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Class 3, Friday 9/10/13


Outline:
1. 8:30-8:35: Agenda and Attendance
2. 8:35-9:20: From Classical Liberalism to Liberal Feminism
3. 9:20-25: Break
4. 9:25-10:10: Veiled Threats Debate

1. Agenda and Attendance
- Take attendance
- Reading response papers: re-iterate that these are required.
- Ask about extra credit in NYC
- Word blocks
Aristotle (384-322 BC)
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) Enlightenment / liberalism
Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) Practical reason
Martha Nussbaum (1947-present) The rights of man (and woman)
Liberal feminism
Dignity, equality, liberty
Humanism vs. relativism
Normative argument

2. From Classical Liberalism to Liberal Feminism
- The ambiguity of liberalism with respect to feminism
o On the one hand, it is the first doctrine in human history to insist on the dignity of
human beings as such. I.e. it is the first to insist on their equality or their capacity
to exercise their own understanding in determining what is good for them.
o On the other hand, despite this abstract commitment to human equality, it fails to
address the drastic concrete gender inequalities.
- It is this ambiguity that makes liberalism both a source for feminists committed to the
project of gender justice while also a source of sexist ideology that feminists have
critiqued. In the first part of the class were going to discuss Martha Nussbaums
inheritance of these liberal principles how she negotiates this ambivalence legacy.
- In order to do that were going to start by talking about the founder of the liberal tradition
in political philosophy and an important influence on Nussbaum: Aristotle.
o Background on Aristotle (founders of all the major Western sciences)
o His definition of the human being: Zoon Logon and Zoon Politikon
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o How this gives rise to the idea of the human being as animal rationale and
eventually Kants definition of the human being as a rational animal. For Kant as
for Aristotle what makes us human is our reason and in particular that we exercise
in a community, appearing among others.
o The problem: for Aristotle the people who were concerned to have logos and were
part of the politoks were propertied, aristocratic men. These aristocratic men had
the luxury of appearing in the public realm because they owned slaves and had
wives who were consigned to the home. In other words, for Aristotle women
werent fully human.
o What we find in the liberal tradition that begins with him is a commitment to the
basic idea that we as human beings are rational creatures, capable of exercising
our understanding to choose what take to be good for ourselves; however, we also
find a growing expansion of the category of the human. What we find are those
that were excluded from the political community demanding to be recognized as
human.
Thus the Declarations of the rights of Man
But also then the Declaration of the rights of Woman.
There has been a conflict between liberalisms formal commitment to
human dignity and the undignified material state of affairs in which
women have and in many cases still do live. (Go to Tori and Morgan).
o In the Introduction to her book Sex and Social Justice, the political philosopher
Martha Nussbaum has one major goal: to develop the concept of what she calls
liberal feminism.
As Nussbaum puts it: Human beings have a dignity that deserves respects
from laws and social institutions. To say that all human beings have
dignity is for Nussbaum to say two things: (1) each of us deserves to be
treated as if we have equal worth and (2) each of us ought to have the
liberty to choose the sort of life that we believe is worth living, as long as
our choices dont harm others. Her belief is that these liberal principles are
just fine they just need to be extended to women.
We still live in a world in which our laws and social norms have failed to
protect and sometimes even violate the liberty and equal worth of women
and sexual minorities simply because they are women and sexual
minorities. Her argument is that when these groups of people resist this
unequal treatment, they tend to appeal to liberal principles: that theyre
demanding the right to choose a life for themselves.
Why we started with her: were all liberals.
For instance, Natasha, writing about why she took this course said,
I am very interested in gender, and how societies projections of
Gender affect our behavior. Specifically, I want to be a social
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worker with a focus in helping women all over the world overcome
inequalities.
Or Beth, who wrote that When I hear the word feminism, I think
of the way society perceives a woman. I think of the fights women
had in the past, just to get equal rights.
Or Mary who wrote that Feminism to me is women or even men
wanting better for women and wanting to have power and a voice.
Its making women feel confident in their choices they make in
their life independently.
Or Melissa Amaya, who wrote This is not a just world when it
comes to gender. There is no question about it. Anyone who tries
to argue that it is needs a wake-up call. Women are treated worse,
paid less, and used as public property more than people who are
read as male in our world. This is why we have to fight for rights
instead of being granted them. Feminism, to me, is about equality.
- Internationalism
One of the critiques that has been raised about feminist thinkers is that they have been solely
concerned with issues that are of concern to white, middle-class, women. Nussbaum says that if
feminism is truly concerned with the equal worth and liberty of all human beings, this means that
feminism needs to be concerned with the particular issues faced by women across the world.
[What sorts of issues of gender injustice do you think are relevant in the United States? Do you
think issues are the same with different communities within the United States? How might these
differ with those in other countries?]
One of the implications of this commitment to an internationalist perspective is that for
Nussbaum individuals have moral obligations to protect and promote justice for people outside
their national boundaries and that their governments do also (6) [Why does she think this? Do
you agree? Are there dangers here?]
- Humanism
The second component of Nussbaums concept of feminism is that it is humanistic. By
humanism, Nussbaum just means the idea that despite the different circumstances, cultures, and
traditions that can be found across the world, there are a basic set of facts about human beings,
and that these common facts allow us to say something about what living a dignified life would
be for any human being. Specifically, she identifies three problems that afflict human beings no
matter where they live: scarce resources, competition for resources, and the shortness of life.
Nussbaum thinks that if we start by saying that these are three problems that have to be
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addressed in the case of every human being on the planet, well have a basis for determining
what is due to people in every particular situation.
Nussbaum calls this the capabilities approach to human development. In other words, she
believes there are a set of basic human capacities and functions that deserve to be developed in
every case. In making this argument, she is in disagreement with the position of what she calls
normative cultural relativism. According to this position, the ultimate standard of what is right
for an individual or group must derive from that groups internal traditions (8). [Can you think
of examples of practices or traditions that are different or morally egregious with respect to
gender that you disapprove of? Do you think that its right?] While Nussbaum thinks that in
assessing the situation of woman in very different places, it is important to take these traditions
into account, but that we shouldnt presume that the norms of a giving society are right. One of
the arguments that she gives in support of her position is the pluralism of cultures. In other
words, within a given a culture, it would be wrong to say that all of them feel one way about
the treatment of women and therefore we cannot judge them, because there are very likely
women that disagree. [Give example of civil rights movement in the US]
- Liberalism
Nussbaum sees liberal feminism, within the history of liberalism, as adding sex to a long list of
morally irrelevant features. Whereas liberals in the past had asserted that the social class you
belong to your wealth, the family you were born into, established a hierarchy of values, she
wants to insist that sex should also be treated this way.
One of the criticisms that Nussbaum answers is that liberalism with its emphasis on the dignity
of the individual is too individualistic. Nussbaum wants to account for the importance of social
emotions like, love, care, and compassion, while maintaining the liberal commitment to treating
an individual as end and not as a means. In the case of women, this means not regarding the
value of women as contingent upon their status as reproducers and care-givers. While such
concern for the other is valuable, Nussbaum wants to be sensitive to the fact that they are formed
under unjust conditions.
The choices that liberal politics should protect are those that are deemed of central importance
to the development and expression of personhood (11).
- Concern with the Social Shaping of Preference and Desire
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What Nussbaum means here is the fact that what we take to be the good the things that we
desire are not something that is entirely in control. In fact, people might not be aware of the
basic human goods. So, for example, just because nutrition is not important to a given group of
people, doesnt mean that we shouldnt try to promote that good. Not innate but socially shaped.
Go into detail about examples.
- Concern with Sympathetic Understanding
Women as having the attribute of sympathetic understanding, but this as not being good in itself.

Women and Cultural Universals
- The hinge: being committed to liberalism means being committed to a certain
understanding of the basic features of what it is to have a human life: that is, what
Nussbaum calls a cultural universal. This also means being morally committed to how
basic conditions ought to be for human beings. This means making judgments on the
basis of those standards about other cultures.
o There are universal obligations to protect human functioning and its dignity, and
[] the dignity of women is equal to that of men. If that involves assault on many
local traditions, both Western and non-Western, so much the better, because any
tradition that denies these things is unjust.
- The objections to this view: anti-essentialism
o The argument can be made that in the past, people representing supposedly
universal western values, have simply used this appeal to value as an excuse to
colonize or civilize or other peoples. This worry has a liberal basis. Faced with
this quandary there are a few options:
Saying that whatever a given communities norms maintain should be
respected.
Saying that maybe there are cases where community norms are unjust but
that its too difficult to judge, so we should just mind our own business.
Nussbaums response: we just have to risk it. Cases might not always be
clear-cut, but we can articulate a set of principles that will aid us in
making judgments about cases of injustice. And those principles are the
capabilities. Customs and political arrangements are responsible for
inequalities that lead to women living in sub-human standards. These
customs need to be critiqued. Critiques the anti-essentialist view for
ignoring pluralism.
The question becomes how we measure this. Nussbaum critiques
development economics, which says we just measure preference of
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the male leader of the house hold, and liberalism, which, despite
assessing individuals one, by one, fails to take into account
deformed preference. Connect to Enlightenment).
She instead proposes something similar to Rawls list of basic
goods. The benefit of this is that it is universal and applies in all
cases. She likes this approach because it isnt determined by
preference and that it has a list of capacities, but it also measure
things. This emphasis on things doesnt take into account plurality.
- Nussbuams positive view: the capabilities approach to human development.
o It differs from utilitarian approaches, because it doesnt think that preferences are
a reliable indicators
o Differs from standard liberal approaches, in that it suggests that resources only
matter insofar as they promote functioning
o The issue is that this forces us to make judgments about which capabilities are
essential to human life across the board.
Criteria: What activities characteristically performed by human beings
are so central that they seem definitive of a life that is truly human? In
other words, what are the functions without which (meaning, without the
availability of which) we would regard a life as not, or not fully, human?
This has roots in Aristotles teleology. The idea that every being
has some good that is proper to it.
Go over the list
Politics as getting people in the condition to be capable to perform
these basic functionings
The movement from low-level to high-level capabilities. From
basic and internal capabilities to combined capabilities. (What
differentiates this from classical liberals like Rawls is that it
emphasizes the material conditions)
Capabilities versus functionings
The distinction between potential and actual (I.e. its up to the
choice of the agent, i.e. practical reason. This is a liberal principle)
Broad normative aims versus concrete specifcations.
3. Break

4. Veiled Threats Debate
- Play NYT clip
- Play YouTube clip
- Go through Nussbaums article
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Nusbaums Veiled Threats
- Nussbaum begins by citing the wave of laws banning the burqa
- The first thing to note is that these ban pertains to how dresses in public
o Connect to Aristotle and Kant
- Nussbaum begins with her basic liberal premise (P1) that all people are equal bearers of
dignity, (P2) that this means they should be able to make choices with respect to their
lives, or what she calls conscience; (P3) the faculty of conscience is vulnerable.. (a) it can
be damaged from within soul rape or (b) it can fail to achieve expression.
o Applies this premise to the case of these bans and issues of religious freedom in
general.
The conclusion that she draws is that since the religious area of peoples
lives is one in which they exercise conscience, it follows that we need
laws that protect these peoples rights to have freedom of belief and
expression in practice. But theres a split:
1. (A) The weaker view: According to Locke, protecting equal liberty
of conscience = (1) laws that dont penalize belief and (2) laws that
dont discriminate. E.g. Saying you cant speak Latin in Church
but you can in school.
2. (B) The stronger view: According to Roger Williams, since laws in
a democracy are determined by the interests of majorities, even if
they dont intend to persecute minorities they will likely end up
doing so anyway. So in the case of laws that violate a religious
belief (e.g. military service), an accommodation should be given.
o E.g. Adele Sherbert.
While Nussbaum approves of (B) she recognizes its problems: its
difficulty to apply, and it usually favors religions. Nonetheless, she says
that these Burka laws fail both the Lockean and Williamss test. So she
goes through the five arguments and asks whether they meet the basic test
of not violating the basic principle of equal respect
1. And 2 Security and transparency But these get applied
inconsistently (winter clothes) Points out that its not covering
per se but Muslim covering
o 3. The Burqa as symbol of male domination.. But (A) people who says this dont
know much about Islam and (B) there are all sorts of objectification that we dont
legislate against. If we banned all practices we would invade liberty. If there is
sexism at work in the burqa, we should exercise persuasion and not coercion.
o 4. Coercion People claim women are forced, but this is not true across the
board
o 5. Unhealthy.

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