Philosophy in the News

Linh Mac Receives NASSP Award

 

Linh Mac, a graduate student in the Department of Philosophy, received the North American Society for Social Philosophy (NASSP) Graduate Student Award for her essay "The Epistemology of #BelieveWomen.” In this paper,  Mac examines the proposal going by the hashtag #BelieveWomen, which arose as a reaction to testimonial injustice, i.e. the factual, well-grounded worry that woman accusers are not believed by virtue of being women.

In particular, Mac discusses Kimberly Kessler Ferzan’s paper “#BelieveWomen and the Presumption of Innocence: Clarifying the Questions for Law and Life.” Mac focuses on the problems women face in getting believed, as well as the distinctiveness of sexual assault or rape accusations as a kind of testimony.