Download Feminist Ethics

Feminist Ethics
May 21, 2012
Alicia R. Intriago
Overview
 Why
‘Feminist’ Philosophy?
 Origins of Contemporary Feminist Ethics
 Held article
Why ‘Feminst’ Philosophy?
 The
role of women in philosophy
http://beingawomaninphilosophy.wordpress.com/
Origins of the Movement (in
Contemporary Ethics)
 Carol
Gilligan,
In a Different
Voice (1982)
In a Different Voice

Gilligan does two things simultaneously in this work:



1)She critiques Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral
development of children, as Kohlberg argued that girls
on average only reach a lower level of moral
development in comparison to boys (due to the
influence of emotions and interpersonal relationships
on female moral decision making)
2) She argues that, for women, the moral reasons we
provide as justification for acting derive from relations,
not reason alone (whereas a principled way of moral
reasoning is associated largely with boys)
Overall, Gilligan believes we need to respect and listen
to different perspectives on moral development and
concepts of self, and that these are not necessarily
gender relative, although historical representations
have shown them to be
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral
Development
Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral
Development
In a Different Voice
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
2W_9MozRoKE
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
mG3_ZP6Drn0&feature=relmfu
Feminist Transformations of
Moral Theory

Virginia Held
Ethics: History, Theory,
and Contemporary
Issues. Eds. Steven
Cahn and Peter Markie.
City University of New York,
Graduate Center
Feminist Moral Theories

Feminist moral theories do not aim to provide
mere additional insights which can be
incorporated into traditional theories.


Feminist approaches aim for radical transformations
of existing fields of inquiry and theory.
Moral theory, as well as other theories in the
history of philosophy, need to be transformed to
take adequate account of the experience of
women (as well as other marginalized and
overlooked groups).
Ideal Theory in the History of
Ethics
 Genevieve
Lloyd: “Rationality has been
conceived as transcendence of the ‘feminine’,
and the ‘feminine’ itself has been partly
constituted by its occurrence within this
structure.”
-Lloyd, The Man of Reason: ‘Male’ and ‘female’ in
Western Philosophy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1984), p.104.
--This is what feminist ethicists identify as a false dichotomy.
E.g.: reason is associated with male endeavor while
emotion is associated with female weakness
Rationality
 In
Western philosophy, there persists the
ideal of rationality or the “man of reason”
 Is
this a correct account of human nature,
i.e., as rational, self-interested calculators?
 What’s
useful in upholding this ideal of
rationality? Is it merely, as Held states, an
assumption that leaves us misguided in
moral decision making?
False Dichotomies
 There
are two other false dichotomies Held
identifies in her work:
− The “public” sphere is identified with men,
the “private” sphere with women.
−
The concept of the self has been one of a
completely independent rational agent.
I.e., the autonomous self versus the
relational self.
Reason and Emotion




The priority accorded to reason has traditionally taken one of
two forms
−
The Kantian search for abstract, universal moral principles via the
Categorical Imperative.
−
The utilitarian approach of rationally calculating what will maximize
happiness via rational choice theory.
Held: “Rather than interpreting moral problems in terms of
what could be handled by applying abstract rules of justice
to particular cases, [many women tend] to be more
concerned with preserving actual human relationships, and
with expressing care for those for whom they feel responsible.”
She proposes an ethic of care/empathy rather than an
ethic of justice, or a combination of the two.
She also proposes that we turn away from abstract
principles, and instead use our emotions to seek out the
contextual details (i.e., context-respectful approaches) of a
particular moral problem in order to solve it.
The Public and The Private
•
•


The public realm has been conceived of as the
distinctively human realm in which man transcends his
animal nature.
The private realm has been seen as the natural, animal
realm in which women reproduce the species.
what role does motherhood play in this
account?
Held’s claim is that the private activity of
mothering also transcends the merely animal,
and has great moral importance.
•
We should think of our relationships in the public sphere
in terms of how we view relations in the private sphere,
so as to remedy any inconsistencies between the two.
The Concept of Self




The self in Western thought has typically been
conceived atomistically, as a self-interested,
independent individual.
Feminist thought stresses interdependence and
relationships, i.e., the relational self.
Interdependence as a component of
autonomy.
Particularly familial relations and relations as
friendship. Why has this traditionally been
overlooked by Western philosophers?
−
“To be adequate, moral theories must pay attention to
the neglected realm of particular others in the actual
relationships and actual contexts of women's
experience.”
−
(this includes women as well as the overlooked and
marginalized)
Feminist Suggestions for Moral
Development
 The

need for Moral Education
The development of moral emotions (in
contrast to an emphasis on the primacy of
reason)
 Respect
for the prevalent role of emotion
and relational feelings in rational
deliberation

The need to pay attention to the role of
embodied feeling and intuitions in moral
decision making
 Held
acknowledges that “we do not yet have
fully worked out feminist moral theories to
offer” (727), and to this day a systematic
account of such theories does not exist. Is this
problematic? If so, why?
A
potential criticism of feminist moral theory is
that there is no shared women’s experience
and that it presents us with a “situation ethic”
(or, rather, a kind of ethical relativism). Can
we get around this seeming impasse? If so,
how? If not, why?
An Overview of Feminist
Ethical Theories
As conceived by Held, these theories are:
 Radical
 Conceptually transformative, diverging from
traditional moral theories
 Evoke an ethic of care/empathy
independently or in addition to an ethic of
justice
 Include the voices of women
 Relational
 Dialogical/Narrative/Collaborative
 Pluralist