Clare Chambers | |
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Academic background | |
Alma mater | University of Oxford |
Thesis | Equality and Autonomy for All? Liberalism, Feminism and Social Construction (2003) |
Doctoral advisor | Lois McNay, David Miller |
Academic work | |
Discipline | Philosophy |
Sub-discipline | Feminism,Political Philosophy |
Institutions | University of Cambridge |
Website | www.clarechambers.com |
Clare Chambers (born 1976) is a British political philosopher at the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. [1]
Chambers received her DPhil in political theory from the University of Oxford,and she subsequently taught at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics,before moving to the University of Cambridge. [2] She has published on feminism,liberalism,and social construction.
In her 2008 book Sex,Culture,and Justice:the Limits of Free Choice, [1] [3] Chambers is concerned about what the state's response should be to cultural practices which individuals freely choose to partake in as a way of securing certain goods,when those practices impose disproportionate costs on vulnerable members of the community. She defends three main claims. First,individual preferences to pursue certain activities are shaped by social construction:if individuals are raised to follow certain practices which are deemed choiceworthy in their community,then they will be more disposed to follow these practices later in life. [4] Second,if social construction brings individuals to form preferences for activities that are self-degrading or self-harmful,the individuals in question are victims of an unjust process of social construction. [4] Third,the state is permitted to prohibit self-degrading or self-harmful activities that individuals freely choose to follow when their preference for following these activities was shaped by an unjust process of social construction;this is because preferences formed by an unjust process of social construction are morally suspect,and the state has a greater obligation to free individuals from pernicious practices that harm and degrade them than to satisfy morally suspect preferences. [5] According to Marion Smiley,Chambers' use of the notion of an unjust process social construction "to justify,as well as to limit,prohibition,provides us with a whole new and productive way of using the state to promote gender equality," and she argues that a particular virtue of Chambers' work is that it "makes clear why we do not have to choose between gender equality and autonomy in our efforts to prevent harm in the lives of women and all others." [6]
In her 2017 book Against Marriage:An Egalitarian Defense of the Marriage-Free State she argues that marriage violates both equality and liberty so should not be recognised by the state,nor have any legal status. [7] This built on her earlier paper 'The marriage-free state' which makes the case for abolishing state-recognized marriage and replacing it with piecemeal regulation of personal relationships. [8]
Books
Selected Papers
Egalitarianism, or equalitarianism, is a school of thought within political philosophy that builds on the concept of social equality, prioritizing it for all people. Egalitarian doctrines are generally characterized by the idea that all humans are equal in fundamental worth or moral status. As such, all people should be accorded equal rights and treatment under the law. Egalitarian doctrines have supported many modern social movements, including the Enlightenment, feminism, civil rights, and international human rights.
Justice, in its broadest sense, is the concept that individuals are to be treated in a manner that is equitable and fair.
Distributive justice concerns the socially just allocation of resources, goods, opportunity in a society. It is concerned with how to allocate resources fairly among members of a society, taking into account factors such as wealth, income, and social status. Often contrasted with just process and formal equal opportunity, distributive justice concentrates on outcomes. This subject has been given considerable attention in philosophy and the social sciences. Theorists have developed widely different conceptions of distributive justice. These have contributed to debates around the arrangement of social, political and economic institutions to promote the just distribution of benefits and burdens within a society. Most contemporary theories of distributive justice rest on the precondition of material scarcity. From that precondition arises the need for principles to resolve competing interest and claims concerning a just or at least morally preferable distribution of scarce resources.
A Theory of Justice is a 1971 work of political philosophy and ethics by the philosopher John Rawls (1921–2002) in which the author attempts to provide a moral theory alternative to utilitarianism and that addresses the problem of distributive justice . The theory uses an updated form of Kantian philosophy and a variant form of conventional social contract theory. Rawls's theory of justice is fully a political theory of justice as opposed to other forms of justice discussed in other disciplines and contexts.
Equality of outcome, equality of condition, or equality of results is a political concept which is central to some political ideologies and is used in some political discourse, often in contrast to the term equality of opportunity. It describes a state in which all people have approximately the same material wealth and income, or in which the general economic conditions of everyone's lives are alike.
Michael Laban Walzer is an American political theorist and public intellectual. A professor emeritus at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, he is editor emeritus of the left-wing magazine Dissent, which he has been affiliated with since his years as an undergraduate at Brandeis University, an advisory editor of the Jewish journal Fathom, and sits on the editorial board of the Jewish Review of Books.
William Kymlicka is a Canadian political philosopher best known for his work on multiculturalism and animal ethics. He is currently Professor of Philosophy and Canada Research Chair in Political Philosophy at Queen's University at Kingston, and Recurrent Visiting professor in the Nationalism Studies program at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. For over 20 years, he has lived a vegan lifestyle, and he is married to the Canadian author and animal rights activist Sue Donaldson.
Social choice theory is a branch of welfare economics that analyzes methods of combining individual opinions, beliefs, or preferences to reach a collective decision or create measures of social well-being. It contrasts with political science in that it is a normative field that studies how societies should make decisions, whereas political science is descriptive. Social choice incorporates insights from economics, mathematics, philosophy, political science, and game theory to find the best ways to combine individual preferences into a coherent whole, called a social welfare function.
John Mitchell Finnis is an Australian legal philosopher and jurist specializing in jurisprudence and the philosophy of law. He is an original interpreter of Aristotle and Aquinas, and counts Germain Grisez as a major influence and collaborator. He has made contributions to epistemology, metaphysics, and moral philosophy.
Libertarian perspectives on LGBT rights illustrate how libertarian individuals and political parties have applied the libertarian philosophy to the subject of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBTQ) rights. In general, libertarians oppose laws which limit the sexual freedom of adults. However, they may also oppose hate crime legislation, viewing it as antithetical to freedom of speech, and oppose discrimination laws on the grounds that it would constitute government overreach into private enterprise.
Brian Barry, was a moral and political philosopher. He was educated at the Queen's College, Oxford, obtaining the degrees of B.A. and D.Phil. under the direction of H. L. A. Hart.
Global justice is an issue in political philosophy arising from the concern about unfairness. It is sometimes understood as a form of internationalism.
Harry Brighouse is a British political philosopher at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. His research interests include moral philosophy and the relationship between education and liberalism. Brighouse is particularly famous for his book with philosopher and sociologist Adam Swift, Family Values: The Ethics of Parent-Child Relationships, which is considered seminal work on the moral philosophy of the family.
Luck egalitarianism is a view about egalitarianism espoused by a variety of egalitarian and other political philosophers. According to this view, justice demands that variations in how well-off people are should be wholly determined by the responsible choices people make and not by differences in their unchosen circumstances. Luck egalitarianism expresses that it is a bad thing for some people to be worse off than others through no fault of their own.
Anne Phillips, is Emeritus Professor of Political Theory at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she was previously Graham Wallas Professor of Political Science. She was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2003.
Criticisms of marriage are arguments against the practical or moral value of the institution of matrimony or particular forms of matrimony. These have included the effects that marriage has on individual liberty, equality between the sexes, the relation between marriage and violence, philosophical questions about how much control can a government have over its population, the amount of control a person has over another, the financial risk when measured against the divorce rate, and questioning of the necessity to have a relationship sanctioned by government or religious authorities.
Larry Temkin is an American philosopher and Distinguished Professor Emeritus of philosophy at Rutgers University. Temkin’s research focuses on normative ethics and political philosophy, and his work has been highly influential, particularly his works Inequality and Rethinking the Good.
Equality of autonomy is a political philosophy concept of Amartya Sen that argues "that the ability and means to choose our life course should be spread as equally as possible across society"—i.e., an equal chance at autonomy or empowerment. Equality of autonomy strives to spread empowerment widely so that "given their circumstances", people have more "choice and control". The concept has a slightly different emphasis from related notions, such as the value of equality in the workplace or equal material wealth.
Analytical Marxism is an academic school of Marxist theory which emerged in the late 1970s, largely prompted by G. A. Cohen's Karl Marx's Theory of History: A Defence (1978). In this book, Cohen drew on the Anglo–American tradition of analytic philosophy in an attempt to raise the standards of clarity and rigor within Marxist theory, which led to his distancing of Marxism from continental European philosophy. Analytical Marxism rejects much of the Hegelian and dialectical tradition associated with Marx's thought.
Social equality is a state of affairs in which all individuals within society have equal rights, liberties, and status, possibly including civil rights, freedom of expression, autonomy, and equal access to certain public goods and social services.