I'm celebrating!  

I have been awarded a 5 month non-residential research fellowship at the Experience Project to work on my project "Mother Knows Best: Pregnancy, Applied Ethics and Epistemically Transformative Experiences."

I'll be exploring whether there is some morally relevant knowledge that is accessible only, or primarily, to people who have been pregnant - and the ramifications for the debate about abortion and in applied ethics more widely.  

The project springs from my dissatisfaction with the philosophical literature on abortion after pregnancy. Although, I've been interested in the ethics of abortion for many years, after being pregnant most of philosophical literature suddenly appeared cold, bloodless; it did not reflect what pregnancy is like.  At the same time, I noticed how difficult it was to explain what it is like to be pregnant to someone who had not had that experience.  

This is worrying: could there be knowledge which is crucial for ethical debate on issues such as abortion which is only accessible to people who have been pregnant?  How should philosophers respond to this? 

There are wider implications for it seems that there may be similar missing information in debates on famine relief, just war theory, etc. Each of these involves experiences we may struggle to grasp without undergoing.  At worst, our very ability to do applied ethics is threatened.  My conclusion, however, is envisaged to be optimistic. 

​I envisage proposing a system of ‘due care’ in considering relevant experiences that makes meaningful work in applied ethics possible.


I'm so excited, both about my own project, and to be part of this fantastic wider project!

In this interesting piece from Slate, the author argues that promoting breastfeeding as 'natural' may be fuelling anti-vaccine fears.  Linking the 'natural' and the 'good' gives the impression that what is unnatural - like using science to protect our children against life-threatening diseases -  is bad.

​This seems right to me.  Philosophers have long objected to assumption that what is natural is what is good.  See for example, this video explaining Moore's 'naturalistic fallacy' and this more focused version.)  Many bad things are apparently 'natural': disease, death, violence and anger.  Many good things are 'unnatural': medicine, the internet, universities,etc.  Moreover, when we consider that humans are part of nature and naturally technological, the very definition of natural seems questionable.

However, I can understand the motivation for stressing the naturalness of breastfeeding.  First, breasts have lots of amazing features (for example, the way in which they adjust the content of the milk to fit the baby's needs) and it seems likely that this is connected to the way in which breastfeeding has evolved through the marvellous process of natural selection.  

Second, there is a significant need to normalise breastfeeding, so that breastfeeding mothers can get on with their days and go out and about without being forced to cower in toilets or lurk under a sheet every time their infant needs a drink .  When women who breastfeed in public are told that they are 'disgusting' or 'attention seeking' then we might well want to respond by pointing out that they are doing the most natural thing in the world.

Again, the difficulty is how to encourage and support breastfeeding without either stigmatising those who make other feeding decisions or having other unintended consequences.