PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION 1995

What Price Inclusion?

Harvey Siegel
University of Miami


INTRODUCTION

In this paper I want to show that embracing inclusion as a conversational and theoretical ideal does not require either the rejection of the universal, or the rejection of scholarly standards. These are taken up, respectively, in sections II and III below. I will try to set the stage for those discussions by first considering the nature of the case for inclusion.
THE CASE FOR INCLUSION

In recent philosophy of education, as in philosophy more generally, it is difficult to find a theme more widely discussed, or universally endorsed, than that of inclusion. Postmodernists, feminists, critical theorists, discourse ethicists, old-fashioned liberals and many others routinely extol the virtues of inclusionary discourses and theories -- discourses which seek out, make room for, and take seriously, and theories which adequately reflect, the voices, views and interests of those who are and have traditionally been excluded from discussion and/or consideration. In the same spirit, discourses and theories which systematically exclude persons, groups and viewpoints are vigorously criticized.1 Mark Weinstein, for example, argues for the primacy of inclusion as an ideal governing discourse generally:
Discourse frames…are to be judged for their adequacy in terms of their ability to include, without prejudice, all points of view within their scope.….[T]he systematic exclusion of a point of view indicates a structural failing in the discourse frame. (Weinstein (1993), p. 20)2
Lorraine Code argues for the importance of including those attributes and experiences traditionally excluded from theorizing in epistemology and the philosophy of science:
Feminist critiques of epistemology and philosophy of science/social science have demonstrated that the ideals of the autonomous reasoner -- the dislocated, disinterested observer -- and the epistemologies they inform are the artifacts of a small, privileged group of educated, usually prosperous, white men….Moreover, the ideals of rationality and objectivity that have guided and inspired theorists of knowledge throughout the history of western philosophy have been constructed through processes of excluding the attributes and experiences commonly associated with femaleness and underclass social status: emotion, connection, practicality, sensitivity, and idiosyncrasy. (Code (1993), p. 21)
Helen Longino argues for the causal efficacy of inclusion in achieving objectivity in science:
the greater the number of different points of view included in a given community, the more likely it is that its scientific practice will be objective, that is, that it will result in descriptions and explanations of natural processes that are more reliable in the sense of less characterized by idiosyncratic subjective preferences of community members than would otherwise be the case. The smaller the number, the less likely this will be. (Longino (1990), p. 80)
And Henry Giroux criticizes universalizing, difference-denying metanarratives in a passage I have come to love for its characteristic rhetorical excess:
[A]ll claims to universal reason and impartial competence are rejected [by right-thinking postmodernists] in favor of the partiality and specificity of discourse. General abstractions that deny the specificity and particularity of everyday life, that generalize out of existence the particular and the local, that smother difference under the banner of universalizing categories are rejected as totalitarian and terroristic. (Giroux (1988), p. 14)3

As the most recent citation suggests, in the literature the call for inclusion is typically linked with praise of particularity and criticism of "universalizing" discourse and theory. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter argue the point in the context of epistemology:

Feminist analyses in philosophy, as in other disciplines, have insisted on the significance and particularity of the context of theory. This has led many feminist epistemologists to skepticism about the possibility of a general or universal account of the nature and limits of knowledge, an account that ignores the social context and status of knowers. (Alcoff and Potter (1993), p. 1)

And in the context of science, Sandra Harding similarly criticizes what she regards as science's pretense to universality, and argues that science must give up that pretense, and "start…research from women's lives," paying specific attention to the perspectives and conditions of particular women and other oppressed individuals. (Harding (1991), p. 48)4 Science will benefit, and the objectivity of science will be enhanced, Harding argues, when excluded others are included and their particularities recognized:

women scientists can bring certain benefits to the growth of knowledge if they can find ways to use their experience as women, informed by feminist theorizing, to create a critical perspective on the dominant conceptual schemes and how they shape scientific research and practice. ((1991), p. 70)5

One of the main complaints made against exclusionary discourse practices and theories, as suggested by the most recent citations, is that they overvalue the universal, and undervalue the particular. Universality and particularity are typically linked to exclusion and inclusion in the following way: universalizing discourse and theory -- for example, discourse concerning the traits, interests, or obligations of, and theories which attempt to characterize, all people -- ignore the characteristics of particular, especially marginalized, individuals and groups, and in so doing, exclude them and their perspectives. Thus the valorization of inclusion and inclusionary discourse and theory seems to lead naturally to the valorization of particularity, and the consequent devaluing of universality. Indeed, as one defender of universality puts it, "For the challengers [of universality], the universal is an illusion, and the individual has an identity only as a member of some subgroup." (Searle (1993), p. 31) As more and different types of people freely and equally participate in a discourse, are the objects of the discourse, or are the objects of a theory, the possibility of saying anything both true and important about all of them seems to diminish.6 So, it might seem, we get a less distorted representation of actual states of affairs when we eschew "grand narratives" and "meta-narratives," as postmodernists are fond of putting it,7 and opt instead for inclusion and particularity: that is, for discourse which includes many, indeed all, different groups, and which, rather than seeking a "totalizing" story which includes them all, instead seeks to countenance fully the differences which distinguish one from another: that is, their particularity. Only in this way can we acknowledge, as Nicholas Burbules puts it, that "any attempt to systematize thought inevitably ignores legitimate alternatives and forces disparate groups to account for themselves in terms of monolithic categories that are alien to them." (Burbules 1993, p. 3)8

Philosophy of education is itself a subject about which its practitioners discourse and construct theories; consequently, we can and should ask parallel questions about inclusion, and the virtues of particularity, in our philosophical discourse and theories concerning education. Should philosophers of education value inclusion? If so, should they also value particularity, and devalue universality? Why? Is the relation between inclusion/exclusion, on the one hand, and particularity/universality, on the other, as I have just depicted it? What, if anything, is lost in our decision to reject universality and embrace particularity and inclusion? Can it be that, as Thomas Nagel suggests, to give up on universality is to give up on philosophy itself?9

My aim in what follows is to embrace, and defend, the commitment to inclusion. I share the view that both our discourses and our theories should strive for inclusion. No viewpoint should be systematically excluded from our conversations; no groups or individuals should be rendered invisible or silent by either our practices or our theories.10 But my reasons for embracing inclusion as a conversational and theoretical ideal are somewhat different from those mentioned above. Moreover, I believe that the epistemological ramifications of regarding inclusion as an ideal are other than those mentioned thus far. In particular, it is false, I will argue, that embracing the ideal of inclusion forces us to reject either the aim of striving for universalistic theories -- for example, theories concerning what is true of, or best for, all people -- or the idea that theorizing is governed by fallible, but universally applicable, standards. My separation of inclusion from the rejection of universalism and of standards is a function of my view that inclusion is to be defended on moral rather than epistemic grounds. I embrace inclusion not because universalistic theories necessarily marginalize, silence or oppress, nor because they rest on false or inadequate accounts of knowledge or language.11 Both of these claims are, I think, false. Rather, inclusion should be embraced as a conversational ideal because it is morally wrong to exclude people from, or silence them in, conversations in which they have an interest or stake. To so exclude or silence is to fail to treat such people with respect, and is for that reason impermissible.12 It should be embraced as a theoretical ideal because at least some of our philosophical and other theories concerning people, their aims, and their ideals take as their subject matter all people, and thus are defective insofar as they speak only of the features, interests, or properties of some, and insofar as they misrepresent the nature of some people by theorizing about them as if they were otherwise than they, in fact, are. Why value inclusion, then? In brief, because it is morally wrong to exclude.13

Inclusion is not an epistemic virtue. By this I mean that inclusive theories are not in general more likely than exclusive theories to be true, or justified, and inclusive discourses are not in general more likely than exclusive discourses to yield such epistemically worthy theories; that is, there is no necessary connection between inclusion and epistemic worthiness, or between exclusion and epistemic defectiveness.14 On the one hand, inclusionary discourse routinely gives rise to false beliefs and theories. For example, "the Earth is flat" was believed by virtually everyone in medieval Europe. No persons, groups or alternative viewpoints were excluded from conversation concerning it. Nevertheless, it was/is false. It is arguable whether or not this belief, although false, was justified for its Medieval believers, but other such beliefs -- concerning, for example, the existence and properties of local deities, or the causal origins of sneezing -- seem clearly to have been unjustified, despite the inclusive character of the relevant discourse. More recent examples include widely shared beliefs in this century concerning the transmission of certain diseases (for example, via toilet seat or frog). We have, then, a wide range of counterexamples to the thesis that there is a necessary connection between inclusion and epistemic goodness.

On the other hand, there are equally many counterexamples to the view that exclusion necessarily results in epistemic defect. Exclusionary discourses routinely yield epistemically worthy -- true and/or justified -- theories. Here, the obvious examples, though not the only ones, are from science. Modern physical and biological theories, as feminist and other recent scholarship shows, developed in discourses from which women and most non-European men were systematically excluded. Nevertheless, many of these theories enjoy impressive epistemic credentials -- which we all implicitly acknowledge every time we fly in an airplane, communicate electronically, or visit a trained physician.15

Since inclusion is routinely conjoined with epistemic weakness, and exclusion with epistemic strength, it seems a mistake to regard inclusion as an epistemic virtue.16 Rather, inclusion is a moral virtue, and should be valued as such. People and groups deserve inclusion not because of any special epistemic privilege they enjoy, nor because including them necessarily increases the probability of obtaining true or justified theories, but rather because of "the demands of justice." (Bar On (1993), p. 97) This simple view of exclusion as primarily a moral wrong will be developed further as we proceed.

In saying that inclusion is not an epistemic virtue, I do not mean to deny that in some sorts of cases, inclusive theories are, indeed, closer to the truth than exclusive ones, or that inclusive research communities, at least in certain sorts of circumstances, stand a better chance of obtaining worthwhile results than exclusive communities. For example, as feminist and other scholars have shown, the exclusion of women, Blacks, and other "Others" from the social science community has been partly responsible for a variety of misogynist, racist, heterosexist, and just plain silly theories (for example, those concerning brain size and intelligence and racial superiority). We should straightforwardly accept the point, stressed by Harding, Longino, and many others, that inclusion, by adding previously ignored perspectives to scientific research and debate, can and often does serve to correct and enhance ongoing theorizing. In this sense, I happily agree that inclusion can be, and often is, an epistemic or methodological virtue.17

But the sorts of inadequacies illustrated in these examples are not unique to exclusion; any theory which is inadequate in these ways is, to that extent, defective. Notice, moreover, that any theory can be defective in these ways; there is no reason to think that exclusionary discourses will inevitably suffer from these defects, and exclusion is only one of many possible sources of them. (Others include lack of information, inadequate sources of evidence, inadequate tools and techniques of gathering and evaluating evidence, etc.) Perfectly inclusionary discourses can also manifest these defects due to lack of imagination, failure to criticize theoretical presuppositions, etc. In at least many such cases, they can be remedied without enhancing the inclusivity of the discourse, simply by utilizing standard methodological techniques: gathering more data, being more critical of one's presuppositions and one's methodology, etc.18 Finally, while it is true that increasing inclusivity and alternative perspectives within the relevant scientific discourse might aid in the discovery and eradication of such defects, it is also true that decreasing inclusivity might so aid (for example, by removing "red herrings" from the theoretical environment). The upshot of all this is that the sort of defect we have been considering should not be regarded as having any necessary relation either to inclusion or its opposite. Inclusion is not necessary for good science; exclusion does not guarantee bad science.

Moreover, the attention to particularity which, as we have seen, is often regarded as the hallmark of inclusion is, in some cases, simply irrelevant to the theoretical issue being considered. This is especially the case in ethical matters, but is found throughout the realm of philosophical theorizing. For example, if, as philosophical consultant to Amnesty International, I am engaged in the project of constructing a theory accounting for the immorality of torture, false imprisonment, "disappearances," and other noxious political activities, my theory need not and should not concern itself with the particularities of the victims of these benighted deeds. There is no factual flaw here; the theory which explains the wrongness of such acts will not deny the real differences which exist among the victims. Rather, their particularity, while genuine, and no doubt important in other contexts, will be simply irrelevant to the moral wrongness of the deeds.19

I have been trying in the last several paragraphs to defend the view that inclusion is better seen as a moral than as an epistemic virtue; that is, that the case for inclusion is fundamentally a moral rather than an epistemic one. Having done so, I am now in position to treat the real subjects of this paper. In what follows I consider certain epistemological ramifications of recent discussions of inclusion, exclusion, particularity, and universality. First, I will challenge the idea that embracing inclusion as an ideal of discourse and theory requires us to give up on the possibility of universal "meta-narratives" or theories concerning all people. Here I will argue that the parallels drawn above, between inclusion and particularity and between exclusion and universality, are mistaken. I will try to show that universality and particularity are not, in fact, mutually exclusive, and that any theory (or "meta-narrative") worthy of the name -- and of our assent -- will be both particular and universal. If so, then the embrace of inclusion and the valorization of the particular do not force the rejection of the universal. Consequently, the rejection or devaluation of the universal is not a price we must pay for our desire to be inclusive in our discourse and in our theories.

Second, I will argue that embracing inclusion as an ideal governing our philosophical discourse about education (or anything else) need not discredit our maintenance of scholarly standards of argumentative quality. I will argue that maintaining scholarly standards, while insuring a certain sort of exclusivity, need not worry us, for the sorts of discourse/theory excluded are properly excluded, and therefore that this sort of exclusion is not in violation of our commitment to inclusion.

RECONCILING UNIVERSALITY AND PRTICULARITY
I have always supposed that the universal and the particular are compatible, that grounding in a particular historical and cultural matrix is inevitable and could not conceivably be in conflict with universal principles. (Scheffler (1995), p. 14)

I begin by noting a simple and obvious difficulty facing anyone who wishes, for whatever reason, to renounce universality and accept only particularity. Consider some articulations of this position, for example:

(1) There are no universal truths; truths are always particular, or
(2) There is no universal "human nature"; there are no properties shared by all humans.

(1), which purports to reject universality and universal truths, is itself universal: (1) speaks of all (and no) truths; it says that all truths are of particular objects (or contents), and that none of them are true of universal classes of objects. Similarly, (2), in denying any universal human nature, declares this denial in universal form: no property had by any human will be had by every other; all properties which some humans possess will fail to be possessed by others. In denying the universal, it appears, one embraces it; one cannot escape the universal by denying it. Thinkers like Lyotard, who try to reject the universal as illegitimate, routinely run into this problem.20

This simple dilemma is surprisingly difficult to overcome for the theorist who systematically attempts to reject universality. But I do not want to rest only on it; I want, rather, to focus on the idea that the universal and the particular are mutually exclusive, so that a commitment to embrace, and not marginalize, particularity entails that one strive to avoid universalistic theorizing. That entailment is illusory; a focus on particularity, as the motto from Scheffler at the head of this section suggests, in no way precludes universality. A commitment to particularity and inclusion does not force, or even suggest, a rejection of the universal.

The idea that particularity and universality are mutually exclusive and exhaustive -- the idea that we must opt for one or the other -- is clearly defended in the work of Richard Rorty. Rorty contrasts "objectivity" -- the view that as philosophical inquirers we must "step outside our community long enough to examine it in the light of something which transcends it, namely, that which it has in common with every other actual and possible human community," perhaps "an ahistorical human nature" (Rorty (1989), p. 36) -- with "solidarity," according to which people locate themselves with reference to some community, and which conceives inquiry and inquirers as fundamentally "ethnocentric" (37). Rorty embraces solidarity: "we must, in practice, privilege our own group, even though there can be no noncircular justification for doing so"; in doing so, he embraces "[t]his lonely provincialism, this admission that we are just the historical moment that we are." (44) He argues that striving after objectivity is but "an attempt to avoid facing up to contingency." (46)

I do not want here to offer any sort of systematic criticism of Rorty, though I believe that his general view suffers from overwhelming difficulties.21 I want, instead, to emphasize that, in embracing solidarity over objectivity, Rorty is rejecting the sort of universalistic, trans-historical perspective he identifies the latter tradition as striving to articulate and embrace.22 He holds that this sort of universality is philosophically untenable, and that the only alternative is to settle for solidarity with non-universalistic particularity. (e.g. (1989a), pp. 190-192) That is, he holds that the objectivity/solidarity dichotomy, and consequently the universality/particularity dichotomy, is exclusive and exhaustive; while one must embrace either particularity or universality, one cannot embrace both.23 Is this correct?

Ernest Sosa argues that it is not: "the dichotomy of objectivity or solidarity is false. We want both inquiry and community, and often we want each, in part, for the sake of the other." (1987, p. 726, emphases in original) Similarly, Jay F. Rosenberg argues not only that the dichotomy is problematic, but that the universal or objective is needed to intelligibly conceive the practical, local correctives that Rorty's liberal needs. (1993, p. 207). But I want to address the issue directly, without further reference to Rorty. I will next present an argument intended to establish the compatibility of the universal and the particular.24

My argument is simple. The fact that humans are always located in specific cultural/historical settings does not undermine our collective ability to reach beyond our local settings and speak to broader audiences and arenas of concern. We always judge from the perspective of our own conceptual scheme; there is no way to escape from all schemes and judge from a God's-eye point of view. Since our schemes reflect our cultural/historical circumstances, then these circumstances constitute limits on our judgment; we cannot escape them entirely. I agree with these premises, but some draw from them the conclusion that universality, or a perspective unencumbered by our particular situation, is impossible; that our judgments cannot, in principle, have any force beyond the bounds of our own location or scheme. From this conclusion, I dissent.25

I will not dally over the obvious logical difficulty that anyone who presses that conclusion on the basis of those (or any other) premises presumes the legitimacy of the very sort of universality she is out to reject, since she thinks that the conclusion follows from those premises for everyone, judging from whatever conceptual/cultural/historical scheme. Instead, I want to argue that the argument is a non sequitur, and that its conclusion is false. If all of our judgments are made from the perspective of whatever scheme we happen to employ -- which they are -- then, according to that argument, none of them have any such legitimacy. But counter-examples to this thesis abound. Many of my arithmetical/mathematical judgments, for example, though made from my scheme, surely have legitimacy, and are correct, even though small children and members of certain other cultures26 do not share either my scheme or my judgments. Important scientific theories, likewise, have application and validity beyond the scheme of those who invented them and their cultural mates -- space "curves," and mass is convertible with energy, for example, even for those whose schemes do not sanction these judgments.27

Counterexamples to the thesis under discussion -- that the epistemic legitimacy of judgments is bounded by the perspective of the scheme from which the judgments are made -- are not restricted to the mathematical and scientific domains. Moral and social/political judgments also aspire to, and sometimes achieve, extra-scheme legitimacy: for example, our judgment that oppression and marginalization are wrong, though made from the perspective of our own scheme, is thought (by us) to have legitimacy beyond the sharers of that scheme. Similarly, even though racist, patriarchal, and heterosexist schemes approve of their associated forms of marginalization and oppression, we have no difficulty in criticizing such schemes, or the judgments made within them, as inadequate or unjust. Indeed, to advocate inclusion is to insist upon the scheme-independent28 legitimacy of such criticism. If our pro-inclusionary stance does not permit this, on what basis can we advocate and try to ensure that others endorse and practice inclusion as well?29

The central point is this: though we judge from the perspectives of our own schemes, our judgments and their legitimacy regularly extend beyond the bounds of those schemes. Thomas McCarthy, in discussing the conception of truth as ideal "rational acceptability" advocated by Hilary Putnam (1981), and utilizing Putnam's30 "immanent/transcendent" distinction, articulates the point well:

any adequate account of truth as rational acceptability will have to capture not only its immanence -- i.e., its socially situated character -- but its transcendence as well. While we may have no idea of standards of rationality wholly independent of historically concrete languages and practices, it remains that reason serves as an ideal with reference to which we can criticize the standards we inherit. Though never divorced from social practices of justification, the idea of reason can never be reduced to any particular set of such practices. Correspondingly, the notion of truth, while essentially related to warranted assertibility by the standards or warrants of this or that culture, cannot be reduced to any particular set of standards or warrants. To put this another way, we can, and typically do, make historically situated and fallible claims to universal validity. (McCarthy 1988, p. 82)

As Putnam puts it:

If reason is both transcendent and immanent, then philosophy, as culture-bound reflection and argument about eternal questions, is both in time and eternity. We don't have an Archimedean point; we always speak the language of a time and place; but the rightness and wrongness of what we say is not just for a time and a place. (Putnam (1982), p. 21, emphasis in original)

Immanence does not preclude transcendence; as both Putnam and McCarthy suggest, our judgments, while immanent, also strive for transcendence. There is no difficulty in thinking that, occasionally, they attain that transcendence; nor is there any reason to think that it is impossible, in principle, that they might. Consequently, the fact that our judgments are immanent does not entail their non-transcendence. Thus, the argument that immanence and transcendence are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and that, since we cannot escape immanence, we must reject transcendence, fails.31

Just as immanence does not entail the denial of transcendence, particularity does not entail the denial of universality. Our judgments inevitably reflect particularity: they are made by particular people, in particular historical and cultural circumstances. But this fact in no way undermines the universality of some of our judgments. Any statement, of universal principle or of anything else, will be situated and located, and will reflect the particularities of that locale, but this does not force the conclusion that such statements are not universal, either in their applicability or in their legitimacy. The particular and the universal are not mutually exclusive; at least some of our judgments are both. If so, we need not give up the universal in embracing inclusion and the particular.32

If the preceding discussion is cogent, then it is a mistake to think that valuing inclusion, and the particularity of the included, requires devaluing the universal -- just as it is a mistake to think that opting for "solidarity" requires rejecting "objectivity," or that championing "immanence" precludes our striving for "transcendence." When we include others in our discourses and as objects of our theories, we include also their particularity. When our theorizing concerns that particularity, but fails to see it, our theories are straightforwardly defective on factual grounds. When our theories are not in this way defective because they take due account of that particularity, or when they ignore particularity because they correctly note its irrelevance to the question at hand, they are not precluded from waxing universal. More generally, there is no contradiction, or even tension, between acknowledging particularity and at the same time constructing universalistic theories. Ideals, and theoretical claims about them, can be both particular and universal. Consequently, embracing particularity does nothing to undercut the universal.33 Philosophical theories, as Nagel suggests -- including philosophical theories concerning education -- are inevitably concerned with universal claims, concerning (in the latter class of theories) all students, all teaching, all learning, all educational ideals, institutions and practices, all particularities, or whatever. Such claims, to be cogent, must not ignore particularity (except in cases in which it can be shown to be irrelevant to the issue being addressed). But they can fully account for, and respect, that particularity, without compromising their universality. If so, then we can have inclusion in our conversations and our theories without paying the price of limiting ourselves to particularities and giving up on the universal. The universal/particular dichotomy is one that advocates of inclusion should reject.34

INCLUSION AND STANDARDS: CAN WE HAVE BOTH? SHOULD WE TRY?

As we have seen, there is, in the present philosophy and philosophy of education environments, much talk of the virtues of inclusion, multiple voices and perspectives, etc. Mainstream (white, privileged, "malestream") philosophy of education is often criticized on the grounds that it mistakenly and immorally excludes the voices and perspectives of the marginalized, silenced, oppressed and unprivileged others. How might mainstream philosophy of education accomplish this silencing and oppression? It is sometimes suggested that it does so by relying upon disciplinary "standards," standards which are portrayed as unbiased, neutral determiners of quality -- standards of argumentative rigor, for example -- which, in fact, tip the playing field in favor of the dominant, hegemonic group of mainstream practitioners of the craft.35 This suggests, in turn, that rejecting this sort of oppression requires the rejection of all such standards since these standards are, in the end, what is responsible for the silencing and exclusion of non-traditional views and perspectives. If so, then it appears that we cannot have both inclusion and standards: if we have standards, certain voices will be excluded; if we have inclusion, we will have to give up our standards. How is this argument to be evaluated? Can the apparent tension between inclusion and standards be resolved?

The objection that extant standards are themselves exclusionary and so must be rejected by defenders of inclusion has been developed most impressively by feminist writers whose discussions focus on the exclusionary character of allegedly rational standards; I will focus on that version of the objection in what follows. Many feminist philosophers, (for example, Susan Bordo, Genevieve Lloyd, Evelyn Fox Keller, Sandra Harding, and Hilary Rose, among numerous others) have argued that "reason" is problematically "male."36 The central contention is clearly articulated by Louise M. Antony and Charlotte Witt:

Feminist challenges have, indeed, reached into the "'hard core' of abstract reasoning" itself, with charges that the most fundamental elements of the Western philosophical tradition -- the ideals of reason and objectivity -- are so deeply corrupted by patriarchy that they must be greatly transformed (if not utterly abandoned) by any philosopher committed to the development of conceptions of knowledge and reality adequate to the transformative goals of feminism. (Antony and Witt (1993), p. xiii. The embedded citation is from Harding and Hintikka (1983), p. ix.)

and by Sally Haslanger:

a rational stance is itself a stance of oppression or domination, and accepted ideals of reason both reflect and reinforce power relations that advantage white privileged men. (Haslanger (1993), p. 85)

and, in a critical discussion of Catharine MacKinnon, by Elizabeth Rapaport:

For MacKinnon, rationality is an enemy to be unmasked and destroyed. (Rapaport (1993), p. 129)

As MacKinnon develops the point:

The kind of analysis that such a feminism is, and, specifically, the standard by which it is accepted as valid, is largely a matter of the criteria one adopts for adequacy in a theory. If feminism is a critique of the objective standpoint as male, then we also disavow standard scientific norms as the adequacy criteria for our theory, because the objective standpoint we criticize is the posture of science. In other words, our critique of the objective standpoint as male is a critique of science as a specifically male approach to knowledge. With it, we reject male criteria for verification. (MacKinnon (1987), p. 54, last two emphases added)37

What follows from the rejection of "male criteria?" There are only two possibilities: either that there are no criteria in terms of which theories can be evaluated, or that there are different criteria which should be appealed to in theory evaluation. The first of these is deeply problematic. If there are no criteria in terms of which we can legitimately evaluate theories, then the very possibility of evaluation is rejected. But this option is self-defeating: if evaluation in general is rejected, then we are unable to evaluate or rationally prefer the suggestions that male criteria should be rejected, or that evaluation, itself, should likewise be rejected. But then we have no reason to accept these suggestions. Normative evaluation cannot be entirely given up; to attempt to do so is, as Putnam suggests, to attempt "mental suicide."38

On the other hand, the rejection of male criteria of theory evaluation in favor of other, incompatible, "female criteria," must -- if the preference for the latter is to be defensible and non-arbitrary -- rely upon (meta-)criteria in accordance with which these two rival sets of criteria can, themselves, be fairly evaluated. Standards and criteria are, in this way, required for the conducting of any sort of serious scholarly endeavor, including that of arguing for the ideal of inclusion (or for feminism). In short, one cannot coherently embrace the ideal of inclusion and, at the same time, reject standards entirely.39 And, with respect to MacKinnon's rejection of the standards of science, and so science, itself, as male, it is difficult not to see this as a classic instance of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. Consider in this regard the comment of (lesbian philosopher of science) Noretta Koertge:

If it really could be shown that patriarchal thinking not only played a crucial role in the Scientific Revolution but is also necessary for carrying out scientific inquiry as we know it, that would constitute the strongest argument for patriarchy I can think of! I continue to believe that science -- even white, upperclass, male-dominated science -- is one of the most important allies of oppressed people. (Koertge (1981), p. 354)40

Martha Nussbaum similarly suggests that feminist philosophers err if they reject reason and objectivity in their endeavor to combat patriarchy:

Convention and habit are women's enemies here, and reason their ally. Habit decrees that what seems strange is impossible and "unnatural"; reason looks head on at the strange, refusing to assume that the current status quo is either immutable or in any normative sense "natural." The appeal to reason and objectivity amounts to a request that the observer refuse to be intimidated by habit, and look for cogent arguments based on evidence that has been carefully sifted for bias. (Nussbaum (1994), p. 59)

Of course, to say that standards are required for the rational defense of the ideal of inclusion, or that rational standards are required for any sort of serious intellectual work whatever, is not to say that particular standards, or particular understandings of them, are, themselves, beyond critical challenge. On the contrary, one major sort of intellectual advance is precisely the sort which allows us to realize that our standards, or our interpretations of them, have, in one way or another, been defective and stand in need of criticism and improvement.41 Indeed, one of the main contributions of feminist scholarship (since we have lately been considering feminist scholarship) has been, precisely, to establish that particular standards, or particular applications of them, have been problematically biased against women. But it is not possible (coherently) to reject particular standards as biased, and simultaneously to reject standards of evaluation generally.42 For in doing the latter, one gives up the very possibility of evaluation in which case the rejection of the rejected standard is unwarranted. Moreover, one cannot reject all standards and evaluation and, at the same time, embrace particular standards. In particular, one cannot reject all standards, and the very possibility of evaluation and, at the same time, embrace the importance of inclusion as an ideal or as a standard of evaluation of discourses and/or theories. Consequently, if we value inclusion -- as we should -- we must have, and value, standards as well. Not only is there no fundamental incompatibility between inclusion and standards; the former requires the latter. The apparent tension between inclusion and standards with which this section began is not a genuine one. We can debate the merits of particular standards and criteria, and particular understandings, interpretations, and applications of them, of course. But we cannot reject standards and criteria altogether -- not, at least, if we wish to uphold the value of inclusion.43

I have been arguing that there is no general incompatibility between inclusion and standards. But that is not to say that accepting particular standards does not result in exclusion. Of course it does: if we embrace standards governing our scholarly endeavors, then we will exclude all work which fails to meet those standards. Similarly, there is a genuine tension between inclusion and one common standard -- namely, that of qualifications or expertise. For some discourses, not everyone is qualified or competent to participate. The most obvious case is that concerning conversations among specialists on arcane matters. My grandmother, for example, is best left out of a conversation among postmodernist theorists concerning the philosophical or other merits of the latest wave of postmodernist theorizing (and so, for that matter, am I), just as my grandfather has no rightful place in a conversation concerning the prospects for the development of a grand unified "theory of everything" in physics or the methodological details of an attempt to detect solar neutrinos. Participants in such conversations can surely distinguish between those who clearly can, and those who clearly cannot meaningfully contribute to their conversations, and are surely within their rights to prefer the former. Of course, that is not to suggest that someone who feels wrongly excluded cannot protest or try to show how their exclusion is in some way or other unjust or otherwise mistaken. Nevertheless, for conversations to be maximally functional, or maximally interesting, informative, or communicative for their participants, some potential participants may well be best left out. There is, then, a point to be noted, which is often not noted by advocates of inclusion, about the qualifications of participants in the discourse. For many -- perhaps most -- discourses -- everyone is qualified. This is especially true of discourses concerning social and political values and practices, the outcomes of which affect everyone. But for some discourses -- perhaps including this one -- that is simply not so. Of course the conversation can always be expanded: we can ask, for example, not just how to get my software to accomplish some recondite goal, but why we should try to achieve that goal in the first place. Here many more voices will be qualified. The point remains, nevertheless, that for some conversations, exclusion is perfectly legitimate on the basis of (lack of) appropriate expertise. This sort of justified exclusion is not unlike laws which prohibit minors from voting, or untrained drivers from obtaining licenses and driving on public roads (a serious problem here in Miami).

I trust it is clear that this sort of exclusion -- on the basis of lack of qualifications or expertise -- is completely compatible with the ideal of inclusion articulated and defended above. For exclusion based upon either lack of qualifications or expertise, or failure to meet appropriate standards governing scholarly exchange, involves no moral failing. It does not fail to treat the excluded with respect. But as argued above, it is the latter failing which forces the rejection of exclusion and the embrace of inclusion. Consequently, this sort of exclusion constitutes no problem for advocates of inclusion.

WHY CARE (ABOUT EPISTEMOLOGY, JUSTIFICATION, RATIONALITY, ETC.)?
A BRIEF MA-PHILOSOPHICAL DIGRESSION

As we have seen, many philosophers and philosophers of education today accept the view that exclusion is bad, and that these areas of scholarship ought to open themselves up to hitherto excluded voices. Many of these same philosophers, it seems -- especially those who embrace postmodernism and/or proclaim "the end of philosophy" -- deny that that view stands in need of (or enjoys) rational justification. ( See, for example, various essays in Cohen and Dascal (1989) and Baynes, Bohman, and McCarthy (1987).) Such a stance -- let us call it, for the moment, the "irrelevance of epistemology" view -- has always struck me as unacceptable. To hold a position seriously, and yet deny the need to ground it with reasons which justify one's holding it, is incoherent, since to hold it seriously involves as presuppositions both that it is, in principle, possible for it to be justified by reasons, and that the position does, in fact, enjoy such justification. Thus, as argued above, to seriously endorse (for example) inclusion, yet to deny that it enjoys or need enjoy rational justification, is to involve oneself in a logical contradiction. More weakly, it is to involve oneself in a performative contradiction of the sort discussed at length in the work of Habermas, Apel, Benhabib, and others working in the domains of critical theory and discourse ethics. Consequently, if one seriously endorses inclusion -- or indeed anything else -- one has, perforce, to be concerned with issues of justification concerning both the justification of inclusion in particular, and the nature and possibility of epistemic justification more generally.

But this sort of transcendental44 argument will be of little interest to those not already disposed to worry about rational justification and related epistemological matters. And many simply are not so disposed. Such worries are often seen these days as relics of a discredited Enlightenment project, a project which is exclusionary, sexist, racist, heterosexist, and thoroughly undeserving of our respect. In rejecting this project, these thinkers also reject the philosophical importance of epistemological ("Enlightenment") questions concerning rationality and rational justification. What can be said to this? Why should philosophers of education today care about these issues?

My friend and colleague Nick Burbules, in advising me about this address, recommended that I resist the temptation to offer "yet another transcendental argument," and instead try to teach such critics of the Enlightenment project why they should care about "my" issues. I do not think that I am able to do that, but I am grateful to Burbules for his suggestion; I would dearly love to do what he recommends. So I hope you will forgive the following brief attempt to address this question. Why should we care about epistemology? About the epistemic force of transcendental arguments? About rational justification? About whether or not our commitment to inclusionary discourses and theories itself enjoys some measure of rational justification, whether or not it fits into a broad, credible view of philosophy, knowledge, persons, and justice?

There is a clear practical answer to this question. If one is concerned that excluded voices be included, one will have to persuade the agents and institutions of exclusion both that exclusion is taking place, and that inclusion is preferable to it. While such persuasion need not be rational (it could, for example, involve force), rational persuasion might, at least, be the least costly and most effective sort of persuasion available. If so, then worrying about issues of justification will contribute to the practical task of bringing about more inclusionary scholarly and social environments. Here we have a practical, instrumental reason for taking epistemology seriously.

There is also a good philosophical answer to the question, part of which has been sketched above. One should care about these epistemological issues because resolving them is relevant to the establishment of the philosophical case for inclusion and, for advocates of inclusion as a philosophical (rather than as a merely practical or political) ideal, such resolution is important.

I favor the philosophical reason, but I am trying here to address those who reject it outright as a manifestation of a bankrupt and corrupt Enlightenment project. For such persons, the practical answer may be the most persuasive reason for caring about epistemology I can give.

I suspect that, in the end, this disagreement concerns alternative visions of philosophy. On my (admittedly traditional) view, philosophy is fundamentally concerned with reasons, arguments, and, with Socrates, is committed to following the argument wherever it leads -- that is, to basing belief and action on epistemically forceful reasons. The aim of the exercise is the discovery of philosophical truths. While those truths may concern matters of social justice, the philosophical enterprise does not have as its goal the bringing about of social justice or social transformation, Marx's thesis on Feuerbach to the contrary notwithstanding. But a rival view of philosophy -- well captured by Marx's thesis that "[t]he philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point, however, is to change it" (Marx, in Feuer (1959), p. 245, emphases in original) -- takes the aim of the enterprise to be not the securing of truth or rational justification, but the achievement of social transformation. On such a view, concern for epistemology might well seem politically regressive. Can anything be said here? How is one or the other view of philosophy to be defended?

Alas, I am unable to follow Burbules' sage advice; I cannot resist the temptation to wax transcendental. All I can do is argue, in my old-fashioned way, that once the issue is seen in terms of a conflict between rival conceptions of philosophy, all we can do is ask "Which conception is more defensible?" Answering this question sets us off on the traditional project of seeking and evaluating reasons, and, thus, with taking seriously the epistemological issues that the advocates of the alternative vision of philosophy reject. So I am unable to teach anyone who is not already persuaded that they should care about these issues why they should. All I can say is: if you do not, then whatever you are doing/worrying about, it is not (on my view) philosophy. Why care? Because philosophy requires that you do. If we can agree to debate the merits of these rival conceptions of philosophy, then my transcendental argument -- this time, it takes the form: if it is genuinely possible to debate the relative merits of these alternative conceptions of philosophy, then it is necessary that we seek reasons for our respective views and base our judgments upon such reasons, and so, that we accept that reasons can have epistemic force and in this way recognize the legitimacy of epistemology -- kicks in, and you should be persuaded. Of course, you may deny that it is possible to so debate. In this case my transcendental argument has no force against you. Here I can only console myself that, since you deny that your vision of philosophy enjoys rational support which mine does not, you have not joined the issue or provided any reason for thinking that my conception is inadequate. To join the issue, there is no alternative but to take epistemology seriously. That, in the end, is all that my argument can show. But it is, I think, quite enough. The answer to the question, then, is: You should care about epistemology if you care about philosophy, or inclusion, or justice, at all.

CONCLUSION

If my arguments are sound, then accepting inclusion as a conversational and theoretical ideal does not require that we give up either universalistic theories, or scholarly standards. There is no significant moral or epistemological price to pay for embracing that ideal. The price of inclusion is low; its value exceedingly high. I realize that many contemporary advocates of inclusion will not be enthusiastic about having me on their side, given the sort of philosophy I do and the interests I am thereby seen to represent.45 Nevertheless, I have tried to show that embracing the moral and political value of inclusion does not require that we pay the price of abandoning either the philosophical quest for the universal or the commitment to standards of scholarly excellence. In so doing, I have tried to contribute, however modestly, to philosophical efforts to justify the valuing of inclusionary theories and discourses; to criticize theories and discourses which are, in fact, exclusionary in a morally or politically noxious way; to show that not all exclusions are of that noxious or oppressive sort; to make clear that, in certain contexts, at least, it is quite justifiable to practice exclusion on the basis of a lack of relevant qualifications or expertise, or failure to meet relevant standards; and to show that embracing inclusion as a moral and political ideal governing our discourses and our philosophical theories is compatible both with the possibility of "universalistic" theories which do not limit themselves to the particular, and with the embrace of disciplinary standards. Since neither of these are compatible with many contemporary understandings of postmodernism, I conclude by pointing out that inclusion is not the intellectual property of postmodernists alone: one can, and, in my view, should, embrace the ideal of inclusion and retain both the aim, articulated by Nagel, of striving for universal theories in philosophy, and the aim of having our theories conform to the highest standards of disciplinary adequacy it is in our power to achieve.46

For responses to this essay, see Bailin and Morgan.

1. For a general discussion of the importance of inclusion in education, see Burbules (1993). I have learned much from Burbules's insightful discussions, both in print and in a variety of less formal media.
While I cite several advocates of inclusion below, I should acknowledge the fact that there are other important advocates, e.g. Habermas and Benhabib, whose discussions deserve explicit treatment but to which constraints of space forbid attention here.
2. By way of illustration of the general thesis concerning the value of inclusion, Weinstein argues compellingly that it is the exclusion of "women's perspectives" "that marks patriarchal frames as inadequate." (ibid.) For a systematic evaluation of Weinstein's forceful analysis, see Siegel (1993). For Weinstein's rejoinder, which unfortunately I cannot discuss here, see Weinstein (1994). I am indebted to Weinstein for teaching me much of what little I know about postmodernist critiques of "modernist" philosophy of education.
3. I should note that Lyotard also uses "terror" in this way -- see, e.g., his selection in Baynes, Bohman, and McCarthy (1987), pp. 89-90; and that Giroux (1988, pp. 14 ff.) acknowledges difficulties with this Lyotardian view of "theoretical terrorism" and with postmodernism more generally. For critical discussion of the Giroux passage, see Siegel (1995), pp. 39 ff.
4. I should point out that while in some passages (like this one) Harding criticizes science's pretense to universality and urges its abandonment, in other passages she harshly criticizes scientific institutions for failing to live up to their proclaimed commitment to the ideal of universality, according to which "the social identity of its members is irrelevant to achievement" ((1991), p. 32), thus embracing that very ideal.
5. Harding emphasizes the importance of inclusion throughout her work, e.g. Harding (1991), p. 170; Harding (1989), p. 196.
6. For example, a generalization concerning a particular group, such as "philosophers regard philosophical argumentation as if it were a form of armed combat, in which the arms are words and the purpose of the discourse is to defeat the opponent" (for discussion see Moulton (1983)), may be plausible when the philosophers under consideration are, in key respects, alike (e.g., white, middle-class males, trained in "prestigious" North American analytically-oriented graduate departments), but less plausible when other philosophers (feminist, African, Native American, Asian, Indian, those trained in continental and other traditions, etc.) are included. More broadly, traditional accounts of human nature which emphasize rationality, and conceive of rationality as something wholly distinct from emotion, might be thought (and are thought by many feminist writers) to exclude women from the broad class of humans.
7. The locus classicus here is, of course, Lyotard (1984).
8. I hasten to point out that Burbules takes himself here to be describing a central theme of postmodernism, but not wholeheartedly endorsing it. As his discussion makes clear, he is sympathetic with some aspects of postmodernism, but not all.
9. "Philosophy cannot take refuge in reduced ambitions. It is after eternal and nonlocal truth, even though we know that is not what we are going to get." (Nagel (1986), p. 10)
10. Except, in some contexts, on the basis of lack of relevant qualifications or expertise. This exception is discussed below.
11. For criticism of the latter claim, especially with respect to Derrida, see Siegel (1995a). For general discussion of the epistemological presuppositions and ramifications of postmodernism, radical politics and pedagogy, and inclusion, and for arguments against the view that these moral matters should be understood in epistemic terms, see Siegel (1993, 1995), in which I argue that one needs to distinguish moral from epistemic virtue in order to argue the case for the moral desirability of inclusion.
12. Treating people with respect does not of course entail that we regard all beliefs or viewpoints as equally good. Treating a person with respect is compatible with regarding her views as unjustified or false.
13. There is also, sometimes, an additional benefit which accrues to inclusion: as just noted, it is factually incorrect to attribute to particular people properties they do not, in fact, have, and striving for inclusion can sometimes help to avoid this mistake. This virtue is discussed further below.
14. I am grateful here to Nick Burbules, whose penetrating criticism made me see the need to clarify what I mean by "epistemic virtue."
15. This is not to say that modern science is unproblematically wonderful -- far from it. Recent scholarship has demonstrated the many ways in which contemporary theory and research suffers from biases, blindspots, and much else. These genuine defects do not, however, tarnish the positive epistemic credentials which our best theories enjoy.
16. Although I agree with Longino that inclusion can have a salutary causal effect in helping to avoid idiosyncrasy and in that way increasing the chances of attaining objectivity in our theoretical endeavors, and I agree that in this sense inclusion can be seen as an epistemic virtue. A related point is made by Searle (1993, p. 46).
17. Distinguish between (1) rules governing the conduct of inquiry, and (2) criteria for evaluating the products of inquiry. I have been arguing that inclusion might be an epistemic or methodological virtue in the first sense, but not the second. For the distinction, see Haack (1993), pp. 203-5.
18. In this respect the Kohlberg/Gilligan case is instructive. The fact of the matter, apparently, is that it took Gilligan to point out that Kohlberg's theory rested on a non-representative sample, and to explore the theoretical implications of that bias. But the importance of fair sampling was (or should have been) well understood by Kohlberg and his male (and female) associates. How likely it is that the inclusion of "other" voices and perspectives will be causally efficacious in exposing bias and increasing objectivity is an open question; I am inclined to think, with Longino, Searle, and others, that, in many cases, the likelihood is reasonably high. I have been endeavoring to challenge only the idea that such inclusion will inevitably, or necessarily, so result. Thanks to Denis Phillips for suggesting that I consider this case.
19. For further discussion, see Siegel (1993) and (1995).
20. See the selection from Lyotard (1984) reprinted in Baynes, Bohman, and McCarthy (1987), pp. 73-94, and also the editors' introduction to that selection. This difficulty is related to that of attempting to reject all meta-narratives; on this point see Siegel (1993, 1995), and Fraser and Nicholson (1989, p. 289).
21. In particular, it is unclear why we should accept Rorty's claim that the impossibility of objectivity or universality follows from, or is entailed by, contingency -- especially in light of the fact that the very notion of entailment on which this argument depends is, itself, only understandable in universalistic terms -- that the premises entail the conclusion whoever is considering the argument. (Of course Rorty wants, sometimes, to reject the very idea that he is arguing (Rorty (1989a), p. 44), despite the fact that his writing is full of arguments, and would be unintelligible without the assumption that he is, in fact, engaging in argumentation.) The argument that language, self and community are contingent, and therefore, universality is impossible or unachievable, is simply a non sequitur.
Two powerful criticisms of Rorty are Sosa's (1987) and Rosenberg's hilarious and hard-hitting (1993).
22. Rorty also embraces "solidarity" in quite another sense: that which is public and contrasts with the private and the ideal of self-creation. (Of course he embraces self-creation as well as this sort of solidarity, so the public/private dichotomy, unlike the solidarity/objectivity dichotomy, is in Rorty's hands not mutually exclusive; one can embrace both public solidarity and private self-creation, even though the two are "forever incommensurable.") (1989a, p. xv) I note this only to make clear that there are (at least) two notions of "solidarity" in play in Rorty's discussion; the two are not always distinguished.
23. Rorty, of course, is not alone here. In fact, in the introduction to their (1987), Baynes, Bohman, and McCarthy characterize many recent challenges to philosophy in terms of critics' rejection of the presumed universality of philosophy in favor of a view of philosophy (and key notions such as truth, reason, the person, human nature, etc.) as necessarily contingent, conventional, plural, local, and particular. Thus, these critics also depend upon the legitimacy of the dichotomy I want here to call into question.
Harding's "strong objectivity" (1991, chapter 6) is an interesting attempt to reconcile "objectivity" and "situatedness" which is, in some (but not all) ways, quite like my attempt to reconcile universality and particularity. I regret that lack of space prevents me from attending to her discussion in more detail.
24. The following five paragraphs are taken, with changes and additions, from Siegel (1995).
25. For further discussion concerning the implications of the impossibility of achieving a God's-eye point of view, see Siegel (1987), chapter 2; Rosenberg (1993), p. 203.
26. For example, the ancient Greeks before the invention/discovery of irrational numbers; nineteenth century mathematicians before Cantor's discoveries concerning the sizes of infinite sets; nineteenth century geometers before the discovery of non-Euclidean geometries; bettors and businesspeople of the middle ages before the development of the modern probability calculus; etc.
27. As Denis Phillips reminds me, some might deny this, and respond that while space curves within our scheme, it does not in schemes which do not ascribe that property to space. This move I think simply turns the issue on the table into that concerning the viability of epistemological (or metaphysical) relativism; on that question see Siegel (1987).
28. As indicated earlier, I use "scheme-independent" not in the sense of being not embedded in any scheme, but rather in the sense of having legitimacy and point beyond the bounds of the scheme in which it is embedded.
29. It is worth pointing out that universalistic "Enlightenment" ideals (e.g. of the dignity of human reason and the commitment to decide matters on the basis of reasons) can, and should, be understood in this way. These ideals arose and gained currency in particular historical/cultural circumstances (in ancient Greece, and in the "Age of Enlightenment" in Europe), but that fact in no way undercuts whatever universal validity they enjoy. Below I suggest that some such universal validity is necessary. For further general discussion, see Siegel (1993, 1995, 1995a).
30. The distinction is actually medieval in origin and played an important role in medieval philosophy.
31. I hasten to note that I do not, myself, advocate the idea that truth should be understood in terms of ideal "rational acceptability"; I favor a conception, advocated by an earlier Putnam, of truth as "radically non-epistemic" and as unconnected to considerations of rational acceptability. For further discussion see Siegel (1989), pp. 132-3 and passim.
32. I have been arguing only that the particular can be universal as well -- that the two are not mutually exclusive. A stronger thesis, that universality is required for the justification of particular claims, is one that I endorse, although I have not systematically defended it here. That strong thesis is defended by Habermas and Apel, and criticized by MacIntyre in their selections in Baynes, Bohman, and McCarthy (1987). MacIntyre argues that rationality and rational justification are always relative to historical and contextual factors: in judging the rational adequacy of claims, "there are no general timeless standards" ((1987), p. 417);
if some particular…scheme has successfully transcended the limitations of its predecessors and in so doing provided the best means available for understanding those predecessors to date and has then confronted successive challenges from a number of rival points of view, but in each case has been able to modify itself in the ways required to incorporate the strengths of those points of view while avoiding their weaknesses and limitations and has provided the best explanation so far of those weaknesses and limitations, then we have the best possible reason to have confidence that future challenges will also be met successfully, that the principles that define the core of a…scheme are enduring principles. (p. 419, emphases in original)
This view of rational justification is historist and contextualist in the sense that the justification of a scheme depends on the comparative merits of the scheme vis-a-vis those of its historical rivals, but MacIntyre seems not to notice that this historicist/contextualist standard is itself a "general timeless," i.e. acontextual/ahistorical, standard of the sort he claims to eschew. The same can be said of his acontextual/ahistorical defense of that standard.
33. Of course not all universal claims are cogent; I am not suggesting that false, unjustified, or otherwise problematic claims are beyond reproach simply because they are universal. Fallibilism applies to these claims are well as to their particularistic cousins. My point, rather, is that their universality is not itself grounds for regarding them as defective.
34. To refer back to Rorty one last time, I should note Rosenberg's claim -- which I endorse -- that Rorty needs universality in order to make sense of his version of liberalism, however much he seeks to reject it:
A bourgeois liberal democracy is positively interested in educating and informing its citizens, and a bourgeois liberal democracy is positively interested in being reasonable. That is, it wants its [universalistic] stories about what it's okay to do to people to hang together with its [universalistic] stories about what it's responsible to believe about people, about what people are. (Rosenberg (1993), pp. 212-213, emphases in original)
 35. This is clearly suggested, for example, by McLaren (1994); among feminist writers, in addition to those cited below, see Dalmiya and Alcoff's (1993) contention that traditional epistemic standards are complicit in the practice of "epistemic discrimination" against women, and Code's (1991, 1993) similar claim.
36. Among many other sources, see the essays in Alcoff and Potter (1993) and in Antony and Witt (1993), although several essays in the latter dispute this contention.
37. It should be noted that, on MacKinnon's view, "rationality" is synomymous with "objectivity"; she does not distinguish between the two, but rather rejects it/them both. (Rapaport (1993), p. 129) MacKinnon understands objectivity as "the nonsituated, distanced standpoint" (1987, p. 50); as I hope is clear, this is not the understanding of it I am utilizing here, since situatedness does not preclude (on my understanding of it) objectivity. For what I hope is a more nuanced and defensible understanding of the concepts of rationality and objectivity, and their interrelationship, see Neiman and Siegel (1993).
38. Putnam (1982), p. 20. For more general discussion of the self-defeating character of the rejection of normative evaluation, see Siegel (1987) and (1995b).
39. For discussion of the general case, see Siegel (1987). Antony (1993, esp. pp. 190, 208-210) argues determinedly that radical feminists need to recognize and utilize a traditional conception of truth and traditional ideals of objectivity and impartiality, and to recognize (more or less) traditional standards of philosophical and empirical argumentative quality if they are to achieve the aims either of feminism, in particular, or of political radicalism in general.
40. It should also be pointed out that MacKinnon routinely appeals in her work to the very standards she seems to want to reject.
41. Israel Scheffler, throughout his work, has emphasized the importance to education (and philosophy) of the rational critique and improvement of standards, including standards of rationality and rational critique themselves. See, e.g., Scheffler (1973), pp. 79-80, 87.
42. Nor is it wise, as Nussbaum points out (1994, pp. 60-1), to reject a standard on grounds of its misuse. Concerning those who "have used the claim of objectivity to protect their biased judgments from rational scrutiny," Nussbaum writes: "More than a little perversely, some feminists have blamed this behavior on the norm of objectivity itself, rather than on its abusers."
43. I should also point out that the problem cannot be finessed by construing the relevant standards as "contextual" or "communicative," as Nicholas Burbules (1991, 1991a) suggests. As I argued in Siegel (1991), this will not work: standards must have epistemic punch to be worthy of the name; without such substantive force, the problem of justifying the standard of inclusion remains.
44. In the standard Kantian sense of establishing that something -- in this case, a concern for the justification of inclusion in particular, and for matters of epistemic justification in general -- is necessary, in order for something else -- in this case, the serious valuing of inclusion -- to be possible.
45. See, e.g., McLaren (1994). I of course deny the suggestion that analytic epistemologists inevitably represent or advance politically regressive interests; I recommend Antony's (1993) argument to the contrary. (With one proviso: I think that Antony's defense slides between a defense of analytic philosophy in general, and of naturalized epistemology in particular. Her argument, in my view, succeeds in defending the former, but fails to single out the latter as the only defensible "analytic" position.)
46. This paper was presented as the Presidential Address of the Philosophy of Education Society, at the Society's annual meeting in San Francisco, April 2, 1995. I am grateful to my commentators on that occasion, Sharon Bailin and Kathryn Pauly Morgan, to the members of the audience who heard and discussed it then, and to Don Arnstine, Nick Burbules, Wendy Kohli, Roy Mash, Al Neiman, Denis Phillips, Hilary Putnam, Israel Scheffler, Kenneth Strike, Bruce B. Suttle, Audrey Thompson, and Mark Weinstein, for penetrating criticism, excellent suggestions, and supportive comments. Needless to say, they would not all endorse the finished product.

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