Serene J Khader
Dados Biográficos
| ID | 146683 |
|---|---|
| NOME | Serene J Khader |
| PRENOMES | Serene J |
| SOBRENOME | Khader |
| ASSINATURA | KHADER S J |
| AFILIAÇÕES | The Graduate Center, CUNY |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-9502-1952 |
| VERIFICADO | Sim |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAÇÕES | 33 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 26 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 4 |
| PRIMEIRO ANO DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2008 |
| ANO MAIS RECENTE DE PUBLICAÇÃO | 2025 |
| ÍNDICE H | 4 |
Was Iris Marion Young a Relational Egalitarian
Why Is Oppression Wrong
It is often argued that oppression reduces freedom. I argue against the view that oppression is wrong because it reduces freedom. Conceiving oppression as wrong because it reduces freedom is at odds with recognizing structural cases of oppression, because (a) many cases of oppression, including many structural ones, do not reduce agents’ freedom, and (b) the type of freedom reduction involved in many structural instances of oppression is not mora…
How Is Feminist Philosophy Nonideal Theory
Feminist, and other liberatory, moral and political philosophies are widely understood as nonideal theories. But if feminism is just a set of first-order normative commitments, it is unclear why it should produce action-guiding philosophy. I argue that feminist philosophy characteristically takes oppressive salience idealization (OSI) to undermine the means-end consistency of normative theories. OSI involves characterizing the world in ways that …
Should Feminists Be Individualists? A Puzzle from Gender and Development Practice
There is an important tension at the heart of feminist discussions of individualism in development studies, one that arises from philosophical questions about the relationship between feminism and individualism. On the one hand, feminists criticize development policies for assuming that women can overcome structural barriers and for prioritizing individual success over systemic change. On the other, feminists criticize development policies for tr…
Self-Respect under Conditions of Oppression
Serene Khader argues against the widespread view that oppressed people have a self-regarding obligation to resist complying with oppressive norms, in order to preserve their self-respect. Khader notes that the cost of noncompliance is often underestimated. Flouting oppressive norms often poses substantial threats to an agent’s welfare and even her self-respect, and compliance may express self-respect, by affirming a commitment to the importance o…
The Feminist Case Against Relational Autonomy
Feminist socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy make the presence of idealized social conditions necessary for autonomy. I argue that such conceptions cannot, when applied under nonideal conditions, play two key feminist theoretical roles for autonomy: the roles of anti-oppressive character ideal and paternalism-limiting concept. Instead, they prescribe action that reinforces oppression. Treated as character ideals, socially constitutive c…
Reflections on decolonial feminist political philosophy
I discuss the issues raised by Alcoff, Arya, and Táíwò in their responses to Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. I pay special attention to a fact I think all nonideal theorists, particularly ones who care about reducing oppression, must take seriously: the fact that oppression characteristically faces its victims with tradeoffs such that attempts to advance their interests usually come with significant costs. I discuss how…
Introduction
This symposium brings together commentaries on Serene J. Khader’s Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic from Linda Martín Alcoff, Sunaina Arya, and Olúfẹ'mi O. Táíwò with a reply from Khader. Khader’s book aims to develop a conception of feminism that is both universalist and anti-imperialist. Central to this feminism are (a) the idea that the normative core of feminism is opposition to sexist oppression and (b) the idea that …
“Reason to Value”
Decolonizing Universalism
Decolonizing Universalism develops a way forward for genuinely anti-imperialist feminisms. Against ways of thinking that suggest feminists must either reject normativity altogether or bite the bullet and treat feminism as a product of Western chauvinism, the book offers a universalist conception of feminism that is not grounded in imperialism-causing values. Insisting that transnational, postcolonial, and decolonial feminisms criticize imperialis…
Individualism
This chapter argues that independence individualism, a form of individualism that is the object of decolonial feminist critique, is conceptually unnecessary for feminism, and in fact undermines transnational feminist praxis. Opposition to sexist oppression does not logically entail individualism. Adopting the specific form of individualism called “independence individualism,” which holds that individuals should be economically self-sufficient and…
Should the capability approach be paternalistic?
The capability approach (CA) is currently in development, and there is significant disagreement about how to conceive its deep theory of freedom and well-being. The paternalism implications of a given view about why capabilities should be the central metric of well-being and justice can thus count as a strike for or against incorporating that view into the CA. In this chapter, I ask how capability theorists should understand the value of the free…
Passive Empowerment
In a world where paid work is touted as a development panacea, empowering women has started to look a lot like burdening them. I argue here that this burdening of women is a predictable result of the conception of empowerment as choice or agency. Dominant conceptions of empowerment characterize empowerment as the increase in a person’s ability to do what they choose. Yet conditions of gender equality and poverty structure women’s options such tha…
Decolonizing Universalism
"Develops a genuinely anti-imperialist feminism. Against relativism/universalism debates that ask feminists to either reject normativity or reduce feminism to a Western conceit, Khader's nonideal universalism rediscovers the normative core of feminism in opposition to sexist oppression and reimagines the role of moral ideals in transnational feminist praxis"
The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy
Contested Terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women
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
Do Muslim Women Need Freedom? Traditionalist Feminisms and Transnational Politics
The idea that Muslim women need to be liberated from religion and tradition has animated feminist support for imperialist projects. The idea that tradition itself is women's oppressor prevents Western feminists from perceiving cultural and religious destruction as potentially harmful. In this article, I make conceptual space for traditionalist feminisms by showing that feminism does not require any particular stance toward tradition as such. What…
Development Ethics, Gender Complementarianism, and Intrahousehold Inequality
Development ethicists see reducing intrahousehold gender inequality as an important policy aim. However, it is unclear that a minimalist cross‐cultural consensus can be formed around this goal. Inequality on its own may not bring women beneath a minimal welfare threshold. Further, adherents of complementarian metaphysical doctrines may view attempts to reduce intrahousehold inequality as attacks on their worldviews. Complicating the justificatory…
Empowerment Through Self-Subordination?
Development ethicists increasingly define women’s empowerment as the expansion of women’s agency. This chapter argues that this definition ignores the fact that women can increase their ability to achieve welfare by internalizing and discharging subordinate roles. This means that anti-poverty interventions may not only fail to reduce women’s acceptance of their subordination; they may increase it. Interventions that attach new material rewards to…
Intersectionality and the ethics of transnational commercial surrogacy
Identifying adaptive preferences in practice
I argue that postcolonial feminist critiques draw our attention to four phenomena that are easily confused with what I call ‘paradigmatic adaptive preference’ – and that the ability to distinguish these phenomena can improve the quality of development interventions. An individual has paradigmatic adaptive preferences (APs) if she perpetuates injustice against herself because her normative worldview is nearly completely distorted. The four look-al…
Must Theorising about Adaptive Preferences Deny Women's Agency?
Critics argue that adaptive preference ( AP ) theorists misrepresent oppressed people's reasons for perpetuating their oppression. According to critics, AP theorists assume that people who adapt their preferences to unjust conditions lack the psychic capacities that would allow them to develop their own normative perspectives and/or form appropriate values. The misrepresentation is morally problematic, because it promotes unjustified paternalism …
Thinking with Irigaray
Thinking with Irigaray
Thinking with Irigaray
Identifying adaptive preferences in practice
I argue that postcolonial feminist critiques draw our attention to four phenomena that are easily confused with what I call ‘paradigmatic adaptive preference’ – and that the ability to distinguish these phenomena can improve the quality of development interventions. An individual has paradigmatic adaptive preferences (APs) if she perpetuates injustice against herself because her normative worldview is nearly completely distorted. The four look-al…
Adaptive Preferences and Procedural Autonomy
Capabilities theorists hold that adaptive preference (APs) are problematically shaped by deprivation, and that they thus merit public interrogation. However, it is unclear what differentiates APs from preferences worthy of public respect. Thinking of APs as procedurally non‐autonomous promises grounds on which to distinguish them without compromising respect for moral pluralism. Using examples from gender and development practice, I argue that — …
Do Muslim Women Need Freedom? Traditionalist Feminisms and Transnational Politics
The idea that Muslim women need to be liberated from religion and tradition has animated feminist support for imperialist projects. The idea that tradition itself is women's oppressor prevents Western feminists from perceiving cultural and religious destruction as potentially harmful. In this article, I make conceptual space for traditionalist feminisms by showing that feminism does not require any particular stance toward tradition as such. What…
Beyond Inadvertent Ventriloquism
I argue that the epistemological virtues of concrete thinking, self‐transparency, and narrative understanding developed by care ethicists can help international development practitioners combat their own temptations to engage in “unconscious unjustified paternalism” (UUP). I develop the concept of UUP—a type of paternalism in which one party unjustifiably substitutes her judgment for another's because of difficulty distinguishing her desires for …
When Equality Justifies Women's Subjection
The “fathers’ rights” movement represents policies that undermine women's reproductive autonomy as furthering the cause of gender equality. Khader argues that this movement exploits two general weaknesses of equality claims identified by Luce Irigaray. She shows that Irigaray criticizes equality claims for their appeal to a genderneutral universal subject and for their acceptance of our existing symbolic repertoire. This article examines how the …
Development Ethics, Gender Complementarianism, and Intrahousehold Inequality
Development ethicists see reducing intrahousehold gender inequality as an important policy aim. However, it is unclear that a minimalist cross‐cultural consensus can be formed around this goal. Inequality on its own may not bring women beneath a minimal welfare threshold. Further, adherents of complementarian metaphysical doctrines may view attempts to reduce intrahousehold inequality as attacks on their worldviews. Complicating the justificatory…
Was Iris Marion Young a Relational Egalitarian
Should Feminists Be Individualists? A Puzzle from Gender and Development Practice
There is an important tension at the heart of feminist discussions of individualism in development studies, one that arises from philosophical questions about the relationship between feminism and individualism. On the one hand, feminists criticize development policies for assuming that women can overcome structural barriers and for prioritizing individual success over systemic change. On the other, feminists criticize development policies for tr…
Reflections on decolonial feminist political philosophy
I discuss the issues raised by Alcoff, Arya, and Táíwò in their responses to Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. I pay special attention to a fact I think all nonideal theorists, particularly ones who care about reducing oppression, must take seriously: the fact that oppression characteristically faces its victims with tradeoffs such that attempts to advance their interests usually come with significant costs. I discuss how…
Contested Terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women
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
When Equality Justifies Women's Subjection
The “fathers’ rights” movement represents policies that undermine women's reproductive autonomy as furthering the cause of gender equality. Khader argues that this movement exploits two general weaknesses of equality claims identified by Luce Irigaray. She shows that Irigaray criticizes equality claims for their appeal to a genderneutral universal subject and for their acceptance of our existing symbolic repertoire. This article examines how the …
When Equality Justifies Women's Subjection
The “fathers’ rights” movement represents policies that undermine women's reproductive autonomy as furthering the cause of gender equality. Khader argues that this movement exploits two general weaknesses of equality claims identified by Luce Irigaray. She shows that Irigaray criticizes equality claims for their appeal to a genderneutral universal subject and for their acceptance of our existing symbolic repertoire. This article examines how the …
Adaptive Preferences and Procedural Autonomy
Capabilities theorists hold that adaptive preference (APs) are problematically shaped by deprivation, and that they thus merit public interrogation. However, it is unclear what differentiates APs from preferences worthy of public respect. Thinking of APs as procedurally non‐autonomous promises grounds on which to distinguish them without compromising respect for moral pluralism. Using examples from gender and development practice, I argue that — …
Thinking with Irigaray
Thinking with Irigaray
Thinking with Irigaray
Adaptive Preferences and Women's Empowerment
Khader offers a deliberative perfectionist approach to identifying and responding to adaptive preferences - deprived people's preferences that perpetuate their deprivation
Beyond Inadvertent Ventriloquism
I argue that the epistemological virtues of concrete thinking, self‐transparency, and narrative understanding developed by care ethicists can help international development practitioners combat their own temptations to engage in “unconscious unjustified paternalism” (UUP). I develop the concept of UUP—a type of paternalism in which one party unjustifiably substitutes her judgment for another's because of difficulty distinguishing her desires for …
Must Theorising about Adaptive Preferences Deny Women's Agency?
Critics argue that adaptive preference ( AP ) theorists misrepresent oppressed people's reasons for perpetuating their oppression. According to critics, AP theorists assume that people who adapt their preferences to unjust conditions lack the psychic capacities that would allow them to develop their own normative perspectives and/or form appropriate values. The misrepresentation is morally problematic, because it promotes unjustified paternalism …
Intersectionality and the ethics of transnational commercial surrogacy
Identifying adaptive preferences in practice
I argue that postcolonial feminist critiques draw our attention to four phenomena that are easily confused with what I call ‘paradigmatic adaptive preference’ – and that the ability to distinguish these phenomena can improve the quality of development interventions. An individual has paradigmatic adaptive preferences (APs) if she perpetuates injustice against herself because her normative worldview is nearly completely distorted. The four look-al…
Empowerment Through Self-Subordination?
Development ethicists increasingly define women’s empowerment as the expansion of women’s agency. This chapter argues that this definition ignores the fact that women can increase their ability to achieve welfare by internalizing and discharging subordinate roles. This means that anti-poverty interventions may not only fail to reduce women’s acceptance of their subordination; they may increase it. Interventions that attach new material rewards to…
Development Ethics, Gender Complementarianism, and Intrahousehold Inequality
Development ethicists see reducing intrahousehold gender inequality as an important policy aim. However, it is unclear that a minimalist cross‐cultural consensus can be formed around this goal. Inequality on its own may not bring women beneath a minimal welfare threshold. Further, adherents of complementarian metaphysical doctrines may view attempts to reduce intrahousehold inequality as attacks on their worldviews. Complicating the justificatory…
Do Muslim Women Need Freedom? Traditionalist Feminisms and Transnational Politics
The idea that Muslim women need to be liberated from religion and tradition has animated feminist support for imperialist projects. The idea that tradition itself is women's oppressor prevents Western feminists from perceiving cultural and religious destruction as potentially harmful. In this article, I make conceptual space for traditionalist feminisms by showing that feminism does not require any particular stance toward tradition as such. What…
The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy
Contested Terrains of Women of Color and Third World Women
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
Decolonizing Universalism
Decolonizing Universalism develops a way forward for genuinely anti-imperialist feminisms. Against ways of thinking that suggest feminists must either reject normativity altogether or bite the bullet and treat feminism as a product of Western chauvinism, the book offers a universalist conception of feminism that is not grounded in imperialism-causing values. Insisting that transnational, postcolonial, and decolonial feminisms criticize imperialis…
Individualism
This chapter argues that independence individualism, a form of individualism that is the object of decolonial feminist critique, is conceptually unnecessary for feminism, and in fact undermines transnational feminist praxis. Opposition to sexist oppression does not logically entail individualism. Adopting the specific form of individualism called “independence individualism,” which holds that individuals should be economically self-sufficient and…
Should the capability approach be paternalistic?
The capability approach (CA) is currently in development, and there is significant disagreement about how to conceive its deep theory of freedom and well-being. The paternalism implications of a given view about why capabilities should be the central metric of well-being and justice can thus count as a strike for or against incorporating that view into the CA. In this chapter, I ask how capability theorists should understand the value of the free…
Passive Empowerment
In a world where paid work is touted as a development panacea, empowering women has started to look a lot like burdening them. I argue here that this burdening of women is a predictable result of the conception of empowerment as choice or agency. Dominant conceptions of empowerment characterize empowerment as the increase in a person’s ability to do what they choose. Yet conditions of gender equality and poverty structure women’s options such tha…
Decolonizing Universalism
"Develops a genuinely anti-imperialist feminism. Against relativism/universalism debates that ask feminists to either reject normativity or reduce feminism to a Western conceit, Khader's nonideal universalism rediscovers the normative core of feminism in opposition to sexist oppression and reimagines the role of moral ideals in transnational feminist praxis"
“Reason to Value”
The Feminist Case Against Relational Autonomy
Feminist socially constitutive conceptions of autonomy make the presence of idealized social conditions necessary for autonomy. I argue that such conceptions cannot, when applied under nonideal conditions, play two key feminist theoretical roles for autonomy: the roles of anti-oppressive character ideal and paternalism-limiting concept. Instead, they prescribe action that reinforces oppression. Treated as character ideals, socially constitutive c…
Reflections on decolonial feminist political philosophy
I discuss the issues raised by Alcoff, Arya, and Táíwò in their responses to Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic. I pay special attention to a fact I think all nonideal theorists, particularly ones who care about reducing oppression, must take seriously: the fact that oppression characteristically faces its victims with tradeoffs such that attempts to advance their interests usually come with significant costs. I discuss how…
Introduction
This symposium brings together commentaries on Serene J. Khader’s Decolonizing Universalism: A Transnational Feminist Ethic from Linda Martín Alcoff, Sunaina Arya, and Olúfẹ'mi O. Táíwò with a reply from Khader. Khader’s book aims to develop a conception of feminism that is both universalist and anti-imperialist. Central to this feminism are (a) the idea that the normative core of feminism is opposition to sexist oppression and (b) the idea that …
Sociology (23 obras) · Political science (20 obras) · Law (18 obras) · Philosophy (17 obras) · Epistemology (15 obras) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (15 obras) · Gender Studies (14 obras) · Psychology (10 obras) · Oppression (9 obras) · Feminism (8 obras)