Dans le cadre des midis de l’éthique du CRÉ, Stephanie Kapusta (Dalhousie University) nous offrira une présentation intitulée “A Cares-based Account of the Gendered Self”.

Résumé

There has been considerable recent work within analytic philosophy on gender identity, particularly within social ontology. In contradistinction to Jenkins’ “norm-relevance” account and McKitrick’s dispositional account, I propose a cares-based account in which the agential self is constituted by its cares, that is, by those emotional and perceptual dispositions that necessitate efficacious volitions toward action (Shoemaker). The gendered self, specifically, is constituted by a nexus of cares that necessitate actions which can be or are perceived within an agent’s social environment as gendered. These actions include gestures, attire, body management practices and – most importantly – declarations of self-identification. They do not need to be explicitly linked to gender in the mind of the agent, but can, instead, be viewed as necessary means to affect a cared-for object. In fact, because reflection upon one’s volitions is not required on this account, it is able to make sense of respecting the gender autonomy of children and some cognitively disabled persons.

Source photo: pangendering.tumblr.com.