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  Can Atheists Have Faith?

  Jackson, Elizabeth

  This paper examines whether atheists, who believe that God does not exist, can have faith. Of course, atheists have certain kinds of faith: faith in their friends, faith in certain ideals, and faith in themselves. However, the question we’ll examine is whether atheists can have theistic faith: faith that God exists. Philosophers tend to fall on one of two extremes on this question: some, like Dan Howard-Snyder (2019) and Imran Aijaz (2023), say unequivocally no; oth-ers, like Robert Whitaker (2019) and Sam Lebens (2023), say unequivocally yes. Here, I take a middle position: I ar-gue that atheists can have action-focused theistic faith (faith in how they act) but not attitude-focused theistic faith (faith in what attitudes they have).
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  On Being Responsible or Irresponsible

  Neta, Ram Neta (SUNY Brockport Philosophic Exchange, 2024)

  When I describe someone or something as irreverent, I need not be criticizing. But when I describe a voter or their vote, an investor or their investment, as irresponsible, I am thereby criticizing. Why do charges of irresponsibility differ in this way from charges of irreverence? What is it about irresponsibility that makes its attribution always and everywhere a criticism? The present paper addresses that question.
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  2023-2024 Joshi. Socially Motivated Belief and Its Epistemic Discontents

  Joshi, Hrishikesh (SUNY Brockport, Philosophic Exchange, 2024)

  What might an ideal epistemic agent look like? The picture given to us by philosophers over time suggests something like an autonomous thinker who appropriately responds to her evidence wherever it may point. She would believe those things for which there are the best (epistemic) reasons and wouldn’t simply believe on the basis of what is comfortable or what is popular. Thus, Descartes sought to rebuild his belief system from the foundations of only those beliefs of which he could be rationally certain. Socrates challenged the widely held philosophical and theological assumptions of his time, for which he was put to death. Mill enjoins us to follow the argument wherever it leads, even if it goes against commonly held opinion.
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  The Spectrum: A Scholars Day Journal

  SUNY Brockport; Executive Editor, Mitchell Christensen; Managing Editor, Mary Jo Orzech (SUNY Brockport, 2023)

  Scholar’s Day at SUNY Brockport returned to its pre-pandemic format of presentations and posters in 2022. This combined 2022-23 issue of The Spectrum includes a sampling of papers from both April 2022 and 2023 Scholars Day events. The sessions showcased a range of scholarly and creative activities in numerous disciplines, subjects, and specific topic areas. They provide evidence of an active intellectual spirit, inquiring curiosity, and academic ethos as the campus worked to return from Covid. Scholars Day 2022 and 2023 were marked by overall themes related to resilience, empathy, and sustainability. Special thanks to the Scholars Day Committee chaired by the Office of Scholarship, Research, and Sponsored Programs (Laura Merkl, Matt Kotula, Meghan Irving, and Kim Remley), keynote speaker Dr. Marcie Desrochers, poster judges, students, and faculty who helped to make Scholars Day a success. Brockport’s hosted journals like The Spectrum have a new look emphasizing individual author contributions that make articles more discoverable at the individual item level and include improved metadata without the appearance of a traditional journal. The change represents an opportunity to consider new forms of scholarly communication and dissemination. We hope that you find it engaging and welcome your feedback.
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  Misrepresentation of Queer Folks in Theatre

  Mace, Kendra (SUNY Brockport, Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2023-08)

  This essay uses content analysis to explain the misrepresentation of queer folks in theatre. This topic is important because a lack of proper representation can harm young queer people. I hope readers understand the information presented and advocate for proper representation.
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  The Reality of Maternal Mortality

  Kim, Julie (SUNY Brockport, Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2023-08)

  This paper explores the racial disparities of maternal mortality, with a focus on the disparities between Black and White women. This topic is important because it is not gaining enough attention on a national scale and it highlights the fact that institutional racism is still very well prevalent in the medical world (e.g., Tuskegee syphilis study, sterilization of Puerto Rican women or the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks’ (HeLa) cells). I hope to bring knowledge on how racism and medical implicit bias can affect people’s quality of life specifically women of color.
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  Stolen Sisters…Violence against Indigenous Women

  Smith, Kylene (SUNY Brockport, Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2023-08)

  This essay investigates the violence perpetrated against Indigenous women using a social constructivist and feminist perspective. This topic is important because it is often overlooked by society and the media. The violence and assault that Native women experience is an epidemic that has been an ongoing issue that has plagued the Indigenous community. I hope readers will understand the importance that all women regardless of race or class deserve to feel safe.
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  Not Woman Enough: A Trans Lesbian Epistemology

  Timmons, Kay (SUNY Brockport, Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2023-08)

  This essay explores the concepts of epistemic oppression and gender essentialism from a transfeminist, transfeminine, lesbian lens utilizing a mixed-methods autoethnography which incorporates elements of discourse analysis and phenomenology. This topic is important because of the continued underrepresentation of trans, especially transfeminine, voices in the study of trans experiences. I hope that readers will examine their own relationship with gender essentialism.
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  The Changes in Sexuality Over Time Through Life Experiences

  Rivera, Alexis (SUNY Brockport, Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2023-08)

  This essay explores the evidence of changes in sexuality that may occur throughout time during the course of many women's lives. The multiple theories proposed in this essay include ideas addressing variation in sexual attitudes and desires as different life experiences present themselves. This essay challenges biology and the concept of nature and nurture in a way that sexuality can be a result of both, not just one or the other. By having an understanding of how sexuality can change, we can begin to acknowledge the women who are struggling with these newfound inclinations and find ways to help them continue on with their lives as desired.
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  Healthcare Inferno: Exposing Medical Bias and Recounting Stories

  Colletti, Leana (SUNY Brockport, Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2023-08)

  This essay explores medical/healthcare bias, its harms, and how it has personally impacted my health and been exacerbated by my social identities. This topic is important because healthcare bias is under-recognized and causes people to suffer and even die. My goal is to educate readers on healthcare bias and inspire healthcare professionals to work on their biases.
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  Dissenting Voices Volume 12

  Women and Gender Studies, Senior Seminar Students (SUNY Brockport, Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2023)

  Epistemic control of gender oppresses us. We challenge biology and the concept of nature and nurture in a way that sexuality can be a result of both, not just one or the other. We argue that violence and assault against Native women is an ongoing epidemic that plagues the indigenous community. We confront the toxic misrepresentation of queer identity in theatre. We expose the detrimental impacts of healthcare bias and highlight ways healthcare bias increases Black maternal death. We come together in strength and unity to dismantle oppressive systems around us. Leana Colletti (she/her), Julie Kim (she/her), Kendra Mace (she/her), Alexis Rivera (she/her), Kylene Smith (she/her), Kay Timmons (they/them) Table of Contents: Opening Voices-- Kay Timmons: Not Woman Enough: A Trans Lesbian Epistemology..1; Kylene Smith: Stolen Sisters…Violence against Indigenous Women ..13. More Voices --Alexis Rivera: Nature and Nurture: The Changes in Sexuality Over Time Through Life Experiences.. 23; Kendra Mace: The Misrepresentation of Queer Folks in Theatre..31. Closing Voices-- Leana Colletti: Healthcare Inferno: Exposing Medical Bias and Recounting Stories..41; Julie Kim: The Reality of Maternal Mortality..53
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  An Idle and Most False Imposition: Truth-Seeking vs. Status-Seeking and the Failure of Epistemic Vigilance*

  Shieber, Joseph (Center for Philosophic Exchange, 2023-07)

  In the past few decades, a number of researchers from evolutionary psychology, developmental psychology, and cognitive science have promoted a theory suggesting that humans are naturally cautious about the information they receive. This theory, known as “epistemic vigilance,” involves the idea that we pay attention to clues that our conversation partners might be trying to deceive us and adjust our beliefs accordingly. However, despite the increasing popularity of the theory of epistemic vigilance, there is good reason to think that it cannot be true. This is because social psychology research going back over fifty years suggests that we are in fact not very good at detecting deception, honesty or competence in others. How can we make sense of the conflicting findings from these different areas of research? I suggest that the solution lies in what I term “Nietzsche’s Thesis,” which suggests that we are actually more focused on our conversation partners’ social status than their truthfulness.
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  Steering Clear of Trouble

  Schenkler, John (Center for Philosophic Exchange,, 2022)

  Often we make decisions whose purpose is to reduce the likelihood of our making bad decisions in the future—for example, by turning off my phone to make it more difficult for me to go on Tik Tok during the work day, or staying at home on a Friday instead of going to a party where I know my friends will be drinking to excess. These decisions seem essential, but they raise some philosophical questions. Here is one of them: What is the view that a person takes of her own future when she goes in for this kind of planning? And here is another: How does seeing ourselves as subject to temptation, in the way that this kind of planning presumes, not serve as an invitation to irresolution when tempting situations arise? In this essay, I show how the answers to these questions are mutually illuminating.
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  Why Tolerate Religion? A (Surprising) Nietzschean Answer

  Dudrick, David (Center for Philosophic Exchange,, 2022)

  In Why Tolerate Religion? Brian Leiter takes himself to show that the deference traditionally shown by the state to religion is irrational; there is no reason to think that specifically religious conscience is special “from a moral point of view.” In this paper, I argue that a challenge to Leiter’s view arises from an unlikely source: the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, to which Leiter himself serves as an able guide. Leiter approvingly interprets Nietzsche to hold that a certain form of egalitarianism, according to which all human beings are of equal basic worth, is grounded if and only if something like Christian theism is true: the equal worth of human beings does not outlive the death of God. Leiter thus unearths what he had denied existed: a reason for the state’s deferential stance toward religion. In the remainder of this paper, I examine Nietzsche’s (and Leiter’s) claims that such egalitarianism cannot be grounded in secular terms and that it can be grounded in theism, and I conclude that these claims are correct.
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  Breaking the Binary: Failure to Adhere to the Laws of the Traditional Gender Binary

  Johnson, Riley (SUNY Brockport Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2022)

  This essay provides a framework for conceptualizing the social construction of the traditional gender binary within a patriarchal society. The research explores the history of the singular they as well as gender nonconforming identities through a socio-historical lens and utilizes the Social Role (Eagly & Wood, 2011) and Social Identity Theories (Tajfel, 1972) to argue the importance of language and performativity in conceptualizing gender identity, gender performance, and biological sex.
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  Sex-Based Discrimination in the Workplace: A Closer Look

  Heberger, Beth (SUNY Brockport Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2022)

  Workplace discrimination is common in businesses all over the United States. It is crucial to understand different components of discrimination, like bullying, the wage gap, and verbal invalidation which I discuss in this essay. I also offer a possible solution to workplace discrimination and detail the gender wage gap across time.
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  Menstruation and Restrooms: The Gender Nonconforming Community's Oppressors

  Holmes, Samantha (SUNY Brockport Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2022)

  This essay focuses on the struggles of menstruation and public bathrooms for gender nonconforming communities. This topic is important because the barriers faced by gender nonconforming communities are frequently ignored and create a harmful environment. I argue the importance of menstrual product accessibility because it is important for those who menstruate to have the necessary products available in all public spaces. I also argue for bathroom equality because everyone deserves a bathroom they feel comfortable and safe in. I hope to raise awareness about the importance of bathroom equality and convince readers of how beneficial it truly is for those who identify as gender nonconforming to be heard.
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  LGBTQIA+ Experiences in Nursing Home Settings

  Eldredge, Brandon (SUNY Brockport Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2022)

  This essay looks at the experiences of queer individuals and their treatment in healthcare settings; specifically, in nursing homes. The essay focuses on the treatment of queer workers in nursing homes based on a personal account and the treatment of queer individuals living in nursing homes based on research and stories.
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  An Impasse of Belonging: An Exploration of How Language Impacts Identity

  Martin, Meghan (SUNY Brockport Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2022)

  This essay seeks to identify how the use of language inherently impacts identity. Through the use of historical and influential texts, the essay draws attention to how language as an entity over time has evolved and adapted to continuously perpetuate inequalities. In this essay specifically, the inequalities that are discussed at length are lived and experienced by bisexual women.
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  Dissenting Voices Volume 11

  Women and Gender Studies, Senior Seminar Students (SUNY Brockport Department of Women and Gender Studies, 2022)

  Table of Contents. Opening Voices: Meghan Martin An Impasse of Belonging: An Exploration of How Gender Impacts Identity. More Voices: Brandon Eldredge: LGBTQIA+ Experiences in Nursing Home Settings. Samantha Holmes: Menstruation and Restrooms: The Gender Nonconforming Community's Oppressors. Beth Heberger: Sex-based Discrimination in the Workplace: A Closer Look. Closing Voices. Riley Johnson: Breaking the Binary: Failure to Adhere to the Laws of the Traditional Gender Binary.

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