ABSTRACT In this article, I discuss the significance of early infant feeding choices for the goal of gender justice. Focusing on human lactation practices, I identify Exclusive Gestational Nursing (EGN) as the norm in advanced industrial societies, which creates the expectation and permission for gestators, and only gestators, to nurse children, and only the children they have gestated. Through an analysis of the tasks that make up early infant care and research on the early experiences of co‐parents, I show that EGN is a factor that entrenches the specialisation of gestational mothers in childrearing and makes both equal sharing and male specialisation harder to pursue. By identifying particular features of EGN (overlaps with gestation, tethering, asymmetrical care, epistemic neglect, and voluntariness), I demonstrate that the costs of lactation as EGN are distinct from and additional to those that accrue to gestators by pregnancy alone. I conclude by pointing towards alternative lactational practices such as co‐nursing, cross‐nursing, and male lactation, which, if researched and supported, have the potential to reduce the intensity and specialisation of the nursing relationship and to further enable the adoption of early infant care by others beyond gestational mothers.

ABSTRACT The traditional aim of Western social democracy has been to create a society that is a ‘common possession’ of its members (in T.H. Marshall's words). Social democratic politics has therefore been both society‐making and membership‐making, orienting people to a shared society as an object of attachment and loyalty, and nurturing membership‐based conceptions of democracy and the welfare state. This aspiration to create a society that is the common possession of its members has underpinned many social justice movements. However, some commentators argue that this model cannot address the most pressing issues of today's world, and that we need to find a way to theorize politics that does not rest on ideas that individuals are ‘members’ of ‘societies’, or on ideas that politics should aim to orient people to a shared society as an object of loyalty and a basis for solidarity. In this article, I explore whether the ideal of society as a common possession of its members can be redeemed in the face of these critiques, and in particular whether it can be pluralized in a way that respects the experiences and aspirations of racialized minorities and Indigenous peoples.

ABSTRACT In recent years, the field of animal ethics has taken a political turn, with scholars arguing that sentient nonhuman animals should be included in the political sphere. This article explores two key challenges arising from this turn towards the political inclusion of animals: the Conflict Problem and the Numbers Problem. The Conflict Problem highlights the difficulty of resolving conflicts between humans and animals, and among individual animals, who often have competing interests (such as predators and prey). The Numbers Problem arises because animals vastly outnumber humans: if animals were to be fully included in political decision‐making processes, their representatives would form majorities that would likely predominate, potentially to the detriment of human interests. We assess four potential responses to these two problems: (i) discounting animal interests; (ii) revisiting principles of political inclusion; (iii) granting group‐differentiated rights; and (iv) adopting a bicameral system. Each response, we argue, involves significant ethical trade‐offs. Ultimately, we conclude that proponents of sentientist political equality may need to bite the bullet with respect to the Conflict Problem and the Numbers Problem. For those who think otherwise, we claim that the onus is on them to develop more viable solutions.

ABSTRACT Truth‐telling has, in diverse contexts, been conceptualised as a vehicle for achieving reconciliation following injustice. As a social and political phenomenon, it involves the communication of narratives grounded in episodic memory. Such narratives may fail to reproduce the details of past events and may even include details that were not present in the original experience. To explore this issue, we examine the conservative backlash against the testimonies of the Stolen Generations in Australia, where perceived inaccuracies in remembering were used to discredit victim‐survivor testimony. We argue that this backlash was based on epistemic and conceptual errors, relying as it did on a mischaracterisation of False Memory Syndrome (FMS) and a narrow view of memory that does not align with the current scientific understanding. We propose that a constructive view of memory is better suited to the task of truth‐telling and reconciliation, and we consider how the epistemic risks associated with this view might be addressed.

ABSTRACT A trend has recently emerged among climate activists of attacking artworks as a means of registering protest. I analyse this mode of protest, which I term political iconoclasm, and offer a novel partial defence of political iconoclasm as a protest strategy for environmental activists. I focus on Just Stop Oil's attack on van Gogh's Sunflowers . I argue that climate activists' art‐attacking protests differ significantly from other recent art‐attacking protests: climate protestors generally target non‐commemorative, morally innocent artworks, and usually do not seek to destroy the artworks they attack. I argue that iconoclastic protests have been unusually good at capturing attention. Moreover, iconoclasm can enable protestors to communicate with their audience in an unusually direct and compelling way. I address some worries about political iconoclasm, and evaluate it against two theories of permissible protest: one on which disobedience must be civil, and another on which disobedience must meet standards of proportionality and necessity, adapted from the ethics of self‐defence and war. I argue that iconoclasm may be permissible on either theory. Iconoclasm is most likely to be permissible when used sparingly, when the artwork attacked has relevant representational content, and when the iconoclastic act transforms the artwork into a protest symbol.

ABSTRACT Psychedelics offer an intriguing novel method for changing minds, supposedly by destabilizing the neurobiology of the belief system. The resulting power to change minds raises ethical and epistemic concerns. This article examines the epistemic status of psychedelic experiences and suggests a skeptical attitude towards beliefs formed under their influence, a position that stands in contrast to some epistemic practices in the field. It proposes four norms for the ethics of altering beliefs and opinions of others, based on both the outcomes of interventions and the processes they involve. It introduces the concept of ‘doxastic vulnerability’ for states of heightened susceptibility to belief change, such as those induced by psychedelics. It further argues that placing people in a state of doxastic vulnerability generates responsibilities to prevent or mitigate harms arising from such states. This should motivate epistemic harm reduction measures in psychedelic therapy and, contrary to several recent statements in the literature, a reconsideration of a passive non‐directive stance of therapists in favor of a more active role as epistemic guides.

ABSTRACT Recent developments in consumer ethics have given rise to a new breed of animal protectionist: the new omnivore. These new wave animal protectionists claim that strict veganism is impermissible for the very reason that typically motivates strict veganism; that is, animal protectionism. To the strict vegan, such a position will seem highly implausible, for many who adopt strict vegan practices do so because of deeply held animal‐regarding convictions. Yet the new omnivore appeals to plausible common‐sense principles of harm to justify their claims. In this article I tackle the newest variant of this argument, that animal protectionists are required to abandon veganism, instead consuming a plethora of everyday animal‐based products that will otherwise go to waste, because the alternative (buying plant‐based products) involves harm to animals in arable agriculture. To do this I advance three central claims: (i) that a principle of new omnivorous ethical consumption is implausible when taken seriously, (ii) that non‐ideal circumstances mean that a plausible consumer ethic will standardly permit purchasing plant products, even when such purchases generate harms to animals, and (iii) that we have non‐trivial reasons, based in complicity, to not consume animal products, even if they will otherwise go to waste.

ABSTRACTAlthough children are often mentioned in the philosophy of meaningful life, the meaningfulness of their lives has thus far played an insignificant role in the literature. In this article, the meaningfulness of children's lives serves as a touchstone for theories of meaningful life. I argue that children can live meaningful lives; on the basis of this, I then ask to what extent current theories of meaning in life are able to account for the meaningfulness of children's lives. The investigation shows that while most subjectivist theories have no problem with this, many objectivist theories struggle with it. Therefore, I conclude by discussing what a convincing objectivist account that includes children's lives might look like, and outline a proposal: the developmental account of meaning in life.