Sylvia Burrow

Sylvia Burrow

Associate Professor
Cape Breton University

Phone: (902) 563-1187
Fax: (902) 563-1913
Office: CC-270

P.O. Box 5300, 1250 Grand Lake Rd.
Sydney, Nova Scotia
B1P 6L2

Select Philosophy Article Abstracts

Protecting One’s Commitments: Integrity and Self-Defense. International Journal of Applied Philosophy 26:1 (2012) pp.49-66.

Living in a culture of violence against women leads women to employ any number of avoidance and defensive strategies on a daily basis. Such strategies may be self protective but do little to counter women’s fear of violence. A pervasive fear of violence comes with a cost to integrity not addressed in moral philosophy. Restricting choice and action to avoid possibility of harm compromises the ability to stand for one’s commitments before others. If Calhoun is right that integrity is a matter of standing for one’s commitments then fear for safety undermines integrity. This paper extends Calhoun’s view through arguing that integrity further requires resiliency to protect one’s commitments. My account shows that self-defense training is a key source of this resiliency because it cultivates self-confidence. The practical point is that self-defense training directly counters fear and other passive responses to violence that undermine integrity. The theoretical significance is that violence against women is a social condition threatening integrity. Hence, integrity requires self-protection for more socially minded reasons than moral theorists have previously recognized.

Autonomy, integrity, self-defence, self-confidence, resiliency

Link to paper on Academia.edu

Martial Arts and Moral Life

A key point of feminist moral philosophy is that social and political conditions continue to work against women’s ability to flourish as moral agents. By pointing to how autonomy and integrity are threatened for women I aim to uncover a significant means through which women’s power is undermined in society. My focus is on violence against women as a pervasive, inescapable social condition that threatens both integrity and autonomy. Concern for personal safety routinely constrains women’s to have and act on choices while undermining the ability to stand for judgements before others. Socialization in public vigilance further entrenches women’s fear of violence and hence, restricts women’s possibility to flourish as moral agents. I suggest that training in martial arts counters fears for personal safety through cultivating confidence in skills of self-protection.

Martial Arts, autonomy, self-defence, moral persons, moral progress

Link to book on Routledge website

Verbal Sparring and Apologetic Points: Politeness in Gendered Argumentation Contexts in Informal Logic 30:3 (2010)pp. 235-262.

This essay argues that ideals of cooperation or adversariality in argumentation are not equally attainable for women. Women in argumentation contexts face oppressive limitations undermining argument success because their authority is undermined by gendered norms of politeness. Women endorsing or, alternatively, transgressing feminine norms of politeness typically defend their authority in argumentation contexts. And yet, defending authority renders it less legitimate. My argument focuses on women in philosophy but bears the implication that other masculine dis- course contexts present similar double binds that urge social and political change.

adversariality, argumentation, cooperation, discourse, gender, language, norms, oppression, politeness

Link to Philpapers