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Sexual Orientation: What is it? What do we want it to be?

Presented by Kevin Richardson, Duke University. Part of the Philosophy Sapientia Lecture Series

4/4/2025
3:30 pm – 5:00 pm
103 Thornton (tentative)
Intended Audience(s): Public
Categories: Arts and Sciences, Lectures & Seminars

Friday, April 4, 2025

Kevin Richardson, Duke University

Talk title: "Sexual Orientation: What is it? What do we want it to be?"
Description: "What sexual orientation concepts should you use? None of them. (Sorry.) Let me explain. Ordinary sexual orientation concepts have multiple functions: interpersonal, political, personal, communal, and institutional. For example, the concept STRAIGHT is used to identify potential dating partners (interpersonal) and make intelligible an individual person's experiences and desires (personal). This concept is overburned insofar as it attempts to successfully fulfill these various functions in a morally or politically desirable way. The use of overburdened sexual orientation concepts translates into social practices and norms that actively harm people, especially when one set of concepts, like binary or heteronormative concepts, happens to dominate."

3:30pm
103 Thornton (tentative)

Funded by the Mark J. Byrne 1985 Fund in Philosophy, which is an endowment established in 1996 to help support the study of philosophy at Dartmouth College. For more information on Philosophy's Sapientia Lecture Series, please visit this link.

For more information, contact:
Prof Amie Thomasson
philosophy@dartmouth.edu
Permanent URL to this event: https://philosophy.dartmouth.edu/events/event?event=75228

Events are free and open to the public unless otherwise noted.