Freedom of oppression

Collective Responsibility for Oppression

Many contemporary forms of oppression are not primarily the result of formally organized collective action nor are they an unintended outcome of a combination of individual actions. This raises the question of collective responsibility. I argue that we can only determine who is responsible for oppression if we understand oppression as a matter of social practices that create obstacles for socia...

Audism: exploring the metaphysics of oppression.

This article traces the development of the concept of "audism" from its inception in the mid-1970s by exploring three distinct dimensions of oppression: individual, institutional, and metaphysical. Although the first two aspects of audism have been identified, there is a deeply rooted belief system regarding language and human identity that is yet to be explored within the context of audism. Th...

Toward a Comprehensive Theory of Racial Oppression

1. Initiation of Oppression: At an early point in time, the European colonialists established hierarchical group relations with the peoples they oppressed and exploited for their land and labor. Soon this hierarchy of oppression was explained in racial terms. The subordinated groups were viewed as biologically and culturally inferior races. This racialized oppression has never been eradicated a...

Kant's Four Notions of Freedom

Resisting Body Oppression: An Aesthetic Approach

This article argues for an aesthetic approach to resisting oppression based on judgments of bodily unattractiveness. Philosophical theories have often suggested that appropriate aesthetic judgments should converge on sets of objects consensually found to be beautiful or ugly. The convergence of judgments about human bodies, however, is a significant source of injustice, because people judged to...