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Convergence liberalism has emerged as a prominent interpretation of public reason liberalism. Yet, while its main rival in the public reason literature—the Rawlsian consensus account of public reason—has faced serious scrutiny regarding its ability to secure equal citizenship for all members of society, especially for members of historically subordinated groups, convergence liberalism has not. With this article, we hope to start a discussion about convergence liberalism and its (in)ability to address group-based social inequalities. In particular, we aim to show that given the core features of the view and real-world pluralism, the policies needed to secure gender equality and protect equal citizenship for women will not be justified. We make our case by considering various inequalities that are due to the gendered division of labor and potential convergence liberal responses.

This exposition articulates tacit knowledge in processes associated with contemporary Traditional music practice in Scotland. Using a case study experiment and a series of workshop performances recorded in 2008, I examine the processes, communication and performance strengths of four leading Traditional and cross-genre creative musicians. In particular, examples of in-performance communication and collaboration emerge.

In ancient Greek, the term “pornography” means “writes about prostitutes,” emphasizing the link between pornography and prostitution. Although both involve the selling of sex for money, the two are often treated as (legally) distinct practices. The thread of the Greek root that is preserved in most modern considerations of pornography is the part about “writing” or words, and hence, particularly in the United States legal and social context, speech and expression (see Speech, Freedom of). Keywords: feminist philosophy; law; legal and political

Some feminists claim that liberal theories lack the resources necessary for fully diagnosing and remedying the social subordination of persons as members of social groups. Part of the problem is that liberals focus too narrowly on the state as the locus of political power. However, equal citizenship is also affected by systems of power that operate in the background culture and that construct social hierarchies in which persons are subordinated as members of social groups. This chapter argues that political liberalism, properly understood, entails a commitment to substantive equality such that it has the internal resources to address the kinds of inequality produced by unjust forms of social power. Although some will claim that if the basic structure is the subject of justice, political liberalism will still fall short of securing gender justice, we explain why this worry is misplaced.

Is a feminist political liberalism possible? Political liberalism’s regard for a wide range of comprehensive doctrines as reasonable makes some feminists skeptical of its ability to address sex inequality. Indeed, some feminists claim that political liberalism maintains its position as a political liberalism at the expense of securing substantive equality for women. We claim that political liberalism’s core commitments actually restrict all reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine substantive equality for all, including women and other marginalized groups. In particular, we argue that political liberalism’s criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that eliminate social conditions of domination and subordination relevant to reasonable democratic deliberation among equal citizens and that the criterion of reciprocity requires the social conditions necessary for recognition respect among persons as equal citizens. As a result, we maintain that the criterion of reciprocity limits reasonable political conceptions of justice to those that provide genuine equality for women along various dimensions of social life central to equal citizenship.

In this “for and against” book Lori Watson argues for a sex equality approach to prostitution in which buyers are criminalized and sellers are decriminalized (the Nordic Model). Jessica Flanigan argues that sex work should be fully decriminalized. Watson defends the Nordic Model on the grounds that prostitution is an exploitative and unequal practice that entrenches existing patterns of gendered injustice. Watson also argues that full decriminalization of prostitution is incompatible with existing occupational health and safety standards and securing worker autonomy and equality. Watson further argues that sex trafficking and prostitution are functionally similar such that the distinction is irrelevant for public policy; attacking demand is necessary to address the inequalities that fuel both. Flanigan argues that sex work should be decriminalized because restrictions on the sale and purchase of sex violate the rights of sex workers and their clients. Flanigan also suggests that decriminalization would have better consequences than policies that expose sex workers and their clients to criminal penalties, and that once we consider that public officials can also stand in relations of subordination to citizens, decriminalization is a more egalitarian approach than alternative policies.

Watson aims to present the initial positive case for the Nordic model as a sex equality approach to prostitution. It is argued that social conditions of inequality (based on sex, age, class, race) structure the conditions of entry into prostitution and structure it internally. Watson addresses a series of objections to arguments in favor of restricting markets in sex. Those objections include that any position aiming to curtail prostitution must rest on some form of unjustifiable moralism or paternalism;, that prostitution should be understood as a fully voluntary choice and protected as such; that even if prostitution is exploitative, allowing such exploitation makes persons in prostitution better off than they would be otherwise; and, finally, that persons have rights to markets in sex such that any prohibitive policies violate rights.

Watson and Flanigan provide an overview of the structure of the book, highlighting some of the important points of agreement and disagreement contained in their respective contributions. Both Watson and Flanigan reject criminalization, the dominant approach to prostitution. Both agree that criminalizing prostitution serves to further harms and exacerbate the inequality that persons in prostitution experience. Additionally, Watson and Flanigan both reject paternalistic justifications for restricting prostitution and each are committed to principles of equality. However, they differ over how to conceptualize and define equality, and, importantly, over which approach to prostitution best embodies principles of equality.

For the past half century and more, the citizens of free and democratic societies have debated questions concerning the production, sale, and consumption of pornography. The debates have addressed such issues as whether there is a fundamental right to access pornography and whether such materials are sufficiently harmful to justify their legal regulation. This volume is a contribution to those debates. It proceeds from the premise that considerations of equality between women and men are foundational to any defensible view concerning whether and how to legally regulate pornography....

Debates about pornography have raged since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and the explosive spread in recent years of sexually explicit images across the Internet has only fueled the disagreements. Politicians, judges, clergy, citizen activists, and academics have weighed in on the issues. In this volume, two philosophers add their voices to the debate. Their views conflict in crucial ways. Altman argues that there is an individual right to create and view pornographic images, rooted in a basic right to sexual autonomy. Watson argues that pornography is a form of sex inequality that undermines women’s equal status as citizens. Central to their disagreement is whether there is sufficient evidence that pornography harms women to justify laws aimed at suppressing the production and circulation of such material.

This chapter explains, develops, and defends a sex equality approach to pornography, in which pornography is understood as a practice of sex-based inequality and sex discrimination. The chapter proceeds by distinguishing formal and substantive equality in the context of law. Next, an analysis of gender and sexuality are provided, in which it is argued that gender is hierarchically organized according to dominant cultural norms of heterosexuality. Building on these arguments, a reconstruction and defense of the civil rights approach to pornography, authored by Catharine A. MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin, is given. Finally, various criticisms and misinterpretations of the ordinances and their meaning are considered and dismissed.

This book is a defense of political liberalism as a feminist liberalism. The first half of the book develops and defends a novel interpretation of political liberalism. It is argued that political liberals should accept a restrictive account of public reason and that political liberals’ account of public justification is superior to the leading alternative, the convergence account of public justification. In the second half of the book, it is argued that political liberalism’s core commitments restrict all reasonable conceptions of justice to those that secure genuine, substantive equality for women and other marginalized groups. Here it is demonstrated how public reason arguments can be used to support law and policy needed to address historical sites of women’s subordination to advance equality; prostitution, the gendered division of labor and marriage, in particular, are considered.

Can and should political liberals recognize and otherwise support legal marriage as a matter of basic justice? In this article, we offer a general account of how political liberals should evaluate the issue of whether the legal recognition of marriage is a matter of basic justice. And, we develop and examine some public reason arguments that, given the fundamental interests of citizens, could justify various forms of legal marriage in some contexts. In particular, in certain conditions, the recognition of some form of legal marriage may be the best way to protect the fundamental interests of women as citizens in freely chosen associations. Or, it may be that, in certain conditions, to secure the social conditions necessary for gays, lesbians and bisexuals to be free and equal citizens, some form of legal marriage can or should be recognized.

I present two challenges to the theory of moral sentimentalism that Michael Slote defends in his book. The first challenge aims to show that there are cases in which we empathize with an agent and yet judge her actions to be morally wrong. If such cases are plausible, then we have good reason to doubt Slote's claim that moral judgments are an affective attitude of warmth or chill and, thus, are purely sentiments. The second challenge is more of a suggestion. At the end of my paper, I suggest that perhaps one important role that empathy plays in our moral phenomenology is to mitigate the scope of our moral judgments. If this is right, it tells not only against Slote's account but against moral sentimentalist approaches more broadly.

The idea of public reason is central to political liberalism’s aim to provide an account of the possibility of a just and stable democratic society comprised of free and equal citizens who nonetheless are deeply divided over fundamental values. This commitment to the idea of public reason reflects the normative core of political liberalism which is rooted in the principle of democratic legitimacy and the idea of reciprocity among citizens. Yet both critics and defenders of political liberalism disagree over whether or not the idea of public reason permits citizens to appeal to their comprehensive conceptions of the good in public deliberation over matters of basic justice. Our aim in this paper is to provide a defense of an exclusive idea of public reason, and at the same time we aim to dispel the underlying concerns of two prominent criticisms of the idea of public reason—the concern of alienation from the political process, as expressed by religiously oriented critics, and the concern over women’s equality, as expressed by feminist critics. We argue that inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason are not consistent with political liberalism’s core commitments. Further, we claim, inclusive accounts of the idea of public reason deepen feminist concerns. We think that, properly understood, an exclusive account of the idea of public reason can address feminist concerns about political liberalism and avoid alienating (reasonable) religious persons in an unacceptable way. Thus, we conclude that an exclusive account of the idea of public reason is our best hope for reconciliation.

To liberals, speech must never be sacrificed for other social goals. But liberalism has never understood that the free speech of men silences the free speech of women. It is the same social goal, just other people. This is what a real inequality, a real conflict, a real disparity in social power looks like. The law of the First Amendment compre hends that freedom of expression, in the abstract, is a system, but it fails to compre hend that sexism (and racism), in the concrete, are also systems. —Catharine A. MacKinnon1