Hilde Lindemann Nelson focuses on the stories of groups of people--including Gypsies, mothers, nurses, and transsexuals--whose identities have been defined by those with the power to speak for them and to constrain the scope of their actions. By placing their stories side by side with narratives about the groups in question, Nelson arrives at some important insights regarding the nature of identity. She regards personal identity as consisting not only of how people view themselves but also of how others (...) view them. These perceptions combine to shape the person's field of action. If a dominant group constructs the identities of certain people through socially shared narratives that mark them as morally subnormal, those who bear the damaged identity cannot exercise their moral agency freely.Nelson identifies two kinds of damage inflicted on identities by abusive group relations: one kind deprives individuals of important social goods, and the other deprives them of self-respect. To intervene in the production of either kind of damage, Nelson develops the counterstory, a strategy of resistance that allows the identity to be narratively repaired and so restores the person to full membership in the social and moral community. By attending to the power dynamics that constrict agency, Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair augments the narrative approaches of ethicists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty, and Charles Taylor. (shrink)

In the heated debates over identity politics, few theorists have looked carefully at the conceptualizations of identity assumed by all sides. Drawing on both philosophical sources as well as theories and empirical studies in the social sciences, this book makes a strong case that identities are not like special interests, nor are they doomed to oppositional politics, nor do they inevitably lead to conformism, essentialism, or reductive approaches to judging others. Identities are historical formations and their political implications (...) are open to interpretation. But identities such as race and gender also have a powerful visual and material aspect that eliminativists and social constructionists often underestimate. This book analyses the political and philosophical worries about identity and argues that these worries are neither supported by the empirical data nor grounded in realistic understandings of what identities are. The book develops a more realistic characterization of identity in general through combining phenomenological approaches to embodiment with hermeneutic concepts of the interpretive horizon. Besides addressing the general contours of social identity, the book develops an account of the material infrastructure of gendered identity, compares and contrasts gender identities with racialized ones, and explores the experiential aspects of racial subjectivity for both whites and non-whites. In several chapters the book looks specifically at Latino identity as well, including its relationship to concepts of race, the specific forms of anti-Latino racism, and the politics of mestizo or hybrid identity. (shrink)

Hermeneutical injustice means being unjustly prevented from making sense of one’s experiences, identity or circumstances and/or communicating about them. The literature focusses almost exclusively on whether people have access to adequate conceptual resources. In this paper, we discuss a different kind of hermeneutical struggle caused by stigma. We argue that in some cases of hermeneutic injustice people have access to hermeneutical resources apt to understand their identity but reject employing these due to the stigma attached to the identity. We begin (...) with a reinterpretation of one of the cases discussed in the literature, Edmund White’s novel A Boy’s Own Story. We argue that in this case hermeneutic resources are available but are rejected due to the stigma attached to homosexuality. We then present two analogous kinds of cases: alcohol addiction and being the victim of intimate partner violence. Here, too, hermeneutic injustice occurs because of the stigma attached to an identity rather due to unavailability of resources. We close by suggesting that these cases may, additionally, involve the wrong of ‘Tightlacing’: by meddling with their self-conception, stigma can manipulate individuals into a view of themselves that licenses inappropriate demands on them and makes them complicit in the erasure of their identities. (shrink)

In this article, I highlight what Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s (re)conceptualisation of the plurality within identities implies for justice and education. Laclau and Mouffe (re)theorise the plurality of identities by framing and understanding identities within the wider theoretical context of discourse analysis and radical Democracy. I argue that the significance of this specific (re)theorisation of the plurality within identities for justice and education has not yet been tackled by the related educational-philosophical scholarship, not even by (...) that which focuses on Laclau and Mouffe. As a first step, I provide a brief overview of Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory and their approach to Democracy. Then, I show that, in their wider framework, one of the things that meaningfully connect discourse theory with radical Democracy is the theorisation of the plurality within identities. Finally, I suggest that acknowledging the plurality within any identity may offer important tools for expanding the scope of educational justice and for promoting justice in education. Amongst other things, by theoretically recognising the plurality and multi-dimensionality of collective identities, we obtain better insight into the pitfalls of homogenising identities and of cultivating reductive outlooks on identities in and through education, and encourage students’ critical thinking and self-reflective stances toward subjectivities. (shrink)

Transnational mobility has transformed the demography of communities and schools around the world, giving rise to new challenges in interpreting the nature of migration, cultural identities and the politics of cultural difference. Migration no longer involves an expectation of permanent detachment from the home country, making it possible for immigrants to remain connected to their friends and family at home and elsewhere. This global transformation has led to the emergence of what is widely referred to as ‘the diaspora perspective’ (...) in migration studies, which seeks to elucidate the formation of complex and dynamic diasporic identities. Using a vignette, in this paper, I examine the challenges facing diaspora students as they seek to negotiate the requirements of their local lives and the demands of their transnational community. I argue that the resources of multicultural education are not sufficient to enable teachers to assist with the ethical dilemmas that many of their diaspora students face, and that a new approach to address the pedagogic challenges of transnational mobility are needed. (shrink)

This paper explores concepts of multiple and nested identities and how these relate to citizenship and rights, and the implications of identities and rights for active citizenship education. Various theoretical conceptions of identity are analysed, and in particular ideas concerning multiple identities that are used contingently, and about identities that do not necessarily include feeling a strong affinity with others in the group. The argument then moves to the relationship between identity and citizenship, and particularly citizenship (...) and rights. Citizenship is treated non-legalistically, as one of the locations of belonging. The paper draws on three successive categorisations of citizenship rights: by T.H. Marshall in the 1950s, Karel Vasak in the late 1970s and John Urry in the 1990s, and is illustrated in part by the development of European citizenship in parallel to national identity. This is then linked to how contemporary citizenship education might use the exploration of contested rights as a way of developing practical enactive skills of citizenship. (shrink)

This paper argues that many so-called digital technologies can be construed as notational technologies, explored through the example of Monegraph, an art and digital asset management platform built on top of the blockchain system originally developed for the cryptocurrency bitcoin. As the paper characterizes it, a notational technology is the performance of syntactic notation within a field of reference, a technologized version of what Nelson Goodman called a “notational system.” Notational technologies produce abstracted entities through positive and reliable, or constitutive, (...) tests of socially acceptable meaning. Accordingly, this account deviates from typical narratives of blockchains, instead demonstrating that blockchain technologies are effective at managing digital assets because they produce abstracted identities through the performance of notation. Since notational technologies rely on configurations of socially acceptable meaning, this paper also provides a philosophical account of how blockchain technologies are socially embedded. (shrink)

This essay outlines one way to conceptualise the relation between cultural identity, collective memory, and artifacts. It starts by characterising the notion of cultural identity as our membership to cultural groups and briefly explores the relation between cultural and narrative identity (section 2). Next, it presents how human memory is conceptualised on an individual and collective level (section 3) and then distinguishes between small-scale and large-scale collective memory (section 4). Having described cultural identity and collective memory, it argues that cultural (...) identity is materialised in the environment when we retrieve and construct collective memories by integrating information from our biological memory with information in artifacts or in other people’s embodied brains (section 5). This essay ends with analysing how materialised cultural identities are constructed by using a niche construction approach from evolutionary biology (section 6). (shrink)

Values are widely recognized as playing a central role in the formation of our identities, perspectives, and affects. If you want to know who I am, how I see the world, and what has emotional significance for me, you will need to know something about my values. However, I argue that the relationship between value and subjectivity—understood as encompassing a person’s identity, perspective, and affective life—is more complex than it initially appears. Even when two individuals share the same values, (...) their engagement with those values can diverge significantly: it can be manifest either in a positive, affirmative manner or in an oppositional, antagonistic manner. With this distinction at hand, I examine a pervasive but undertheorized phenomenon: the emergence of subjectivities that are fundamentally structured around opposition rather than pursuit of positive ideals. Drawing on examples from contemporary politics and social movements, I distinguish between contingently negative orientations, which dissolve once specific threats disappear, and constitutively negative orientations, which perpetuate themselves through a continual search for new opponents. I argue that these negative orientations are not determined by the contents of evaluative judgments, but by the particular form of valuing that individuals or groups exhibit. Certain valuings are grounded in affects such as hatred, fear, and resentment; when these affects become self-sustaining and detached from stable targets, they generate constitutively negative orientations. (shrink)

This paper explores the fruitful concept of necessary identity, put forward by Bernard Williams in Shame and Necessity (1993) in order to explain a peculiar kind of social identity. Firstly, we will investigate the foundation of this concept, by analyzing Williams’s account of personal practical identity. To this end, we will discuss the role played by luck and necessity in Williams’ understanding of personal practical identity. Secondly, we will focus on the analysis of necessary identities by addressing two historical (...) examples given by Williams. In the second part of the paper, we will consider a debate that followed Williams’s concept of necessary identity, which was taken up by Margaret Walker in light of feminist accounts about necessary identity constitution. In Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (2007) Walker deepens Williams’s position by focusing on the invisible mechanisms of social power and misrecognition that perpetuate the immutability of some social identities; as a model of the perpetuation of necessary identities we will discuss Angela Davis’s positions in Women, Race and Class. From a feminist perspective, we will investigate gender identity as a necessary identity which personal character develops within. From a point of view of the affective situation, we are particularly interested in examining necessary identities as a dispositive where emotion repertoire takes place. Dwelling on the link between Williams’s and Walker’s accounts sheds new light on how personal development and emotion regulation take place within a practical identity that stems from asymmetrical relations of power. (shrink)

Physicalists about the mind are committed to claims about property identities. Following Kripke's well-known discussion, modal arguments have emerged as major threats to such claims. This paper argues that modal arguments can be resisted by adopting a counterpart theoretic account of modal claims, and in particular modal claims involving properties. Thus physicalists have a powerful motive to adopt non-Kripkean accounts of the metaphysics of modality and the semantics of modal expressions.

In this volume, thirteen philosophers contribute new essays analyzing the criteria for personal identity and their import on ethics and the theory of action: it presents contemporary treatments of the issues discussed in Personal Identity, edited by John Perry (University of California Press, 1975).

Trans studies constitute part of the coming-to-voice of transpeople, long the theorized and researched objects of sexology, psychiatry, and feminist theory. Sandy Stone’s pioneering, “The Empire Strikes Back: A Posttranssexual Manifesto” sought the end of monolithic medical and feminist accounts of transsexuality to reveal a multiplicity of trans-authored narratives. My goal is a better understanding of what it is for transpeople to come to this polyvocality. I argue that trans politics ought to proceed with the principle that transpeople have first-person (...) authority (FPA) over their own gender, and I clarify what this means. (shrink)

The rapid progress in the development of smart systems and digital technologies and its expansion to all the spheres of human life have had an impact on the preexisting inequalities that separate individuals and communities between each other. In this paper, I intend to examine some of the varieties of testimonial and hermeneutical epistemic injustices generated by the mass insertion of the new information and communication technologies in relation to the digital identities, not only individual but also social (...) class='Hi'>identities. The paradoxes or even the dilemmas triggered by this new cultural environment, that I will study by means of the analysis of some emblematic cases, including those with positive uses and those with negative uses of these tools, expose the asymmetry between the expansion of our competence as users and the violation or alienation of our individual and collective identities and autonomies. This reflection aims at understanding, in the end, that these ways of digital epistemic injustice stand on a deeper epistemic gap: between the improvements of the “intelligent designs” and our growing dependence on them, on the one hand, and the generalized incomprehension of what makes them possible, on the other hand. Neither the utopian visions nor the dystopian visions are able to fully capture how this new cultural environment challenges the human intelligence, revealing, at the same time, its extraordinary power and its extreme fragility. (shrink)

Kant has long been taxed with an inability to explain the detailed normative content of our lives by making universalizability the sole arbiter of our values. Korsgaard addresses one form of this critique by defending a Kantian theory amended by a seemingly attractive conception of practical identities. Identities are dependent on the contingent circumstances of each person's world. Hence, obligations issuing from them differ from Kantian moral obligations in not applying to all persons. Still, Korsgaard takes Kantian autonomy (...) to mean the normativity of all obligations is rooted in universalizability. The wealth of values informing our lives is thus said to be accommodated within a Kantian framework.After briefly explaining Korsgaard’s understanding of practical identities and their role in her reformation of Kant's moral philosophy, I argue that she gives an inadequate explanation of how the obligations that arise from a person’s practical identities derive their authority from the person's will. I then consider how her position might be developed to meet this objection in accordance with her allegiance to “constructivism” and I argue that the epistemic commitments of people’s actual identities makes it unlikely that such a development could preserve Kantian autonomy as she interprets it. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in finding stronger means of securitising identity against the various risks presented by the mobile globalised world. Biometric technology has featured quite prominently on the policy and security agenda of many countries. It is being promoted as the solution du jour for protecting and managing the uniqueness of identity in order to combat identity theft and fraud, crime and terrorism, illegal work and employment, and to efficiently govern various domains and services (...) including asylum, immigration and social welfare. In this paper, I shall interrogate the ways in which biometrics is about the uniqueness of identity and what kind of identity biometrics is concerned with. I argue that in posing such questions at the outset, we can start delimiting the distinctive bioethical stakes of biometrics beyond the all-too-familiar concerns of privacy, data protection and the like. I take cue mostly from Cavarero’s Arendt-inspired distinction between the “what” and the “who” elements of a person, and from Ricoeur’s distinction between the “idem” and “ipse” versions of identity. By engaging with these philosophical distinctions and concepts, and with particular reference to the example of asylum policy, I seek to examine and emphasise an important ethical issue pertaining to the practice of biometric identification. This issue relates mainly to the paradigmatic shift from the biographical story (which for so long has been the means by which an asylum application is assessed) to bio-digital samples (that are now the basis for managing and controlling the identities of asylum applicants). The purging of identity from its narrative dimension lies at the core of biometric technology’s overzealous aspiration to accuracy, precision and objectivity, and raises one of the most pressing bioethical questions vis-à-vis the realm of identification. (shrink)

Global Identities in Transit: The Ethics and Politics of Representation in World Literatures and Cultures explores the myriad aspects of identity formation and identity representation in an increasingly globalized world. Covering a variety of cultural and historical experiences in addition to several texts of world literatures, the contributors discuss the configurations of transnationality and transculturality in our postcolonial and globalized world. Acknowledging that nationality, ethnicity, gender, and class are continually shaped by historical processes, the contributors hone in on the (...) ways that the increase in mobility via migration, diaspora, and exile render identities always in transit In the face of structural inequalities and social injustices predominant in this context, the chapters reflect on the moral obligations of representation. This collection will be of interest to scholars of cultural studies, postcolonial studies, and world literature. (shrink)

This conceptual article draws on structuration theory and social identity theory to isolate firm-internal institutionalization processes as antecedents and drivers of corporate political strategizing. Path dependencies in corporate routines and actors' knowledgeability about these path dependencies are singled out as primary factors structuring strategic decision making within the firm. The concepts of path dependency and knowledgeability, respectively, refer to the institutional and cognitive dimension of corporate political strategizing. These two dimensions come together in actors' identities. Identities on their (...) turn shape managers' recognition of policy issues and the interpretation of issue salience relative to corporate interests. Thus, the article argues that institutional features of competitive environments precipitate in processes of identity building and preference formation and are reproduced through organizational routines and practices within the firm. (shrink)

Although mind-brain identity remains controversial, many other identities of ordinary things with scientific ones are well established. For example, air is a mixture of gases, water is H2O, and fire is rapid oxidation. This paper examines the history of 15 important identifications: air, blood, cloud, earth, electricity, fire, gold, heat, light, lightning, magnetism, salt, star, thunder, and water. This examination yields surprising conclusions about the nature of justification, explanation, and conceptual change.

The Frege-Husserl correspondence can be fruitfully explored so as to provide new insight into the paradox of analysis. Why are some identifies informative and others not? And how could we ascertain the issue if under scrutiny are mathematical identities, necessarily true if true at all? This text articulates the distinction between logical and semantic criteria in order to clarify a possible Fregean solution to the paradox of analysis, starting from regarding analysis as generating particular cases of Frege puzzles.

Where do political identities come from, how do they change over time, and what is their impact on political life? This book explores these and related questions in a globalizing world where the nation state is being transformed, definitions of citizenship are evolving in unprecedented ways, and people's interests and identities are taking on new local, regional, transnational, cosmopolitan, and even imperial configurations. Pre-eminent scholars examine the changing character of identities, affiliations, and allegiances in a variety of (...) contexts: the evolving character of the European Union and its member countries, the Balkans and other new democracies of the post-1989 world, and debates about citizenship and cultural identity in the modern West. These essays are essential reading for anyone interested in the political and intellectual ferment that surrounds debates about political membership and attachment, and will be of interest to students and scholars in the social sciences, humanities, and law. (shrink)

This paper explores the significant strengths of Fricker's account, and then develops the following questions. Can volitional epistemic practice correct for non-volitional prejudices? How can we address the structural causes of credibility-deflation? Are the motivations behind identity prejudice mostly other-directed or self-directed? And does Fricker aim for neutrality vis-à-vis identity, in which case her account conflicts with standpoint theory?

This introduction to this collection of essays presents diverse perspectives on social identities, inviting readers to reconsider established notions and explore new approaches to understanding these complex social phenomena. The contributions challenge traditional philosophical boundaries, intersecting ontological, epistemological, ethical, and political considerations. // The authors situate different views on the ontology of social identities within some extant options. Thus, they contrast their "social identity affordance view" with two alternative approaches: the Cambridge Social Ontology group's positioning theory and Weichold (...) & Thonhauser's broad conception of social identities. Their view understands social identities as realities that structure social life and shape individuals' self-conceptions, emphasizing the importance of historical contingency and social context. // The introduction then proceeds to review the contributions to the volume. The volume comprises three sections: "Experiences of Social Identities," exploring how specific identities are understood and experienced; "Horizons of Social Identities," examining how identities develop and change over time; and "Some Frameworks of Social Identities," presenting alternative frameworks for conceptualizing social identities. (shrink)

This paper points out a tension between Agustín Rayo's criteria for singulartermhood and his explicit views on the status of Hybrid Identities, that is, identity statements that use singular terms from two different Systems of Representation, such as "7=Julius Caesar" or more suggestively "I am b" where "b" is a singular term referring to my brain. It argues that non-trivial Hybrid Identities are common and important in philosophy and elsewhere, and it suggests a friendly alternative that involves treating (...) Hybrid Identities on the model of Rayo's "Just Is" statements. The last section of the paper points out that even this friendly alternative has counterintuitive consequences when combined with the metaphysical conventionalism that Rayo finds attractive, when it comes to questions of personal identity over time. (shrink)

In this conceptual paper, we draw on social identity theory as a means to bridge individuals’ memberships in social groups with value creation in stakeholder networks defined by a socio-economic issue. To address recent calls for microfoundations of stakeholder theory, we introduce a reconceptualization of stakeholders as social groups to examine how value is defined and interpreted in intergroup processes embedded in an issue-based stakeholder network. We establish a theoretical model of value creation that links individuals’ identification with stakeholder groups (...) to intergroup trust, co-operation, and value creation. Specifically, we argue that the salience of preexisting social identities causes harmful tensions in stakeholder relationships that negatively impact value creation. We then propose that the development of a more inclusive stakeholder identity overcomes these negative intergroup consequences in multistakeholder settings. We discuss the impact on value creation of four stakeholder identity representations based on the salience of specific and superordinate stakeholder groups. The paper concludes with implications of our theoretical model for both research and practice related to value creation in issue-based stakeholder networks. (shrink)

Some feminists have criticized Judith Butler's theory of performativity for providing an insufficient account of agency. In this article I first defend her against such charges by appealing to two themes central to Hans-Georg Gadamer's hermeneutics. I compare her emphasis on the sociohistorical nature of agency with Gadamer's insistence on the historical nature of knowledge, and I examine the significance Butler assigns to repetition and note its affinities with Gadamer's conception of play. In the final part of the article I (...) argue that in spite of providing an adequate account of agency, Butler's theory of performativity provides no way to allow us to evaluate performances. I show how Gadamer's account of festival, which builds on his concept of play, is useful in helping us make sense of how we might delineate true from false performances, and thus identities. (shrink)

ABSTRACTChristopher Achen and Larry Bartels argue, in Democracy for Realists, that voters tend to be not only politically ignorant but irrationally attached to group identities. That they use group identities is not in dispute, but the irrationality of doing so is questionable. The instability and malleability of group identities suggests that they are more than primal, illogical attachments. While Achen and Bartels assume that they must be affective, they may in fact be rational. They may, for example, (...) serve as heuristics for individual interests. (shrink)

Automatic conservation of energy-momentum and angular momentum is guaranteed in a gravitational theory if, via the field equations, the conservation laws for the material currents are reduced to the contracted Bianchi identities. We first execute an irreducible decomposition of the Bianchi identities in a Riemann-Cartan space-time. Then, starting from a Riemannian space-time with or without torsion, we determine those gravitational theories which have automatic conservation: general relativity and the Einstein-Cartan-Sciama-Kibble theory, both with cosmological constant, and the nonviable pseudoscalar (...) model. The Poincaré gauge theory of gravity, like gauge theories of internal groups, has no automatic conservation in the sense defined above. This does not lead to any difficulties in principle. Analogies to 3-dimensional continuum mechanics are stressed throughout the article. (shrink)

In many African communities, identity is profoundly intertwined with communal values and ethics. Individuals strongly associate with families, clans, tribes, or ethnic groups to shape their identity and belonging. Identity is a reciprocal relationship between the individual and the community, grounded in equality and mutual understanding. Bernard Matolino’s limited communitarianism offers a unique lens for understanding the balance between these communal values and individual rights. It underscores the importance of balance between them, forming a profound theoretical foundation for exploring LGBTQ+ (...) (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer, plus) rights in African society. LGBTQ+ individuals in African communities face various challenges from communal values and diverse sexual and gender identities. Recognising this diversity underscores the significance of individualised identities in the collective narrative. This article delves into the ethical complexity intersecting these identities, highlighting instances where LGBTQ+ individuals grapple with conforming to communal values at the cost of their rights and authentic identities. It highlights the tension between societal norms and individual autonomy, intensified by the discourse on cultural relativism and universal human rights in Matolino’s framework. It aims to comprehensively examine whether limited communitarianism accounts for the rights and complexities of LGBTQ+ individuals while seeking a balance between communal and individual identity dimensions. It acknowledges intricate challenges in this intersection and seeks paths toward harmonising communal values, individual rights and LGBTQ+ identities in African society. The primary goal is to contribute to the discourse on identity, ethics and human rights in African communities, aspiring to inform more inclusive and equitable approaches to African identity and rights. (shrink)

Recently, several philosophers have defended an explanatory argument that supposedly provides novel empirical grounds for accepting the type identity theory of phenomenal consciousness. They claim that we are justified in believing that the type identity thesis is true because it provides the best explanation for the correlations between physical properties and phenomenal properties. In this paper, I examine the actual role identities play in science and point out crucial shortcomings in the explanatory argument. I show that the supporters of (...) the argument have failed to show that the identity thesis provides a satisfactory explanation for the correlations between physical and phenomenal properties. Hence, the explanatory argument, as it stands, does not provide new grounds for accepting the type identity theory. (shrink)

I sketch a philosophical program called ‘Empirical Fundamentalism,’ whose signature feature is the extensive use of a distinction between fundamental and derivative reality. Within the framework of Empirical Fundamentalism, derivative reality is treated as an abstraction from fundamental reality. I show how one can understand reduction and supervenience in terms of abstraction, and then I apply the introduced machinery to understand the relation between water and H2O, mental states and brain states, and so on. The conclusion is that such relations (...) can be understood either as metaphysical contingencies or as necessary type-identities. (shrink)

This paper addresses the coconstruction of identities and emotions through the human/animal relationship, arguing that nonhuman animals can and do act as coagents in interspecies encounters. The paper narrates the extraordinary boundary-transgressing experiences of a particular kind of cogency labeled “huminality” . An autoethnographic account of pet-visitation involving a woman, a West Highland white terrier named Fergus, and geriatric residents demonstrates the power of huminality to authorize the emergence and realization of different identities and selves. Examples include the (...) intimate friend, the dignified self, the institutional resister, the gift-giver, and the available self. Huminality, in the emotional spacetime of the hospital, is rooted in empathy, concern, and affection. As ontological choreography, huminality takes us past the animal-Nature/human-culture frontier into uncharted territories of spacetime to engage in forms of life with nonhuman others. Encounters with animals, even on a geriatric ward, can transform our universe and our selves. (shrink)

The article explores the right to cultural identity, advocating for the freedom to choose and change cultural affiliations as a critical human right. It emphasizes that while cultural identity is essential for human dignity and personal freedom, this right remains underexplored in contemporary human rights discourse, leading to the essentialization of culture and neglecting its dynamic nature. By promoting the recognition of the freedom to redefine cultural identity, the article positions this freedom as crucial to human rights. It supports this (...) view with key international legal instruments and examines relevant case law from the European Court of Human Rights and other bodies. Significant cases, including Ciubotaru v. Moldova and Sandra Lovelace v. Canada, illustrate the challenges individuals face in changing their identities and highlight existing legal protections. Ultimately, recognizing this right ensures respect for personal growth and evolving worldviews under human rights law. (shrink)

The neurodiversity movement has so far been dominated by autistic people who believe their condition is not a disease to be treated and, if possible, cured, but rather a human specificity (like sex or race) that must be equally respected. Very few studies have been conducted to examine the significance of the neurosciences and the cerebralization of autistic culture for promoting these ideas. The article explores the role of the brain and the neurosciences in projects of identity formation as illustrated (...) in the case of the emergence of the neurodiversity movement. The movement is driven by so called high functioning autistic individuals, who argue that autism is not a disease, but a form of human difference. The article examines the development of autistic individuals and autistic socialities as well as social and community networks. It also addresses the emergence of autistic cultures and various issues concerning autistic identities. It shows that the formation of identities is associated with the cerebralization of the condition. Facts about the brain are mobilized to depict autism positively. The move toward neurosciences has to be understood in a wider social context in which a brain-based vocabulary disseminates outside the lab and penetrates different domains of contemporary societies. This vocabulary is taken up by individuals and groups to speak about themselves and their relation with others as well as in their identity claims and fights for rights. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that whether, how, and to what extent an experience is transformative is often highly contingent. I then further argue that sometimes social conditions are a major factor in whether a certain type of experience is often or typically transformative. Sometimes social conditions make it easy for a type of experience to be transformative, and sometimes they make it hard for a type of experience to be transformative. This, I claim, can sometimes be a matter of (...) social justice: social conditions can make transformativeness too easy or too hard, in a way that harms people. (shrink)

This chapter outlines psychological understandings of sexuality charting differences in definitions and expression of sexual orientations and practices between traditional and critical schools of thought. Theoretical representations of sexuality as the product of biological processes and substances (evolution; hormones; anatomy etc.) and heterosexuality as the most natural and normal mode of sexual identity and behaviour are challenged through the introduction of critical perspectives. Drawing from sociological, feminist and ‘queer’ theory perspectives, the social construction of sexuality is emphasised with issues of (...) power, discourse and resistance highlighted and the complexity and fluidity in sexed identities and relationships detailed. (shrink)

Recent work in analytic feminist metaphysics seeking to engage with queer and especially trans identities has led to the development of contextualist accounts of social identities. These accounts claim that what it is to be a trans woman, or demigender, or gay, is dependent on context. This chapter looks at the history of contextualist accounts of social identity, before offering a survey of contemporary scholarship in the field, developing work on the semantics and social ontology of social (...) class='Hi'>identities by Jennifer Saul, Talia Mae Bettcher, María Lugones, and Ásta. The chapter will suggest that contextually variable accounts of social identities are philosophically robust, but that contextualist and closely related pluralist views still have questions to answer, and room for development. (shrink)

In ‘Digital Twins for Trans People in Healthcare: Queer, Phenomenological and Bioethical Considerations’,1 we examine the use of digital twin (DT) technology for transgender individuals. Our central thesis is that a DT does not merely represent the patient’s body, but actively produces a specific kind of body, thereby exerting significant influence on gender identity, self-understanding and embodiment. We propose a framework for the development and use of DTs for trans persons in healthcare as a starting point for future discussions on (...) inclusive DT technology. This challenge has been taken up by many scholars, who have responded with commentaries that offer valuable insights and contributions to the ongoing discourse. Boretti highlights the practical and ethical challenges of creating inclusive DTs. Boretti proposes reinterpreting biomedical principles through a queer bioethical framework, reflects on more inclusive methods of data collection and explores participatory co-design for developing DTs that integrate the lived experiences of trans persons.2 Boretti also provides a helpful figure outlining the key ethical considerations. Wang focuses on how DTs can create false expectations at the physiological level, with patients relying more on the information provided by the technology than on their own bodily experiences.3 As a …. (shrink)

In Chap. 2 I argued that an approach that aims to capture freedom’s agency value has to account for the value the availability of choice options has for a person’s deliberation about her values and goals before making decisions. Before addressing this question in greater detail in Chap. 5, I pose the question how this picture of a person reflecting upon a plurality of motives, as widely employed in the philosophy of action, relates to the assumption that a person’s (rational) (...) choices can be represented by a transitive, all-things-considered preference over the alternatives, as is commonly assumed in rational choice theory and the freedom ranking literature. Under which conditions can a person indeed form a transitive, all-things-considered preference from a set of plural (possibly conflicting) values, or as I call it, from her plural identities? I make use of a social choice framework in order to explore this question and illustrate the task the person is facing as an intra-personal aggregation problem: a person has to derive his (transitive) all-things-considered preference from a profile of preference relations reflecting his plural identity. This chapter is a slightly modified version of Binder (Soc Choice Welf 42:959–976, 2014). (shrink)

When the borderline cases of art occur in non-art categories, the debate of artistic status arises not only with regard to the individual cases but also with regard to the category to which they belong. The identity of the individual case tends to be defined in connection to the category it belongs to. It tends to formulate that, if the individual case is art, then the entire category is also art, and if the category is not art, then the individual (...) case is also not art. Such a view inevitably hampers the artistic status of works arising from the non-art categories. This article argues that the individual cases and their belonging categories need not be strictly interlocking and that they could possess multiple identities depending on the context that they are present. Thus the point shifts from whether the case is or is not art in its absolute sense to ‘when’ is it art. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to analyze the effects of the vulnerable group-based approach in the case law of European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). ECtHR mostly use the notion of vulnerability to identify, isolate and protect some specific groups of population. I will highlight two important effects of these policies: the construction and affirmation of stable identities and the consequent limitation of the political agency of the social actors through the boundaries defined by the list of the (...) available vulnerable groups. I will conclude the paper by providing a different, multifaced conception of vulnerability meant to take into account at the same time its universality and its specificity. (shrink)