Here are two widely held positions on the ethics of dating: First, people are generally morally justified in excluding people they don’t find attractive from their dating pool. Second, people are not justified in maintaining a dating pool that is racially exclusive, even on grounds like attraction. In this paper, we demonstrate how these positions are consistent. To do so we differentiate our attitudes in dating and our dating behavior. Then we show how existing criticisms of racialized attitudes in dating (...) are incomplete as practical criticisms of our behavior. Finally, we give our account of the moral reasons whites have to change their dating preferences when they exclude people of color. In doing so, we supplement existing discussions of race-based discrimination in dating. (shrink)

Rather than looking at protest in the ideal case, this book looks at how protest is actually practiced and argues that suitably constrained violent political protest is sometimes justified.

We argue that violent political protest is justified in a generally just society when violence is required to send a message about the nature of the injustice at issue, and when it is not ruled out by moral or pragmatic considerations. Focusing on protest as a mode of public address, we argue that its communicative function can sometimes justify or require the use of violence. The injustice at the heart of the Baltimore protests—police brutality against black Americans —is a paradigmatic (...) case of this sort, because of the relationship of the police to the injustice and the protests against it. (shrink)

L’effort récent pour diversifier les cours de philosophie est souvent motivé par le désir d’inclure les étudiants sous-représentés. Bien que l’incorporation de la philosophie non-occidentale permettrait d’atteindre une plus grande diversité, il ne semble y avoir aucune raison particulière de choisir des traditions non-occidentales à cette fin. Je soutiens que cette apparence est trompeuse. Les données suggèrent qu’une absence de contenu non-occidental dans le programme d’études provoque l’aliénation de certains de nos étudiants de couleur. Étant donné le fardeau minimal que (...) cela imposerait aux instructeurs de philosophie de faire face à cette souffrance, nous avons de bonnes raisons d’inclure du contenu non-occidental dans nos cours d’introduction, où il est susceptible d’avoir le plus grand impact. (shrink)

In his recent monograph, defining Racism: A Philosophical Analysis, Alberto G. Urquidez invites the reader to take a fresh look at the confused and complicated concept of racism. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s philosophy of language, Urquidez argues that debates over racism are not about discovering what racism really refers to in the world but the appropriate rule of representation— the standard of the correct use of the term. Discovering racism is a normative endeavor and, he argues, a prescriptive one. My comments (...) here are not intended as a critique of Urquidez’ account so much as an opportunity to reflect on where he might go from here in developing his account. In particular, I focus on lingering questions over the relationship between the critique of structures and practices licensed by political morality and that of individual behaviors. I explore how Urquidez grounds claims of individual moral responsibility for racism. (shrink)