Sally Haslanger (MIT) (Sponsored by Gender Institute/MAP): Ideology is a Moral Issue
In recent decades, the concept of ideology has played little role in Anglophone philosophy; when it has, the main conversation has been in the context of political philosophy. However, one main task for a theory of ideology falls squarely in the domain of moral psychology. As Stuart Hall puts it, ideology “...has especially to do with the concepts and the languages of practical thought which stabilize a particular form of power and domination.” (Hall 1996/2006, 24) In effect, ideology provides a "practical consciousness" or practical orientation for agency, and in doing so shapes us to enact injustice, usually unwittingly. In this paper, I argue that work on ideology - and the broader feminist and social justice literature of which it is a part - provides important and much neglected tools that should be more central to moral theory.