existence of an innate ability to engage (...) in social communication. Since later imitation is taken as a benchmark for self- and other-awareness, theorists claim that a proto- or primitive self must exist in the infant. This paper takes up the issue of whether or not neonatal imitation does provide us with a ground to argue against developmental accounts that consider self-awareness to be a later acquisition. I argue that the enthusiasm over neonatal imitation is premature. Psychological studies that claim to prove neonatal imitation do not provide sufficient grounds for dismissing alternate philosophical and psychological theories about the self as being a post-birth "event" rather than an intrinsic condition. Therefore, I argue that there is no compelling reason to suppose that we come to the world with a primitive sense of self- or other-awareness. (shrink)

This paper investigates the claims made by both Freudian psychoanalysic thought and Husserlian phenomenology about the unconscious. First, it is shown how Husserl incorporates a complex notion of the unconscious in his analysis of passive synthesis. With his notion of an unintentional reservoir of past retentions, Husserl articulates an unconscious zone that must be activated from consciousness in order to come to life. Second, it is explained how Husserl still does not account for the Freudian unconscious. Freud's unconscious could be (...) called, in phenomenological terms, a repressed retentional zone that differs from both near and far retention. Finally, an analysis is offered for the significance of this psychoanalytic argument for phenomenology. Does phenomenology provide a complete account of the psychical life of the subject without the Freudian unconscious? Does phenomenology suggest, as is often done, that Freud's discovery of the unconscious is a fantastical invention? Or, does the Freudian unconscious represent a true stumbling block for phenomenology? (shrink)

This chapter discusses how phenomenologies of pregnancy challenge traditional philosophical accounts of a subject that is seen as autonomous, rational, genderless, unified, and independent from other subjects. Pregnancy defies simple incorporation into such universal accounts since the pregnant woman and her unborn child are incapable of being subsumed into traditional theories of the subject. Phenomenological descriptions of the experience of pregnancy lead one to question if philosophy needs to reject the subject altogether as central, or rather to revise traditional descriptions (...) of the subject. The chapter examines both options and argues for the later. The exploration of pregnancy in feminist theory upholds the value of working from the subject’s lived experience, but indicates that it is possible without viewing the subject as a disembodied universal agent. Finally, it discusses how phenomenologies of pregnancy are attuned to discussing difference thereby aiding philosophies that take into account the political, historical, and cultural conditioning that shape experience and theory. (shrink)