The Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal (KIEJ) published new content this month. Kathryn Gillespie, a Postdoctoral Fellow in Animal Studies at Wesleyan University, reviewed Mari Mikkola’s book The Wrongs of Injustice: Dehumanization and its Role in Feminist Philosophy, published last year by Oxford University Press.
Mikkola’s book offers a feminist examination of contemporary social injustices. It argues for a paradigm-shift away from feminist philosophy organized around the gender concept woman, and towards humanist feminism. The book further develops a notion of dehumanization that explicates social injustices, elucidates humanist feminism, and improves non-feminist analyses of injustice.
Gillespie’s review centers on what Mikkola deems the three forms of injustice: oppression, domination, and discrimination; she ultimately concludes that Mikkola’s interest in “reducing the definition of human to a biological kind does not attend to the socially and politically contested notions of the human.”
The KIEJ offers free online access to all of its book reviews, published on a rolling basis and available for email and RSS subscription.