This session draws together papers that deal with power (divine and/or human) and gender. They treat the topic from the perspectives of analytic philosophy, Christian theology, and Islamic philosophy and theology. Two of the presentations deal with sexual ethics, one on abortion and one on consent. The presentation on consent brings medieval Islamic jurisprudence, and the significance of intent in that discourse, into conversation with contemporary philosophical discussions on consent. The other calls for attention to the testimonies of women who have had abortions as a way to contest testimonial and epistemic injustice. The third presentation makes a case for more attention to God's love in analytic philosophy of religion, and aims to develop an account of divine love that is incompatible with divine violence.
The paper “Rethinking Consent: Advocating for Intent-Based Consent” investigates the notion of consent. It extends the current scholarly debate on consent by synthesizing contemporary philosophical insights with medieval Islamic legal formulations on will, coercion, and intent. The paper critiques the traditional reliance on verbal consent in sexual assault contexts. Accordingly, the paper illuminates the failure of verbal consent to truly capture the dynamics of consent and the complexity of human interactions. By utilizing the works of scholars Sarah Conly, Lois Pineau, Ann J. Cahill, and the conceptualizations of intent by medieval Islamic jurists, the paper introduces an intent-based model of consent. This model prioritizes the internal states and genuine intentions of individuals over mere verbal affirmations. The paper incorporates the psychological perspectives provided by Jeffrey Young, which aid the formulation of a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of consent.
This paper describes the mechanisms by which passive and active forms of social power result in testimonial injustice and epistemic violence inflicted upon women who have had abortions. These forms of imposed power result in the silencing of women who have had abortions, thereby denigrating their embodied wisdom, stigmatizing their actions, and excluding them from policy and political discussions. I argue that attentiveness to the personal testimonies about the experience of abortion can help disrupt the structures that perpetuate testimonial injustice and give recognition to the real dangers faced by those who may want to disclose their experiences.
In this paper, I critically examine the way in which divine love is commonly discussed in analytic philosophy of religion. I argue that we have good reason from feminist perspectives to focus more thoroughly on divine love in discussions of divine personality than has been done in the past. Furthermore, I entertain the possibility that, in the context of the divine-human relationship, love is an aspect of divine personality of a different order of influence, compared to other traits. Additionally, I show how greater attention to divine love can forge new pathways for discussion by considering this in relation to the topic of divine violence. I conclude by suggesting two ways to give greater priority to divine love, one that takes up my constructive proposal that love ought to be given a special status and another that takes a more conservative approach.