The Insurrectionist Challenge to Pragmatism and Maria W. Stewart’s Feminist Insurrectionist Ethics

Insurrectionist ethics is a philosophy aimed at radical social transformation and human liberation. This article begins with a presentation of the insurrectionist challenge to pragmatism, and considers which conceptual or motivational resources pragmatism would need to possess in order to meet that challenge. I make no judgment as to the ability of pragmatist philosophers to meet the challenge. I then consider Maria W. Stewart as a paradigmatic insurrectionist and Black feminist thinker. I examine Stewart’s life and thought as a unique and dynamic combination that results in a feminist insurrectionist ethics.