Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal is extremely proud to present this special volume on ethical and social issues arising out of the 2016 US presidential election and the Trump administration. The issue includes twelve articles. Some of these articles will be published in an online supplement to the journal within the next few weeks through Johns Hopkins Press. […]
An interdisciplinary quarterly journal dedicated to philosophical bioethics.
Recent Posts
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
Climate Policy in the Age of Trump
by Mathias Frisch ABSTRACT. The Trump administration is in the process of undoing what were the two central planks of President Obama’s climate policy: First, Trump has called for a review of how the social cost of carbon is calculated in used in analyses of regulatory rule making and, second, Trump has announced that the […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
Refugees, Narratives, or How To Do Bad Things with Words
By Anna Gotlib ABSTRACT. This paper addresses and critiques the anti-refugee rhetoric and policies, as well as their uncritical uptake, which developed around the candidacy of Donald Trump. My intent is to examine some of this election’s cruelest, most violent, and most racist rhetoric, reserved for Syrian (and other) refugees, and to consider some possible […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
Trump is Gross: Taking Political Taste (and Distaste) Seriously
by Shelley Park ABSTRACT. This paper advances the somewhat unphilosophical thesis that “Trump is gross” to draw attention to the need to take matters of taste seriously in politics. I begin by exploring the slipperiness of distinctions between aesthetics, epistemology, and ethics, subsequently suggesting that we may need to pivot toward the aesthetic to understand […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
All the Difference in the World: Gender and the 2016 Election
by Alison Reiheld ABSTRACT. In this paper, I analyze multiple aspects of how gender norms pervaded the 2016 election, from the way Clinton and Trump announced their presidency to the way masculinity and femininity were policed throughout the election. Examples include Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Gary Johnson. I also consider how some women […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
Fake News and Partisan Epistemology
by Regina Rini ABSTRACT. This paper does four things: (1) It provides an analysis of the concept ‘fake news.’ (2) It identifies distinctive epistemic features of social media testimony. (3) It argues that partisanship-in-testimony-reception is not always epistemically vicious; in fact some forms of partisanship are consistent with individual epistemic virtue. (4) It argues that […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
Trust, Communities, and the Standing to Hold Accountable
by Thomas Wilk ABSTRACT. During the 2016 US Presidential campaign and in the aftermath of the election of Donald Trump, many of us have tried to hold friends, family, and acquaintances accountable for their support of a candidate and campaign that we judged to be racist, xenophobic, sexist, transphobic, ableist, and authoritarian. Even when our […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
Editorial Note
by Rebecca Kukla I’m extraordinarily proud and excited to present this special issue of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, which focuses on ethical, social, and political reflections on the 2016 U.S. election and the early days of Donald Trump’s presidency. It is rare for a philosophy journal to take up such a current and […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
Some Comments about Being a Philosopher of Color and the Reasons I Didn’t Write a (Real) Paper for this (Seemingly) Ideal Venue for my Work
by Sean A. Valles ABSTRACT. This special issue conspicuously lacks work by Philosophers of Color (with the exception of this commentary). I have been given this opportunity to discuss the impediments that kept me from submitting my relevant work, offered as a small step toward recognizing the impediments faced by other Philosophers of Color. I […]
Keep reading »
Special Issue: Trump and the 2016 Election
The Specter of Authoritarianism
by Andrew J. Pierce ABSTRACT. In this essay, I provide an analysis of the much-discussed authoritarian aspects of Donald Trump’s campaign and early administration. Drawing from both philosophical analyses of authoritarianism and recent work in social science, I focus on three elements of authoritarianism in particular: the authoritarian predispositions of Trump supporters, the scapegoating of racial minorities as […]