Deck 36: Value and the Gift of Sexuality Elisabeth Anderson

Question 1

Which of the following best captures Anderson's view of the impact of commodification on sex?

A) Complicating
B) Debasing
C) Heightening
D) Morally neutral

Answer 1

B

Question 2

Anderson describes morally ideal sexual relations as providing

A) economic empowerment.
B) optimal pleasure to one or both parties.
C) a shared good.
D) None of the above

Answer 2

C

Question 3

Morally ideal sexual relations, according to Anderson, involve an exchange of which of the following?

A) The self
B) Pleasure
C) Economic goods
D) All of the above

Answer 3

A

Question 4

Why does Anderson regard cash payment for sex as an impersonal transfer of goods?

A) Cash payment does not require mutual respect.
B) In paying, the customer yields no power over their person to the sex worker.
C) In receiving money for their bodily services, a sex worker has no guarantee of personal safety.
D) Cash payment for services belongs to an oppressive capitalist system.

Question 5

According to Anderson, the state has a case for controlling commodification if doing so

A) increases freedom.
B) increases autonomy.
C) increases the net welfare of society.
D) Both a and b

Question 6

One way that legal sex work would harm women, by Anderson's lights, is by

A) confining misogyny to the personal sphere, where it is more difficult to combat.
B) reinforcing the overlapping misogyny in both the personal and the economic spheres.
C) curtailing the freedom women enjoy in the economic sphere.
D) oppressing men who are partnered to many women.

Question 7

Anderson characterizes heterosexual masculine identity as morally problematic by virtue of it being

A) belligerent.
B) unemotional.
C) appropriative.
D) All of the above

Question 8

To Anderson, realizing women's autonomy requires that

A) all the goods they possess be liberated for any use to which the women consents.
B) some goods embodied in their persons remain non-alienable.
C) their economic activity in all cases enjoy equal protection under the law.
D) any economic activity by women, including sex work, be brought under the deliberative control of women participants.

Question 9

Anderson claims that her arguments establish

A) a conclusive case for state regulation of sex work.
B) an inconclusive case for state regulation of sex work.
C) a conclusive case for state prohibition of sex work.
D) an inconclusive case for state prohibition of sex work.

Question 10

Anderson concedes that sex work might be permissible in

A) a just civil society.
B) all-female spaces.
C) all-male spaces.
D) a utopian society in which the distinction between private and public spheres is absent.

Question 11

Anderson believes that legalizing prostitution is misguided partly because it would deprive women of property rights in their own bodies.

Question 12

Some advocates of legalizing sex work argue that it will help to economically empower women.

Question 13

Anderson's argument against legal sex work is grounded on a moral analysis of the commodification of sex.

Question 14

According to Anderson, the way that heterosexual masculinity is socially defined, though morally important, is largely unrelated to the specific moral problems afflicting legal sex work.

Question 15

Anderson grants that barriers to legal sex work will curtail freedom, but argues that the benefits to women outweigh

Question 16

One common argument in favor of legalizing sex work is that it promotes freedom.

Question 17

Anderson worries about the possibility that legalizing sex work will make robbery seem worse than rape.

Question 18

According to Anderson, women's sexuality in the private sphere is impacted by women's sexuality in the public economic sphere, but not vice versa.

Question 19

Anderson claims that feminist theory stands opposed to the traditional liberal approach to the ethics of prostitution.

Question 20

Anderson argues that sex work highlights the deep connections between women's sexuality as it is constituted in both the private and the public economic spheres.

Question 21

What is Anderson's principal objection to legal sex work? What role does the concept of commodification play in her arguments? Would the same arguments apply with equal force to male sex work?

Question 22

What does Anderson mean by autonomy? Do you agree with her that sex work in society as we know it necessarily undermines women's autonomy? If not, explain why. If so, what would it take for this to no longer be the case?

Question 23

How does Anderson relate heterosexual masculinity to the ethics of prostitution? Is she right about this? Explain why or why not, using concrete examples.