Colloquium: Camisha Russell (UCI)
Department: Philosophy
Date and Time: April 25, 2014 | 3:00 PM-5:00 PMEvent Location: 55 HIB (Seminar Room)
Event Details
"Are African Americans Really Americans? Insights from a Plural Subject Theory of Political Obligation"
Since before slaves officially became citizens, black thinkers in America have discussed and debated the relationship of what we can now call African Americans to the American state. One way to theorize that relationship philosophically has been in terms of social contract theory. While this approach can be used to reasonably argue either for or against the existence of political obligations for African Americans, I argue that it limits our view of the problem and cannot account for the ambivalence of African American experience. In this discussion, I propose Margaret Gilbert’s plural subject theory of political obligation as an alternative, attempting to demonstrate how – with some expansion upon Gilbert’s own work – it stands to offer a more nuanced theoretical description of the African American situation. After briefly sketching one social contract theory approach to the question of African Americans and political obligation, I proceed by laying out Gilbert’s theory. I then discuss how it might be applied to the African American case, ultimately suggesting that, by not taking into account something like the complexity of African American experience, Gilbert has underplayed a very important aspect of her own theory – the need for recognition and uptake in the creation of joint commitment. Highlighting that underplayed aspect, I show how Gilbert’s theory stands to illuminate the ambivalent relationship between African Americans and political obligation by drawing our attention to the importance of informal social structures and social cooperation to political inclusion and stability.
Dr. Camisha Russell
UC Irvine