Although feminist philosophers have rarely engaged critically with the concept of harm or the philosophy of harm scholarship, recent feminist depictions of harm theories as ‘highly idealized’ point to a valuable insight on harm embedded in feminist philosophy. Underlying criticisms about the harm literature’s idealized character is the idea that it often matters who the subject of harm is, making attention to social location important for assessments of harm. The assumption that social location …
Read moreAlthough feminist philosophers have rarely engaged critically with the concept of harm or the philosophy of harm scholarship, recent feminist depictions of harm theories as ‘highly idealized’ point to a valuable insight on harm embedded in feminist philosophy. Underlying criticisms about the harm literature’s idealized character is the idea that it often matters who the subject of harm is, making attention to social location important for assessments of harm. The assumption that social location matters when analyzing harm is something that appears throughout feminist philosophy. Yet, as such little consideration has been allotted to the concept in this literature, the idea is significantly underdeveloped. My goal is therefore to develop this insight further, providing a defence of social location’s relevance and responding to concerns from harm theorists about introducing a form of context-dependence into our assessments of harm.
