Sex, Love, and Gender: A Kantian Theory

by Helga Varden

Overview

Sex, Love, and Gender is the first volume to present a comprehensive philosophical theory that brings together all of Kant's practical philosophy — found across his works on ethics, justice, anthropology, history, and religion — and provide a critique of emotionally healthy and morally permissible sexual, loving, gendered being. By rethinking Kant's work on human nature and making space for sex, love, and gender within his moral accounts of freedom, the book shows how, despite his austere and even anti-sex, cisist, sexist, and heterosexist reputation, Kant's writings on happiness and virtue (Part I) and right (Part II) in fact yield fertile philosophical ground on which we can explore specific contemporary issues such as abortion, sexual orientation, sexual or gendered identity, marriage, trade in sexual services, and sex- or gender-based oppression. Indeed, Kant's philosophy provides us with resources to appreciate and value the diversity of human ways of loving and the existential importance of our embodied, social selves. Structured on a thematic basis, with introductions to assist those new to Kant's philosophy, this book will be a valuable resource for anyone who cares about these issues and wants to make sense of them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780192542106
Publisher:	OUP Oxford
Publication date:	05/27/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	384
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Helga Varden is an associate professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She has published on a range of classical philosophical issues— including Kant's answer to the murderer at the door, private property, political obligations, and political legitimacy-as well as on applied issues such as terrorism, poverty, and non-human animals. With a particular interest in Kant's contributions both to the philosophical canon and to contemporary issues, Varden is one of the few Kant scholars to have brought Kant's ideas to bear also on core issues in feminist philosophy as well as in the philosophy of sex and love, including abortion and same-sex marriage.

Table of Contents

• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I. Sex, Love, and Gender: Happiness and Virtue
• Introduction to Part I
• 1: Sexual and Affectionate Love: Happiness and Moral Responsibility
• 2: Kant and Women
• 3: Kant on Sex: Reconsidered
• 4: Sexual Violence and Oppression
• Concluding Part I: Reconciling Noumena and Embodied, Social Kantian Agents
• Part II. Sex, Love, and Gender: Right
• Introduction to Part II
• 5: The Innate Right to Freedom: Abortion, Sodomy, and Obscenity Laws
• 6: Private Right: Marriage and Trade in Sexual Services
• 7: Public Right: Systemic Justice
• Concluding Part II: Justice as Rightful, Human Freedom

Editorial Reviews

"[This] book is...a tour de force, a love letter, a dive into Kant's writings that somehow manages to be equally broad and deep...[I]magine the discipline of philosophy looking at Varden ... dar[ing her] to come up with a comprehensive theory of sex, love, and gender...ground[ed]...in the thinking of the figure who is most often trotted out to exemplify just how bad philosophical theories of sex, love, and gender can be...[Varden's response is] this book, which...[is] both meticulous and sprawling, audacious and careful, passionate in equal measure about the contours of a flourishing human life...I remain deeply grateful for the way Varden models for all of us a way of being a philosopher that is guided by the twin lodestars of passion and integrity, a way of being that this book exemplifies beautifully." — Ann J. Cahill, Elon University

"Helga Varden's Sex, Love, and Gender...is a rigorous, beautiful, and transformative book, which does vital work not only in fully developing how Kant's complex understandings of desire, reflection, and relationality should inform our understanding of his arguments about sex and love but also in positioning these Kantian arguments as absolutely critical resources to contemporary debates about gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexual (in)justice...this book absolutely revolutionizes the kinds of questions we can ask about Kant on sex, love, and gender...Varden's book articulates my own sense of Kant scholarship as a gateway into feminist philosophy, as a rare space in mainstream philosophical scholarship that passes, if you will, a kind of philosophical Bechdel test." — Jordan Pascoe, Manhattan College

"Sex, Love, and Gender is a sweeping and systematic tour de force - an account of our sexual and gendered human nature, grounded in Kantian theory, that is courageously comprehensive in scope, carefully rigorous in its attention to the details of Kantian philosophy, and refreshingly forthright in its author's unwillingness to be limited by Kant's own failings...it [is] what historically informed philosophy can be at its very best: a direct and engaging conversation across centuries, which strives to leave the limits of each cultural context not by abandoning them, but by acknowledging and engaging them and, in doing so, inviting us to reflect on the limits of our own...as refreshing as her consistent nimbleness of argument and seemingly encyclopedic grasp of Kant's moral-political oeuvre found throughout this book." — Alice MacLachlan, York University

"[This] book is ... a tour de force, a love letter, a dive into Kant's writings that somehow manages to be equally broad and deep... [I]magine the discipline of philosophy looking at Varden... dar[ing her] to come up with a comprehensive theory of sex, love, and gender ... ground[ed]...in the thinking of the figure who is most often trotted out to exemplify just how bad (... sexist, heterosexist, as well as utterly distanced from ... actual lived experiences) philosophical theories of sex, love, and gender can be ... [Varden's response is] this book, which [is] ... meticulous and sprawling, audacious and careful, passionate in equal measure ... I remain deeply grateful for the way Varden models for all of us a way of being a philosopher that is guided by the twin lodestars of passion and integrity, a way of being that this book exemplifies beautifully." — Ann J. Cahill, Estudos Kantianos

"Helga Varden's Sex, Love, and Gender ... is a rigorous, beautiful, and transformative book, which does vital work not only in fully developing how Kant's complex understandings of desire, reflection, and relationality should inform our understanding of his arguments about sex and love but also in positioning these Kantian arguments as absolutely critical resources to contemporary debates about gender identity, sexual orientation, and sexual (in)justice. Rarely is a book so comprehensive, so coherent, and so grounded in a vulnerability we rarely find in philosophy ... this book absolutely revolutionizes the kinds of questions we can ask about Kant on sex, love, and gender ... Varden's book articulates my own sense of Kant scholarship as a gateway into feminist philosophy ... that passes, if you will, a kind of philosophical Bechdel test." — Jordan Pascoe, Estudos Kantianos

"Sex, Love, and Gender is a sweeping and systematic tour de force - an account of our sexual and gendered human nature, grounded in Kantian theory, that is courageously comprehensive in scope, carefully rigorous in its attention to the details of Kantian philosophy, and refreshingly forthright in its author's unwillingness to be limited by Kant's own failings... it [is] what historically informed philosophy can be at its very best: a direct and engaging conversation across centuries, which strives to leave the limits of each cultural context not by abandoning them, but by acknowledging and engaging them ... [Varden's] authorial vulnerability... [and]... sincerity is as refreshing as her consistent nimbleness of argument and seemingly encyclopaedic grasp of Kant's moral-political oeuvre found throughout this book." — Alice MacLachlan, Estudos Kantianos

From the Publisher