The Association Between Truth And Dare
...the problem of such deformed desires as women's slavish desires. Traditional "informed desire" tests impose conditions of rationality, such as full information and absence of psychoses, but do not exclude deformed desires. I offer a Kantian-inspired addendum to these tests, according to which the very features of deformed desires render them irrational to adopt for an agent who appreciates her equal worth.
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Sandra Bartky has described repressive satisfactions, or, deformed desires, as those that
fasten us to the established order of domination, for the same
system which produces false needs also controls the conditions
under which such needs can be satisfied. "False needs," it might
be ventured, are needs which are produced through indoctrination,
psychological manipulation, and the denial of autonomy; they are
needs whose possession and satisfaction benefit not the subject
who has them but a social order whose interest lies in
domination. (1990, 42)
One feature of deformed desires emerging from this passage is that their source contributes to their deformation. Arguably all desires are formed in a social context; deformed desires are formed by unjust social conditions, including those where men are deemed superior and women inferior (Nussbaum 1999, 149). Jon Elster has defined the "sour grapes" phenomenon to explain how women acquire deformed desires by adaptation to their subordinate state (1987, 109). Just as the fox's conviction that he is not allowed to eat grapes causes him to believe that they are sour and thus prefer not to eat them, women adapt their preferences to a social position that affords them few options. Of course, unjust social conditions do not necessarily issue in deformed desires, but social influences are strong--even some feminists have admitted...
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