04/08: Harvard Dept. of Philosophy Colloquium Lecture: Serene Khader
The talk format consists of a lecture followed by a Q&A session. All attendees must register in advance to gain entry.
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Abstract:
What is Wrong with Opression?:
Prof. Khader argues against conceiving oppression as an affront to freedom. Conceiving freedom reduction as the wrong-making freedom of oppression is incompatible with recognizing structural cases of oppression. If the mechanisms of oppression are sometimes indistinguishable from benign, or even ineluctable, processes of social shaping, arguments that oppression is objectionably freedom-reducing risk implausibly suggesting that socialization itself is objectionably freedom-reducing. She shows how the most common strategies for explaining how oppression reduces freedom either fall into the trap of such overgenerality, or end up appealing to values other than freedom to avoid it. Prof. Khader concludes by suggesting that oppression might be better thought of as an affront to equality than freedom.