We’re delighted to announce that our Centre co-director Jules Holroyd has been awarded the Mind Association fellowship for work on a critical theory of praise, which she will take up in academic year 22/23. She will be using the fellowship to develop a critical theory of praise:
“Philosophers have written a lot about blame, but much less about praise. One might think that while blaming might be a morally problematic activity (for example, if it is excessively harsh, or hypocritical, or where victim-blaming occurs), praising is always morally neutral, if not morally positive. I argue that this is a mistake: praise can in fact be implicated in oppression: perpetuating stereotypes and distorting the contours of moral agency. Articulating what is going wrong, the implications for theories of moral responsibility, and, ultimately, how to praise better, requires careful philosophical attention. My project is to develop a book that articulates an account of what praise should do, if it is to be justified, and its role in our practices of holding responsible. This builds on my recent work on the oppressive aspects of praise, published in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly* (open access).”
* Holroyd, Jules. 2021. “Oppressive Praise”. Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 7 (4). https://ojs.lib.uwo.ca/index.php/fpq/article/view/13967.
Centre for Engaged Philosophy 