PUBLISHED WORK
Moral Criticism and Structural Injustice
MIND. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1093/mind/fzaa098
Moral agency is limited, imperfect, and constrained. This is evident in the many ways we all unwittingly participate in systemic injustice through our everyday actions, which I call 'structural wrongs'. I argue that, to do justice to these facts, we should distinguish between summative and formative moral criticism. Traditional moral theory has focused almost exclusively on summative critical responses like blame, resentment, and punishment, which function to conclusively assess an agent's performance relative to some benchmark. However, it is also possible to give formative moral criticism that aims only to improve performance in an ongoing way, by pointing out how agents fall short of moral ideals. I show that the negative sanctions associated with summative responses are justifiably imposed under certain conditions when persons exercise their agency wrongly -- conditions that do not always hold for structural wrongs. Yet even in such cases we can still use formative responses, which are warranted whenever an aspirational ideal has not been met. Expanding out repertoire of moral criticism to include both summative and formative responses enables us to better appreciate both the powers and limitations of our agency, and the complexity of moral life.
Reconceptualizing Solidarity as Power from Below
2023. Philosophical Studies 180, 893–917.
I propose a new concept of solidarity, which I call “solidarity from below,” that highlights an aspect of solidarity widely recognized in popular uses of the term, but which has hitherto been neglected in the philosophical literature. Solidarity from below is the collective ability of otherwise powerless people to organize themselves for transformative social change. I situate this concept with respect to four distinct but intertwined questions that have motivated extant theorizing about solidarity. I explain what it means to conceptualize solidarity from below as a form of power, rather than as a feeling, disposition, duty, or scheme of social arrangements. Finally, I suggest that the moral-relational aspects of solidarity emerge secondarily from the process of collective power, and not the other way around.
What is My Role in Changing the System? A New Model of Responsibility for Structural Injustice
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s1067.
Structural injustices are highly complex phenomena with multiple causes and without easy solutions. Iris Marion Young has offered the most fully-developed account to date of responsibility for such injustice, according to which everyone who causally contributed to some unjust outcome is responsible for collectively organizing to change it. This paper motivates and defends an alternative model, which satisfies five desiderata that Young’s fails to fully meet. On the Role-Ideal Model, we are each responsible for structural injustice through and in virtue of our social roles, because roles are the site where structure meets agency. The Role-Ideal Model (1) explains how individual action contributes to structural change, (2) justifies why each particular agent is expected to act, (3) specifies the kinds of acts to be undertaken (4) moderates between demanding too much and too little of individual agents, and (5) provides an account of the critical responses appropriate for holding individuals accountable for structural injustice.
Contingent Labor in the Academy: Power, Precarity, and Ideology
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. Advance online publication. doi: 10.111/hypa.12401.
Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, i.e. the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight?
In this paper, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such ideology have been overlooked. To do so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths - and the two-tier system itself - manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co-constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reason to organize against the casualization of academic work.
(with Nils-Hennes Stear)
Imagining in Oppressive Contexts, or, What's Wrong with Blackface?
Ethics. 2023. 133(3).
https://doi.org/10.1086/723257
What is objectionable about “blacking up” or other comparable acts of imagining involving unethical attitudes? Can such imaginings be wrong, even if there are no harmful consequences and imaginers are not meant to apply these attitudes beyond the fiction? In this article, we argue that blackface—and imagining in general—can be ethically flawed in virtue of being oppressive, in virtue of either its content or what imaginers do with it, where both depend on how the imagined attitudes interact with the imagining’s context. We explain and demonstrate this using speech act theory alongside a detailed case study of blackface.
Why Yellow Fever Isn't Flattering: A Case Against Racial Fetish
Journal of the American Philosophical Association Vol 2(3): 400-419.
Most discussions of racial fetish center on the question of whether they are caused by negative racial stereotypes. In this paper I adopt a different strategy, one that begins with the experiences of those targeted by racial fetish rather than those who possess it; that is, I shift focus away from the origins of racial fetishes to their effects as a social phenomenon in a racially stratified world.
I examine the case of preferences for Asian women, also known as "yellow fever," to argue against the claim that racial fetishes are unobjectionable if they are merely based on personal or aesthetic preference rather than racial stereotypes. I contend that even if this were so, yellow fever would still be morally objectionable because of the disproportionate psychological burdens it places on Asian and Asian-American women, along with the role it plays in a pernicious system of racialized social meanings.
PUBLISHED WORK
Moral Criticism and Structural Injustice
MIND. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1093/mind/fzaa098
Moral agency is limited, imperfect, and constrained. This is evident in the many ways we all unwittingly participate in systemic injustice through our everyday actions, which I call 'structural wrongs'. I argue that, to do justice to these facts, we should distinguish between summative and formative moral criticism. Traditional moral theory has focused almost exclusively on summative critical responses like blame, resentment, and punishment, which function to conclusively assess an agent's performance relative to some benchmark. However, it is also possible to give formative moral criticism that aims only to improve performance in an ongoing way, by pointing out how agents fall short of moral ideals. I show that the negative sanctions associated with summative responses are justifiably imposed under certain conditions when persons exercise their agency wrongly -- conditions that do not always hold for structural wrongs. Yet even in such cases we can still use formative responses, which are warranted whenever an aspirational ideal has not been met. Expanding out repertoire of moral criticism to include both summative and formative responses enables us to better appreciate both the powers and limitations of our agency, and the complexity of moral life.
Reconceptualizing Solidarity as Power from Below
2023. Philosophical Studies 180, 893–917.
I propose a new concept of solidarity, which I call “solidarity from below,” that highlights an aspect of solidarity widely recognized in popular uses of the term, but which has hitherto been neglected in the philosophical literature. Solidarity from below is the collective ability of otherwise powerless people to organize themselves for transformative social change. I situate this concept with respect to four distinct but intertwined questions that have motivated extant theorizing about solidarity. I explain what it means to conceptualize solidarity from below as a form of power, rather than as a feeling, disposition, duty, or scheme of social arrangements. Finally, I suggest that the moral-relational aspects of solidarity emerge secondarily from the process of collective power, and not the other way around.
What is My Role in Changing the System? A New Model of Responsibility for Structural Injustice
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s1067.
Structural injustices are highly complex phenomena with multiple causes and without easy solutions. Iris Marion Young has offered the most fully-developed account to date of responsibility for such injustice, according to which everyone who causally contributed to some unjust outcome is responsible for collectively organizing to change it. This paper motivates and defends an alternative model, which satisfies five desiderata that Young’s fails to fully meet. On the Role-Ideal Model, we are each responsible for structural injustice through and in virtue of our social roles, because roles are the site where structure meets agency. The Role-Ideal Model (1) explains how individual action contributes to structural change, (2) justifies why each particular agent is expected to act, (3) specifies the kinds of acts to be undertaken (4) moderates between demanding too much and too little of individual agents, and (5) provides an account of the critical responses appropriate for holding individuals accountable for structural injustice.
Contingent Labor in the Academy: Power, Precarity, and Ideology
Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy. Advance online publication. doi: 10.111/hypa.12401.
Feminist philosophers have challenged a wide range of gender injustices in professional philosophy. However, the problem of precarity, i.e. the increasing numbers of contingent faculty who cannot find permanent employment, has received scarcely any attention. What explains this oversight?
In this paper, I argue, first, that academics are held in the grips of an ideology that diverts attention away from the structural conditions of precarity, and second, that the gendered dimensions of such ideology have been overlooked. To do so, I identify two myths: the myth of meritocracy and the myth of work as its own reward. I demonstrate that these myths - and the two-tier system itself - manifest an unmistakably gendered logic, such that gender and precarity are mutually reinforcing and co-constitutive. I conclude that feminist philosophers have particular reason to organize against the casualization of academic work.
(with Nils-Hennes Stear)
Imagining in Oppressive Contexts, or, What's Wrong with Blackface?
Ethics. 2023. 133(3).
https://doi.org/10.1086/723257
What is objectionable about “blacking up” or other comparable acts of imagining involving unethical attitudes? Can such imaginings be wrong, even if there are no harmful consequences and imaginers are not meant to apply these attitudes beyond the fiction? In this article, we argue that blackface—and imagining in general—can be ethically flawed in virtue of being oppressive, in virtue of either its content or what imaginers do with it, where both depend on how the imagined attitudes interact with the imagining’s context. We explain and demonstrate this using speech act theory alongside a detailed case study of blackface.
Why Yellow Fever Isn't Flattering: A Case Against Racial Fetish
Journal of the American Philosophical Association Vol 2(3): 400-419.
Most discussions of racial fetish center on the question of whether they are caused by negative racial stereotypes. In this paper I adopt a different strategy, one that begins with the experiences of those targeted by racial fetish rather than those who possess it; that is, I shift focus away from the origins of racial fetishes to their effects as a social phenomenon in a racially stratified world.
I examine the case of preferences for Asian women, also known as "yellow fever," to argue against the claim that racial fetishes are unobjectionable if they are merely based on personal or aesthetic preference rather than racial stereotypes. I contend that even if this were so, yellow fever would still be morally objectionable because of the disproportionate psychological burdens it places on Asian and Asian-American women, along with the role it plays in a pernicious system of racialized social meanings.
WORKS IN PROGRESS
The People United: Solidarity and Difference on the Road to Social Change
Book manuscript in progress
Solidarity, the rallying cry of movements for transformative social change, is needed today more urgently than ever. Philosophers have conceived of solidarity variously as a kind of moral relationship that generates obligations amongst the members of a social group, political coalition, society, or all of humankind. But they have rarely focused on what makes it so vital for social movements: the fact that it is the only form of power available to the powerless. This book offers an account of solidarity from below, which explains how those who lack money, guns, or political influence can collectively confront injustice — and overcome it. Its key claim is that unlocking the power of solidarity requires a robust theory and practice of how solidary power is built, maintain, wielded, and repaired across intersectional differences. In sum, The People United demonstrates that our differences, which are so often used to divide, can also be a source of collective strength.
On Activists and Allies: Solidarity and Good Faith Across Disagreement and Difference
Presented at the 2019 Meaning and Reality in Social Context Conference (IEAS), 2019 Responsibility and Solidarity for Our Times Workshop (Yale-NUS), 2019 BayFAP, 2020 Eastern APA.
I examine three commonly recurring scenarios that exemplify breakdowns of solitary communication, arguing that the general conditions that generates these scenarios expose certain unreflective assumptions that plague our understandings of injustice. By looking at a set of hypothetical and actual cases, I elucidate from both perspectives (which I dub “the Activist” and “the Ally”), the wider social meanings that are generated in these scenarios — meanings of which the two sides may be unaware or insufficiently mindful. I contend that all parties, due to the exigencies of solidarity, must be willing to make and reciprocate efforts to preserve good faith, but that the greater share of the burdens associated with doing so must fall on whichever party is less directly vulnerable with respect to the issue under discussion.