Emily Mcternan
Biographic Data
| ID | 4384704 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Emily Mcternan |
| GIVEN NAMES | Emily |
| FAMILY NAME | Mcternan |
| SIGNATURE | MCTERNAN E |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7190-3034 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 12 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 45 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 12 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Against Parental Devotion
Modern parenting is demanding. Parenting of this sort, given its demands, will tend to crowd out other aspects of our lives, including our other relationships. In this article, we raise a distinctive concern about the way in which modern intensive parenting crowds out other relationships. We argue that parenting, given current norms and family structures, is an unpromising site for our character development, and thus for our flourishing, because …
The Ethics of Offensive Comedy
During comedians’ performances, most of the usual norms around what we should and shouldn't say are, rightly, suspended. Yet there are still some offensive jokes that ought not be told. To mark such jokes out, some comedy nights and venues have adopted an ethic of ‘don't punch down’, ruling out jokes that target the disadvantaged, vulnerable, and oppressed. This article argues that such an ethic threatens to misdirect our attention. I begin by ge…
Discussion of Emily McTernan's ‘The Ethics of Offensive Comedy
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
In defence of taking offence
This article replies to the insightful contributions to the book symposium for On Taking Offence, These range from theoretical questions about how we should conceptualise an emotion like offence and the role of empirical evidence when justifying it, to practical questions about who has the power to take offence effectively and how to dispute another's offence-taking. In this reply, I first defend offence as a distinct emotion. Second, I argue aga…
Against visitor bans
To ban or significantly restrict visitors for patients in hospital could seem to be simply a sensible and easy precaution to take during a pandemic: a policy that is unpopular, perhaps, and even unfortunate, but not something that wrongs anyone. However, I argue that in fact such restrictions on visitors infringe upon a fundamental right, to freedom of association. While there may still be permissible restrictions on visitors, making the case for…
Moral Character, Liberal States, and Civic Education
Ensuring a functioning and stable liberal society requires a variety of behaviours and attitudes from individual citizens, from paying taxes to tolerating diversity. Political philosophers largely accept that these cannot be achieved through the arrangement of institutions alone, and so propose the cultivation of civic virtues. Meanwhile, in moral philosophy, much has been written about the challenging implications of psychology for theories of m…
Taking offense
Taking offense: An emotion reconsideredA stranger in the pub bumps into you spilling your drink and then doesn't apologize, or someone pushes past to grab a seat on the train.A colleague makes a dismissive remark about your work in front of your boss.A man catcalls a woman on the street, or wears a T-shirt declaring, "keep calm, watch lesbians."One reaction to affronts like these is to take offense.Philosophers have said a great deal about causin…
Justice, Feasibility, and Social Science as it is
Microaggressions, Equality, and Social Practices
Microaggressions, equality, and social practices 1Microaggressions are the everyday, minor and apparently innocuous 'degradations, and putdowns' experienced by members of oppressed, systematically disadvantaged or marginalised groups. 2 They are a subject of psychological research and recent campaigns, but have received little attention from political philosophers. 3 Campaigns against microaggressions are also controversial, with some suggesting …
How to be a Responsibility-Sensitive Egalitarian
There is something attractive about combining the values of equality and responsibility, even though the view most commonly associated with doing so, of luck egalitarianism, is beset with objections. This article hence proposes an alternative approach to being a responsibility-sensitive egalitarian: one grounded on our valuable social practices of responsibility, rather than on a desire to mitigate the influence of luck on people’s prospects. Fir…
How to Make Citizens Behave
It is widely conceded by liberals that institutions alone are insufficient to ensure that citizens behave in the ways required for a liberal state to flourish, be stable, or function at all. A popular solution proposes cultivating virtues in order to secure the desired behaviours of citizens, where institutions alone would not suffice. A range of virtues are proposed to fill a variety of purportedgaps in the liberal political order. Some appeal t…
The inegalitarian ethos
In Cohen’s vision of the just society, there would be no need for unequalizing incentives so as to benefit the least well-off; instead, people would be motivated by an egalitarian ethos to work hard and in the most socially productive jobs. As such, Cohen appears to offer a way to mitigate the trade-off of equality for efficiency that often characterizes theorizing about distributive justice. This article presents an egalitarian challenge to Cohe…
Microaggressions, Equality, and Social Practices
Microaggressions, equality, and social practices 1Microaggressions are the everyday, minor and apparently innocuous 'degradations, and putdowns' experienced by members of oppressed, systematically disadvantaged or marginalised groups. 2 They are a subject of psychological research and recent campaigns, but have received little attention from political philosophers. 3 Campaigns against microaggressions are also controversial, with some suggesting …
How to Make Citizens Behave
It is widely conceded by liberals that institutions alone are insufficient to ensure that citizens behave in the ways required for a liberal state to flourish, be stable, or function at all. A popular solution proposes cultivating virtues in order to secure the desired behaviours of citizens, where institutions alone would not suffice. A range of virtues are proposed to fill a variety of purportedgaps in the liberal political order. Some appeal t…
The inegalitarian ethos
In Cohen’s vision of the just society, there would be no need for unequalizing incentives so as to benefit the least well-off; instead, people would be motivated by an egalitarian ethos to work hard and in the most socially productive jobs. As such, Cohen appears to offer a way to mitigate the trade-off of equality for efficiency that often characterizes theorizing about distributive justice. This article presents an egalitarian challenge to Cohe…
Taking offense
Taking offense: An emotion reconsideredA stranger in the pub bumps into you spilling your drink and then doesn't apologize, or someone pushes past to grab a seat on the train.A colleague makes a dismissive remark about your work in front of your boss.A man catcalls a woman on the street, or wears a T-shirt declaring, "keep calm, watch lesbians."One reaction to affronts like these is to take offense.Philosophers have said a great deal about causin…
How to be a Responsibility-Sensitive Egalitarian
There is something attractive about combining the values of equality and responsibility, even though the view most commonly associated with doing so, of luck egalitarianism, is beset with objections. This article hence proposes an alternative approach to being a responsibility-sensitive egalitarian: one grounded on our valuable social practices of responsibility, rather than on a desire to mitigate the influence of luck on people’s prospects. Fir…
The inegalitarian ethos
In Cohen’s vision of the just society, there would be no need for unequalizing incentives so as to benefit the least well-off; instead, people would be motivated by an egalitarian ethos to work hard and in the most socially productive jobs. As such, Cohen appears to offer a way to mitigate the trade-off of equality for efficiency that often characterizes theorizing about distributive justice. This article presents an egalitarian challenge to Cohe…
How to Make Citizens Behave
It is widely conceded by liberals that institutions alone are insufficient to ensure that citizens behave in the ways required for a liberal state to flourish, be stable, or function at all. A popular solution proposes cultivating virtues in order to secure the desired behaviours of citizens, where institutions alone would not suffice. A range of virtues are proposed to fill a variety of purportedgaps in the liberal political order. Some appeal t…
How to be a Responsibility-Sensitive Egalitarian
There is something attractive about combining the values of equality and responsibility, even though the view most commonly associated with doing so, of luck egalitarianism, is beset with objections. This article hence proposes an alternative approach to being a responsibility-sensitive egalitarian: one grounded on our valuable social practices of responsibility, rather than on a desire to mitigate the influence of luck on people’s prospects. Fir…
Microaggressions, Equality, and Social Practices
Microaggressions, equality, and social practices 1Microaggressions are the everyday, minor and apparently innocuous 'degradations, and putdowns' experienced by members of oppressed, systematically disadvantaged or marginalised groups. 2 They are a subject of psychological research and recent campaigns, but have received little attention from political philosophers. 3 Campaigns against microaggressions are also controversial, with some suggesting …
Justice, Feasibility, and Social Science as it is
Taking offense
Taking offense: An emotion reconsideredA stranger in the pub bumps into you spilling your drink and then doesn't apologize, or someone pushes past to grab a seat on the train.A colleague makes a dismissive remark about your work in front of your boss.A man catcalls a woman on the street, or wears a T-shirt declaring, "keep calm, watch lesbians."One reaction to affronts like these is to take offense.Philosophers have said a great deal about causin…
Moral Character, Liberal States, and Civic Education
Ensuring a functioning and stable liberal society requires a variety of behaviours and attitudes from individual citizens, from paying taxes to tolerating diversity. Political philosophers largely accept that these cannot be achieved through the arrangement of institutions alone, and so propose the cultivation of civic virtues. Meanwhile, in moral philosophy, much has been written about the challenging implications of psychology for theories of m…
Against visitor bans
To ban or significantly restrict visitors for patients in hospital could seem to be simply a sensible and easy precaution to take during a pandemic: a policy that is unpopular, perhaps, and even unfortunate, but not something that wrongs anyone. However, I argue that in fact such restrictions on visitors infringe upon a fundamental right, to freedom of association. While there may still be permissible restrictions on visitors, making the case for…
The Ethics of Offensive Comedy
During comedians’ performances, most of the usual norms around what we should and shouldn't say are, rightly, suspended. Yet there are still some offensive jokes that ought not be told. To mark such jokes out, some comedy nights and venues have adopted an ethic of ‘don't punch down’, ruling out jokes that target the disadvantaged, vulnerable, and oppressed. This article argues that such an ethic threatens to misdirect our attention. I begin by ge…
Discussion of Emily McTernan's ‘The Ethics of Offensive Comedy
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
In defence of taking offence
This article replies to the insightful contributions to the book symposium for On Taking Offence, These range from theoretical questions about how we should conceptualise an emotion like offence and the role of empirical evidence when justifying it, to practical questions about who has the power to take offence effectively and how to dispute another's offence-taking. In this reply, I first defend offence as a distinct emotion. Second, I argue aga…
Against Parental Devotion
Modern parenting is demanding. Parenting of this sort, given its demands, will tend to crowd out other aspects of our lives, including our other relationships. In this article, we raise a distinctive concern about the way in which modern intensive parenting crowds out other relationships. We argue that parenting, given current norms and family structures, is an unpromising site for our character development, and thus for our flourishing, because …
Law (10 works) · Political science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (8 works) · Politics (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Epistemology (5 works) · Law and economics (5 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Psychology (5 works)