Abstract:

In recent decades, the concept of ideology has played little role in Anglophone philosophy; when it has, the main conversation has been in the context of political philosophy.  However, one main task for a theory of ideology falls squarely in the domain of moral psychology.  As Stuart Hall puts it,  ideology “...has especially to do with the concepts and the languages of practical thought which stabilize a particular form of power and domination.” (Hall 1996/2006, 24)  In effect, ideology provides a "practical consciousness" or practical orientation for agency, and in doing so shapes us to enact injustice, usually unwittingly.  In this paper, I argue that work on ideology - and the broader feminist and social justice literature of which it is a part - provides important and much neglected tools that should be more central to moral theory.

Bio

Sally Haslanger is a professor in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy. She has published on topics in metaphysics, epistemology and feminist theory, with a recent emphasis on accounts of the social construction of race and gender. In metaphysics, her work has focused on theories of substance, especially on the problem of persistence through change and on Aristotle's view that substances are composites of matter and form. Her work in feminist theory takes up issues in feminist epistemology and metaphysics, with a special interest in the distinction between natural and social kinds. She has co-edited Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays (Cornell University Press, 2005) with Charlotte Witt, Theorizing Feminisms (Oxford University Press, 2005) with Elizabeth Hackett, and Persistence (MIT Press, 2006) with Roxanne Marie Kurtz. She regularly teaches courses cross-listed with Women's Studies. Before coming to MIT, she taught at the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, and the University of California-Irvine.

This event is supported by the ANU Gender Institute and the Centre for Moral, Social and Political Theory.