I’m very pleased to share a new paper on the ethics of hunger strikes, which has just been published in The Journal of Political Philosophy (edited by Professor Robert Goodin): ‘Fragility as Strength: The Ethics and Politics of Hunger Strikes’.
The paper explains the distinctive political role of the hunger strike in terms of three core functions (communicative, coercive and expressive) and offers an ethical justification for indefinite hunger strikes that aim to coerce the authorities (and hence frequently get derided as ‘blackmail’). The paper benefitted from research assistance and support provided by the BA/Leverhulme grant.
You can read the version of the paper here. And if you don’t have access, please contact me and I can share a draft.
Read on here.
Starving for Dignity 