Natures and norms

Ethics

Volumn 111, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 8-36

  Antony, Louise M ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0040218244     PISSN: 00141704     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/233417     Document Type: Article

References (30)

1. George Will, "Marry Young and Have Youngsters Pronto," Raleigh News and Observer (February 5, 1999).
2. Both quotes from ibid.
3. See Barbara Ehrenreich and Janet McIntosh, "The New Creationism: Biology under Attack," Nation (June 9, 1997), pp. 11-16.
4. Will.
5. See, e.g., Andrea Nye's scurrilous, shockingly inaccurate, and altogether gratuitous attack on analytic philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, "Semantics in a New Key," in Philosophy in a Feminist Voice, ed. Janet Kourany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 263-95; see also Elizabeth Potter's empirically uninformed discussion of private language and language learning in her "Gender and Epistemic Negotiation," in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 161-86. In her monograph, What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), philosopher Fiona Cowie tries to convict Chomskian nativism about language acquisition of guilt by association with crude biological determinist prejudices, asserting that such disturbing trends as "the growing obsession here and abroad with racial, national and sexual differences" and "the newly fashionable backlash against attempts to enforce ideals of equality and civil rights" all "find a fertile seeding ground in the New Nativism" (p. x). This is utter nonsense and an attempt on Cowie's part, I suspect, to enlist her reader's presumably liberal sympathies against a theory with which she has philosophical disagreements. also see this dynamic at work in Naomi Scheman's essay, "Individualism and the Objects of Psychology," in Discovering Reality, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983), pp. 225-44. reply to Scheman in "Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology?" Hypatia ("Special Issue on Analytical Feminism," ed. Ann Cudd and Virginia Klenk) 10 (1995): 157-74.
6. See, e.g., Andrea Nye's scurrilous, shockingly inaccurate, and altogether gratuitous attack on analytic philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, "Semantics in a New Key," in Philosophy in a Feminist Voice, ed. Janet Kourany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 263-95; see also Elizabeth Potter's empirically uninformed discussion of private language and language learning in her "Gender and Epistemic Negotiation," in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 161-86. In her monograph, What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), philosopher Fiona Cowie tries to convict Chomskian nativism about language acquisition of guilt by association with crude biological determinist prejudices, asserting that such disturbing trends as "the growing obsession here and abroad with racial, national and sexual differences" and "the newly fashionable backlash against attempts to enforce ideals of equality and civil rights" all "find a fertile seeding ground in the New Nativism" (p. x). This is utter nonsense and an attempt on Cowie's part, I suspect, to enlist her reader's presumably liberal sympathies against a theory with which she has philosophical disagreements. also see this dynamic at work in Naomi Scheman's essay, "Individualism and the Objects of Psychology," in Discovering Reality, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983), pp. 225-44. reply to Scheman in "Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology?" Hypatia ("Special Issue on Analytical Feminism," ed. Ann Cudd and Virginia Klenk) 10 (1995): 157-74.
7. See, e.g., Andrea Nye's scurrilous, shockingly inaccurate, and altogether gratuitous attack on analytic philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, "Semantics in a New Key," in Philosophy in a Feminist Voice, ed. Janet Kourany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 263-95; see also Elizabeth Potter's empirically uninformed discussion of private language and language learning in her "Gender and Epistemic Negotiation," in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 161-86. In her monograph, What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), philosopher Fiona Cowie tries to convict Chomskian nativism about language acquisition of guilt by association with crude biological determinist prejudices, asserting that such disturbing trends as "the growing obsession here and abroad with racial, national and sexual differences" and "the newly fashionable backlash against attempts to enforce ideals of equality and civil rights" all "find a fertile seeding ground in the New Nativism" (p. x). This is utter nonsense and an attempt on Cowie's part, I suspect, to enlist her reader's presumably liberal sympathies against a theory with which she has philosophical disagreements. also see this dynamic at work in Naomi Scheman's essay, "Individualism and the Objects of Psychology," in Discovering Reality, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983), pp. 225-44. reply to Scheman in "Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology?" Hypatia ("Special Issue on Analytical Feminism," ed. Ann Cudd and Virginia Klenk) 10 (1995): 157-74.
8. See, e.g., Andrea Nye's scurrilous, shockingly inaccurate, and altogether gratuitous attack on analytic philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, "Semantics in a New Key," in Philosophy in a Feminist Voice, ed. Janet Kourany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 263-95; see also Elizabeth Potter's empirically uninformed discussion of private language and language learning in her "Gender and Epistemic Negotiation," in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 161-86. In her monograph, What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), philosopher Fiona Cowie tries to convict Chomskian nativism about language acquisition of guilt by association with crude biological determinist prejudices, asserting that such disturbing trends as "the growing obsession here and abroad with racial, national and sexual differences" and "the newly fashionable backlash against attempts to enforce ideals of equality and civil rights" all "find a fertile seeding ground in the New Nativism" (p. x). This is utter nonsense and an attempt on Cowie's part, I suspect, to enlist her reader's presumably liberal sympathies against a theory with which she has philosophical disagreements. also see this dynamic at work in Naomi Scheman's essay, "Individualism and the Objects of Psychology," in Discovering Reality, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983), pp. 225-44. reply to Scheman in "Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology?" Hypatia ("Special Issue on Analytical Feminism," ed. Ann Cudd and Virginia Klenk) 10 (1995): 157-74.
9. See, e.g., Andrea Nye's scurrilous, shockingly inaccurate, and altogether gratuitous attack on analytic philosophy of language and philosophy of mind, "Semantics in a New Key," in Philosophy in a Feminist Voice, ed. Janet Kourany (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 263-95; see also Elizabeth Potter's empirically uninformed discussion of private language and language learning in her "Gender and Epistemic Negotiation," in Feminist Epistemologies, ed. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), pp. 161-86. In her monograph, What's Within: Nativism Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), philosopher Fiona Cowie tries to convict Chomskian nativism about language acquisition of guilt by association with crude biological determinist prejudices, asserting that such disturbing trends as "the growing obsession here and abroad with racial, national and sexual differences" and "the newly fashionable backlash against attempts to enforce ideals of equality and civil rights" all "find a fertile seeding ground in the New Nativism" (p. x). This is utter nonsense and an attempt on Cowie's part, I suspect, to enlist her reader's presumably liberal sympathies against a theory with which she has philosophical disagreements. also see this dynamic at work in Naomi Scheman's essay, "Individualism and the Objects of Psychology," in Discovering Reality, ed. Sandra Harding and Merrill Hintikka (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1983), pp. 225-44. reply to Scheman in "Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology?" Hypatia ("Special Issue on Analytical Feminism," ed. Ann Cudd and Virginia Klenk) 10 (1995): 157-74.
10. Louise Antony, "'Human Nature' and Its Role in Feminist Theory," in Kourany, ed., pp. 63-91.
11. I will focus on just two representative works: Martha Nussbaum, "Aristotle on Human Nature and the Foundations of Ethics," in World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams, ed. J. E. J. Althan and Ross Harrison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 86-131 (hereafter cited as "HN"), and "Human Functioning and Social Justice: In Defense of Aristotelian Essentialism," Political Theory 20 (1992): 202-46 (hereafter cited as "HF").
12. I will focus on just two representative works: Martha Nussbaum, "Aristotle on Human Nature and the Foundations of Ethics," in World, Mind, and Ethics: Essays on the Ethical Philosophy of Bernard Williams, ed. J. E. J. Althan and Ross Harrison (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 86-131 (hereafter cited as "HN"), and "Human Functioning and Social Justice: In Defense of Aristotelian Essentialism," Political Theory 20 (1992): 202-46 (hereafter cited as "HF").
13. For a more extensive discussion of these and other types of arguments from nature, see John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, excerpted in Philosophy and Women, ed. Sharon Bishop and Marjorie Weinzweig (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1979), pp. 52-59; Joyce Trebilcot, "Sex Roles: The Argument from Nature," in Philosophy of Woman, ed. Mary Mahowald (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), pp. 349-56; and Christine Pierce, "Natural Law Language and Women," in Mahowald, ed., pp. 357-68.
14. For a more extensive discussion of these and other types of arguments from nature, see John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, excerpted in Philosophy and Women, ed. Sharon Bishop and Marjorie Weinzweig (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1979), pp. 52-59; Joyce Trebilcot, "Sex Roles: The Argument from Nature," in Philosophy of Woman, ed. Mary Mahowald (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), pp. 349-56; and Christine Pierce, "Natural Law Language and Women," in Mahowald, ed., pp. 357-68.
15. For a more extensive discussion of these and other types of arguments from nature, see John Stuart Mill, The Subjection of Women, excerpted in Philosophy and Women, ed. Sharon Bishop and Marjorie Weinzweig (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1979), pp. 52-59; Joyce Trebilcot, "Sex Roles: The Argument from Nature," in Philosophy of Woman, ed. Mary Mahowald (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994), pp. 349-56; and Christine Pierce, "Natural Law Language and Women," in Mahowald, ed., pp. 357-68.
16. Mill, p. 55.
17. Ibid.
18. Ibid.
19. See, e.g., Saul Kripke, "Identity and Necessity," in Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds, ed. Stephen P. Schwartz (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977); Hilary Putnam, "Is Semantics Possible?" in Schwartz, ed. Antony, "'Human Nature' and Its Role in Feminist Theory."
20. See, e.g., Saul Kripke, "Identity and Necessity," in Naming, Necessity, and Natural Kinds, ed. Stephen P. Schwartz (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1977); Hilary Putnam, "Is Semantics Possible?" in Schwartz, ed. Antony, "'Human Nature' and Its Role in Feminist Theory."
21. See Richard Lewontin, "The Analysis of Variance and the Analysis of Causes," in The I.Q. Controversy, ed. Ned Block and Gerald Dworkin (New York: Pantheon, 1976), pp. 179-93.
22. The fact that even the most ubiquitous species characteristic could fail to be expressed in some as-yet-unrealized environment, together with the fact that wide ranges of variation in certain traits are present within all complex species, show the folly and, perhaps, the confusion inherent in the idea of a genetic ideal form. For discussion, see Richard Lewontin, "The Dream of the Human Genome," in his Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 59-83; and Philip Kitcher, "Essence and Perfection," Ethics 110 (1999): 59-83. Thanks to John Deigh for calling the Kitcher article to my attention.
23. The fact that even the most ubiquitous species characteristic could fail to be expressed in some as-yet-unrealized environment, together with the fact that wide ranges of variation in certain traits are present within all complex species, show the folly and, perhaps, the confusion inherent in the idea of a genetic ideal form. For discussion, see Richard Lewontin, "The Dream of the Human Genome," in his Biology as Ideology: The Doctrine of DNA (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), pp. 59-83; and Philip Kitcher, "Essence and Perfection," Ethics 110 (1999): 59-83. Thanks to John Deigh for calling the Kitcher article to my attention.
24. See Iris Young, "Humanism, Gynocentrism, and Feminist Politics," in her Throwing like a Girl and Other Essays (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).
25. To get a vivid idea of what the rigors of smallpox actually are, together with the amount of suffering the disease has visited on hunan populations, I refer the reader to Nicolau Barquet and Pere Domingo, "Smallpox: The Triumph over the Most Terrible of the Ministers of Death," Annals of Internal Medicine 157 (October 1997): 635-42. Also available on the internet at http://www.acponline.org/journals/annals/15oct97/smallpox.htm.
26. Hearts and Minds, mm, 112 min., BBS Productions, 1974.
27. See Marilyn Frye's discussion of this peint in "Oppression," in her The Politics of Reality (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing, 1983).
28. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 1.7, excerpted in Leslie Stevenson, ed., The Study of Human Nature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1981), p. 71.
29. See Will, quoting Danielle Crittenden, What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us: Why Happiness Eludes the Modern Woman (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999).
30. Will.