Papers by Andrew Frederick Smith
Feminist Philosophy Quarterly, 2024
It is commonly assumed that we currently face a climate crisis insofar as the climatological effe... more It is commonly assumed that we currently face a climate crisis insofar as the climatological effects of excessive carbon emissions risk destabilizing civilization and jeopardize cherished ways of life. From this vantage point, the threat posed by climate change is unprecedented and demands urgent action to avert apocalyptic conditions that will limit or even erase the future of all humankind. In this essay, we argue that this framework perpetuates a discursive infrastructure that commits its proponents, if unwittingly, to logics that ultimately reinforce the dynamics driving climate change and attending injustices. By centering Indigenous environmental discourses, we contend that climate crisis is instead primarily a manifestation of multidimensional relational disruptions. It is a rebound effect of centuries of accumulating colonial injustices against purveyors of kinship arrangements that are critical for socioecological adaptability and responsiveness. Framing climate crisis as relational crisis hereby creates discursive space for much needed transformational visions for justly and effectively addressing climate change.
Social Theory and Practice, 2004
For over a decade now, Susan Moller Okin has been one of the leading proponents of a liberal femi... more For over a decade now, Susan Moller Okin has been one of the leading proponents of a liberal feminism that has sought to draw on central aspects of John Rawls's groundbreaking text, A Theory of Justice 1 (hereafter "Theory"), to challenge the gender-structured character of contemporary society. She likewise has given high praise to Rawls for his efforts since the publication of Theory to make his thought even more amenable to employment by feminists. Gone are gendered references to "men" and "mankind," as well as his assertion that the parties to the original position-the hypothetical situation in which fair principles of justice are chosen-are heads of households. He explicitly adds a person's sex to the list of morally irrelevant contingencies not to be known within the original position in "Fairness to Goodness," and in "The Basic Structure as Subject," he includes the family in the basic structure of society, that is, as one of "society's main political, social, and economic institutions," to which the principles of justice are to apply. 2 Yet, in "Political Liberalism, Justice, and Gender," Okin's praise for Rawls is replaced by acute dissatisfaction with more recent developments in his thought, which she takes to be a significant step backward with regard to its application to the question of justice for women. This becomes evident, she asserts, by examining his treatment of the family within Political Liberalism. For although Rawls still regards it as part of the basic structure, he nonetheless equivocates concerning whether it in fact should be subject to the principles of justice. It is thus none too clear exactly what rights, if any, women are to have within the confines of the household. This being so, Okin argues, Rawls ends up effectively ignoring the manner in which the internal dynamics of the
A Critique of the Moral Defense of Vegetarianism, 2016
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to crimina... more Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy, 2009
Research Pragmatism Cybrary each citizen must have conclusive reason to accept each law as bindin... more Research Pragmatism Cybrary each citizen must have conclusive reason to accept each law as binding. .. Democracy and the Place of Religious Argument in Politics" in Robert Audi and Nicho-las Wolterstorff, eds., Religion in the Public Square: The Place of Religious 42 Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Religion and Democratic Citizenship: Inquiry and Conviction in the American Public Square (review). Eric Thomas Weber, Andrew F. Smith. From: Transactions Religion and Democratic Citizenship : Inquiry and .-?????? Religion and Democratic Citizenship provides a fascinating window on that. offers what he calls an open model of the democratic public square designed. Baylor University Press-The Ethics of Citizenship Religion and Democratic Citizenship: Inquiry and Conviction in the American Public Square Rex G. Carr p.160 +cite; Schindler, Jeanne Heffernan, ed. Reconsidering The Democratic Public on UPC EAN Search secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the. religious convictions in political discourse threaten our democratic ideals. inquiry into the role religious beliefs play in American public life, as opposed to a Citizenship and Demands of Faith, by Nancy L. Rosenblum (Princeton: Democracy, Law and Religious Pluralism in Europe: Secularism and .-Google Books Result Religion and Democratic Citizenship: Inquiry and Conviction in the American Public Square [J. Caleb Clanton] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying Religion And Democratic Citizenship-YouTube Sep 1, 2005. inquiry in terms of the public square, we can also identify some of As I see it, religious freedom and democracy go hand in hand; .
APA Studies in Native American and Indigenous Philosophy, 2023
This edition of APA Studies in Native American and Indigenous Philosophy first reports on two ses... more This edition of APA Studies in Native American and Indigenous Philosophy first reports on two sessions that took place at the recent Eastern Division meeting held in Montréal. Both were on Thursday, January 5. As part of the Invited Symposium on Indigenous Philosophy in North America, Shelbi Meissner of Georgetown University discussed work that will appear in Hypatia journal of feminist philosophy. Andrew Smith gives an overview of Meissner's argument. And as part of the Teaching Hub, Andrea Sullivan-Clarke of Windsor University and Andrew Smith of Drexel University led a session on Best Practices for Introducing Indigenous Philosophy to Your Syllabus. Materials on the session, including a handout distributed by Sullivan-Clarke and the further development of thoughts by Smith, are included here. This edition also includes a review, by Dennis H. McPherson, Tracy Shields, and J. Douglas Rabb of Lakehead University, of both the multi-volume set, Honoring the Circle put together by Stephen M. Sachs and numerous colleagues, and an earlier volume, Recreating the Circle, by LaDonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs, et al., that has been recently reissued.
APA Studies in Native American and Indigenous Philosophy, 2023
With each passing term students in my environmental philosophy courses are increasingly burned ou... more With each passing term students in my environmental philosophy courses are increasingly burned out, just like the world they inhabit. They’re committed to pursuing ecological well-being and climate justice, even accepting these pursuits as their generation’s singular responsibility. But given their subjection to key structural deformities that prevail in the United States, they’re also acculturated to shoulder undue blame for ongoing setbacks and for the debilitating conditions—including generalized anxiety, clinical depression, ADHD, and OCD—they nearly all su"er from partially as a result. This dynamic is emblematic of their form of struggle with these structural deformities, but it’s hardly the only feature of that struggle and not always the most prominent feature. I see no obvious ways to break free from this and other such dynamics. Still, thanks largely to guidance from Indigenous scholars who generously share their experiences with pedagogies aimed at sustaining their communities within a settler state bent on their destruction, I do at least have some ideas about how to counteract the worst of my students’ su"ering.
The Journal of Philosophy of Disability, 2021
The quest for ecological sustainability—specifically via prioritizing degrowth—creates significan... more The quest for ecological sustainability—specifically via prioritizing degrowth—creates significant, often overlooked challenges for the chronically ill. I focus on type-1 diabetes, treatment for which depends on nonrenewables and materials implicated in the global proliferation of toxins that harm biospheric functions. Some commentators suggest obliquely that seeking to develop ecologically sustainable treatments for type-1 shouldn’t be prioritized. Other medical concerns take precedence in a post-carbon world marked by climate change and widespread ecological devastation. I challenge this view on three grounds. Its proponents (i) fail to treat type-1 as the public health issue it is, particularly within the context of what Sunaura Taylor calls disabled ecologies. They (ii) deny persons with type-1 an equal opportunity to pursue survival. And they (iii) presume without warrant that treating type-1 is an all-or-nothing affair. Indeed, research by biohackers points to suboptimal but p...
Social Philosophy Today, 2003
1. Introduction: Pluralism and Political Theory 2. Two Metaphysical Pluralists: Berlin and James ... more 1. Introduction: Pluralism and Political Theory 2. Two Metaphysical Pluralists: Berlin and James 3. Classical Pragmatism and Pluralism 4. From Pluralism to Politics: Four Neo-Berlinian Proposals 5. Value Pluralism as an Account of Value 6. Towards a New Pragmatist Political Theory 7. Can (Political) Liberals Take Their Own Side in an Argument? 8. Religion and Politics
Social Philosophy Today, 2013
Acta Analytica, 2003
I here argue against the viability of Peter Ludlow’s modified version of Paul Boghossian’s argume... more I here argue against the viability of Peter Ludlow’s modified version of Paul Boghossian’s argument for the incompatibility of semantic externalism and authoritative self-knowledge. Ludlow contends that slow switching is not merely actual but is, moreover, prevalent; it can occur whenever we shift between localized linguistic communities. It is therefore quite possible, he maintains, that we undergo unwitting shifts in our mental content on a regular basis. However, there is good reason to accept as plausible that despite their prevalence we are in fact able to readily adapt to such switches, as well as to the shifts in mental content that accompany them. The prevalence of slow switching between linguistic communities does not then necessarily entail incompatibility after all.
Hypatia
I've been thinking quite a lot of late about how, as a settler, I can more fully and effectively ... more I've been thinking quite a lot of late about how, as a settler, I can more fully and effectively support Indigenous peoples struggling for climate justice. In the process, I've found Andrea Sullivan-Clarke's recent insights about decolonizing allyship most helpful. After offering a brief summary of the necessary and sufficient conditions Sullivan-Clarke identifies for decolonizing allyship, I reflect on how I personally can strive to meet these conditions while remaining aware that-like my recovery from alcoholism-my work will never be complete.
Environmental Ethics
Centering Indigenous philosophical considerations, ecologies are best understood as kinship arran... more Centering Indigenous philosophical considerations, ecologies are best understood as kinship arrangements among humans, other-than-human beings, and spiritual and abiotic entities who together through the land share a sphere of responsibility based on both care and what Daniel Wildcat calls "multigenerational spatial knowledge." Ecologically speaking, all kin can
Environmental Philosophy, 2021
Symbioculture involves nurturing the lives of those in one’s ecology, including the beings one ea... more Symbioculture involves nurturing the lives of those in one’s ecology, including the beings one eats. More specifically, it is a kinship-based conception of food and food systems rooted in Indigenous considerations of sustainability. Relations among food sources; cultivators, distributors, and eaters; and the land they share are sustainable when they function as extended kinship arrangements. Symbioculture hereby offers salient means to resist the ecocidal, agroindustrial food system that currently dominates transnationally in a manner that responds to the urgent need—both in terms of Indigenous justice and prudence for us all—to decolonize foodways and decommodify food, food-based knowledge, and food labor.
The Ethics of Homelessness: Philosophical Perspectives, 2020
Homelessness is often regarded as a sign of failure. From the political left, it is viewed as a f... more Homelessness is often regarded as a sign of failure. From the political left, it is viewed as a failure of existing social institutions to adequately facilitate care for the most economically vulnerable. From the political right, it represents a failure of affected individuals to take personal responsibility for their material wellbeing. In this essay, I argue that homelessness instead should be regarded as a sign of success, both intended and unintended. The institutions primarily responsible for “managing” the homeless in the United States are designed to deny them security, dignity, and autonomy, and they are quite successful at doing so. This is to be expected in what Glenn Albrecht calls a corrumpalist (from the Latin corrumpere, “to destroy”) socio-economic system, according to which those in power favor the destruction of bodies that prove not to be profit bearing. But a good number of homeless people nevertheless succeed at living and making a living partially freely from corrumpalist institutions despite the crushing burdens they bear on a daily basis. The housed have much to learn from these unintended successes so long as we, too, seek to free ourselves from the grip of these institutions.
Contemporary Pragmatism, 2014
Res Publica, 2011
Many political philosophers tend to take it as given that the justification for democracy rests u... more Many political philosophers tend to take it as given that the justification for democracy rests upon specifying a set of moral commitments that all citizens reasonably can be expected to accept. 1 Sufficient agreement about these commitments is often treated, as Cristina Lafont puts it, as 'the very condition for the possibility of democracy' (2009, 130). If this is correct then, without such agreement, the legitimacy of democracy-which depends upon the assent of all who are subject to the state's coercive power-seemingly cannot be secured. This prospect raises serious worries, for it should be clear that, typically, the citizens of democratic societies deeply disagree over matters of morality. As Robert Talisse characterises it in Democracy and Moral Conflict, our moral commitments are 'essentially controversial' (2009, 4). Fundamental divisions persist, he notes, over whether democracy is faltering due to a lack of moral clarity or whether we suffer from a lack of self-criticism, which appeals to moral clarity squelch. 2 Moreover, it is not clear how to justify the claim that deep disagreement of this sort
Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 2015
Food deserts include any area in the industrialized world in which reasonably priced, nutritious ... more Food deserts include any area in the industrialized world in which reasonably priced, nutritious food is difficult to obtain. They constitute a pressing public health concern insofar as food desert inhabitants disproportionately suffer from a variety of diet-related conditions. Amartya Sen has written extensively about famine as a failure of functional governance. I draw on these considerations to defend two claims. First, the perpetuation of food deserts also constitutes a breakdown specifically of functional democracy. Second, this breakdown is best addressed by implementing programs and policies that reflect Sen's capabilities approach to justice. I challenge the proposition that resourcism or any other competing approach is preferable for this particular undertaking.
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Papers by Andrew Frederick Smith