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25Political Liberalism, Marriage and the FamilyLaw and Philosophy 31 (2): 185-212. 2012.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 reco…Read more
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21Pornography and Public ReasonSocial Theory and Practice 33 (3): 467-488. 2007.This paper has two major goals: First, I argue that Catharine MacKinnon’s and Andrea Dworkin’s anti-pornography activism was an act of public reason and their arguments public reasons arguments. Thus, MacKinnon’s argument that pornography is best understood as a practice of sex discrimination is a public reason argument—and so can be defended as grounded in liberal political principles. Political liberalism, as I defend it, can support MacKinnon’s approach to pornography as embodied in a civil…Read more
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6Constituting politics: Power, reciprocity, and identityHypatia 22 (4): 96-112. 2007.: This essay considers whether liberal political theory has tools with which to count gender, and so gender relations, as political. Can liberal political theory count subordination among the harms of sex inequality that the state ought to correct? Watson defends a version of deliberative democracy—liberalism—as able to place issues of social inequality in the form of hierarchical social identities at the center of its normative commitments, and so at the center of securing justice.
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5Virtue in Political Thought: On Civic Virtue in Political LiberalismIn Timpe Kevin & Boyd Craig (eds.), Virtues and Their Vices, Oxford University Press. pp. 415. 2013.
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20Feminism, religion, and shared reasons: A defense of exclusive public reasonLaw and Philosophy 28 (5). 2009.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 d…Read more
University Of Ilinois At Chicago
Institute For The Humanities
Alumnus
San Diego, California, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |
PhilPapers Editorships
Philosophy of Sexuality |