Laurie Shrage

{{short description|American political and moral philosopher (born 1953)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2014}} {{Infobox philosopher | name = Laurie J. Shrage | image =  | image_size = | alt = | caption = | other_names = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{birth-date and age|December 4, 1953}} | birth_place = | death_date =  | death_place = | death_cause = | residence = | religion = | alma_mater = | notable_works =  | awards = | era = | region = | school_tradition = | institutions = [[Florida International University]], [[Howard University]], [[Lake Forest College]], [[Scripps College]], [[California State Polytechnic University]] | main_interests = | notable_ideas = | influences = | influenced = | signature = | signature_size = | signature_alt = | website =  }}

'''Laurie J. Shrage''' (born December 4, 1953) is an American political and moral philosopher whose analysis of the agendas for social change advanced by gender and sexual dissidents has been influential.<ref name=apacsw>{{cite web |last=DesAutels |first=Peggy |title=Laurie Shrage: August 2013 |url=http://www.apaonlinecsw.org/home/woman_philosopher/laurieshrageaugust2013 |work=Highlighted Philosophers |publisher=American Philosophical Association |access-date=August 19, 2013}}</ref>

==Education and career== Shrage has taught at [[Howard University]], [[Lake Forest College]], [[Scripps College]], [[California State Polytechnic University]], and now teaches at [[Florida International University]].<ref name=cv>{{cite web |last=Shrage |first=Laurie |title=Curriculum Vitae |url=http://philosophy.fiu.edu/faculty/laurie-shrage/cv2013.pdf |publisher=Florida International University |access-date=August 19, 2013}}</ref> She earned her B.A. (1975) from the [[University of California, Davis]] and her M.A. (1979) and Ph.D (1983) from the [[University of California, San Diego, Philosophy]].<ref name=cv/>

In her first book, ''Moral Dilemmas of Feminism: Prostitution, Adultery, and Abortion'' (1994), Shrage argued for empirically informed philosophical analyses of moral problems. She argued against the possibility of offering a universal social ethics and, as an alternative, she developed an interpretive approach to moral problems, based in part on the work of [[Charles Taylor (philosopher)|Charles Taylor]].<ref name=satz>{{cite journal|last=Satz|first=Debra|title=''Moral Dilemmas of Feminism: Prostitution, Adultery, and Abortion'' Review|journal=Ethics|date=July 1996|volume=106|issue=4|pages=864–866|doi=10.1086/233683}}</ref>

Her second book, ''Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate'' (2003), argues for reconsidering the [[American Law Institute]]'s model abortion law developed prior to [[Roe v. Wade]]. Shrage explores abortion policies around the world, the history of reform and repeal movements in the U.S., moral and legal debates, and ethnographies of pro-life and pro-choice groups, and then recommends restricting elective abortions to roughly the end of the first trimester, in order to balance competing rights and values.<ref name=sheth>{{cite journal|last=A. Sheth|first=Falguni|title=Compromising Positions|journal=The Women's Review of Books|year=2003|volume=20|issue=12|pages=12–13|doi=10.2307/4024217|jstor=4024217}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Peach|first=Lucinda J.|title=Abortion and Social Responsibility: Depolarizing the Debate (review)|journal=NWSA Journal|date=January 1, 2005|volume=17|issue=3|pages=215–217|doi=10.1353/nwsa.2005.0067|s2cid=144682202}}</ref>

Shrage was a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow at the Center for Human Values at Princeton University (2011–12) and a fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center (1998–99).<ref name=cv/> She was a co-editor of the journal [[Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy]] from 1998-2003.<ref name=cv/> She has served as the American Philosophical Association's Ombuds for Non-Discrimination, 2008–11, and as the Program Chair for the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division meeting in 2001. She was Director of Women's Studies at FIU (2008–11).<ref name=cv/>

==Research areas== Shrage's work evaluates public policies on markets in sexual services and expressive materials, reproductive health care, legal gender identity, and marriage.<ref name=apacsw/> She is more interested in the active application of philosophical theory to inform public debate - in what she terms "empirically informed philosophy" - than she is in focusing her work on a particular school of philosophical thought.<ref name=apacsw/> She suggests that moral and political philosophers should pay more attention to historical and scientific accounts of political and moral problems than they currently do.<ref name=apacsw/>

== Selected bibliography ==

=== Books === * {{cite book | last = Shrage | first = Laurie | title = Abortion and social responsibility: depolarizing the debate | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford New York | year = 2003 | isbn = 9780195153095 }} * {{cite book | last = Shrage | first = Laurie J. | title = You've changed" sex reassignment and personal identity | publisher = Oxford University Press | location = Oxford New York | year = 2009 | isbn = 9780199745029 }} * {{cite book | last = Shrage | first = Laurie | title = Moral dilemmas of feminism: Prostitution, adultery, and abortion | publisher = Taylor and Francis | location = Hoboken | year = 2013 | isbn = 9781134977697 }}

=== Journal articles === * {{Cite journal | last = Shrage | first = Laurie | title = Should feminists oppose prostitution | journal = [[Ethics (journal)|Ethics]] | volume = 99 | issue = 2 | pages = 347–361 | publisher = [[University of Chicago Press]] | date = January 1989 | doi = 10.1086/293069 | jstor = 2381438 | s2cid = 143685605 }}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== * [https://fiu.academia.edu/LaurieShrage Laurie Shrage's Academia.edu listing] * [http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/laurie-shrage/ Laurie Shrage's articles on ''The New York Times'' Opinionator blog]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shrage, Laurie}} [[Category:1953 births]] [[Category:Living people]] [[Category:American women philosophers]] [[Category:American political philosophers]] [[Category:20th-century American philosophers]] [[Category:21st-century American philosophers]] [[Category:American academics of women's studies]] [[Category:Florida International University faculty]] [[Category:University of California, Davis alumni]] [[Category:University of California, San Diego alumni]] [[Category:20th-century American women]] [[Category:21st-century American women]]