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FEMINIST ETHICS
BASIS FOR FEMINIST ETHICS
ALISON JAGGAR believes that traditional ethics:
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Favours men’s issues and interests over those of women
Trivialises the private sphere and domestic labour
Implies that women are morally less mature or sophisticated than men
Valorises masculine traits and underrates feminine ones
Favours ‘male’ ways of thinking

KANT believes that women were less rational and autonomous than men, reducing their moral standing
...

Possible response: leave the moral theory the same but change our view of women, for instance, women are as
autonomous and rational as men
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ARE JUSTICE AND CARE IRRECONCIABLE?
Aristotle believed that we apply different virtues to different contexts
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These separations affect social groups disproportionately
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3
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5
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‘PUNISHMENT AND OBEDIENCE ORIENTATION’
‘INSTRUMENTAL RELATIVIST ORIENTATION’ – children meet others’ needs only if others meet their
needs
‘GOOD BOY-NICE GIRL ORIENTATION’- adolescents adhere to prevailing norms to gain the love or
approval of others
‘LAW AND ORDER ORIENTATION’
‘SOCIAL-CONTRACT LEGALISTIC ORIENTATION’
‘UNIVERSAL ETHICAL PRINCIPLE ORIENTATION’ – the maximal stage of development, at which yo end
up being very much like Kant

Kohlberg’s subsequent experiments revealed that females:
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Were less morally mature than males of the same age
Took longer to reach their eventual mature level
Rarely got beyond stage 3, when men would typically reach at least stage 5

Ethics of care developed as a criticism of these prevailing methods
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“When one begins with the study of women and derives developmental constructs from their
lives, the outline of a moral conception different from that described by Freud, Piaget or
Kohlberg begins to emerge and informs a different description of development
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”
CRITICISMS
IS THIS VIEW BASED ON A SET OF UNREASONABLE STEREOTYPES?
Perhaps, but it was shown to reflect people’s thinking at the time
...
If this is the case, then
perhaps care should supplement existing ideas in moral theory
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Femininity and Domination, New York: Routledge) argues that an emphasis
on the relationship between women and care encourages women to feel a sense of reward or empowerment
from their subjugated position in society
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Sheila Mullet ((1988) ‘Shifting perspectives: A new approach to ethics’
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Code, S
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Overall
(eds
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CONCLUDING REMARKS
Other branches of feminist ethics are inspired by: existentialism (see Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics of
Ambiguity); Marxism (See Shulasmith Firestone The Dialectic of Sex) and ecologism (See Val Plumwood,
Feminism and the Mastery of Nature)
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There is also ethics that takes a similar approach, but by looking from the perspectives of (e
...
) ethnic
minorities, disabled people, lesbian and gay people, and transgender people
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FRIEDMAN AND BOLTE, CH
...
Gilligan suggested that there were
substantial differences between the moral perspectives of men and women
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The motivating vision of feminist ethics is that “everyone

will be responded to and included, that no

one will be left alone or hurt
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Nevertheless, care ethics has had its share of feminist critics
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o RESPONSE: Care ethics need not exclude considerations of justice
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CARE ETHICS IS FEMININE BUT NOT FEMINIST- feminine care is emblematic of women's traditional
gender role, which Claudia Card believes is morally limiting
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o RESPONSE: Even if care ethics is not significantly correlated with female gender, the continuing
feminist interest in the concepts of caring and care work suggests that these concepts are
fruitful for feminist thought beyond the question of their gendered origin
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WHITE BIAS- critics have also charged that early versions of care ethics were biased toward white
women and ignored differences among women due to race and class
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CARE ETHICS IS SIGNIFICANT FOR MAINSTREAM PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS
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Care ethics directs moral attention to aspects of human life that have undeniable human value but
which had been neglected by centuries of moral thought written by men, that is, by persons who rarely
engaged in the work of taking care of and nurturing others
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MARGARET
MCLAREN argues care ethics suffers from theoretical flaws, such as reinforcing stereotypic feminine
traits and ignoring political concerns such as justice
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VIRGINIA HELD, however argues that care ethics, unlike virtue ethics, is distinctive
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3
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Care ethics’ focus on close personal relationships has helped them move to philosophical centre-stage,
where they now challenge the ethical norms of impartiality and universality
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In Ruddick's view, these norms can provider
a nonviolent approach interpersonal and international issues
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This diminishes political power of care workers (typically women,
the poor and ethnic minorities)
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EVA KITTAY: Explores the dependency (which is universal among human beings, at least as babies) found in
caring relationships
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MARY WOLLESTONECRAFT: Pointed out that the male ethics was abstract while women’s was societal, which
highlights the inferiority of women
APPLIED ETHICS
REPRODUCTION
Feminists generally favour abortion, their defence typically differs from that of non-feminists holding the same
position:
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NON-FEMINIST approach the topic of abortion by determining the status of the fetus and whether it
has an inviolable right to life
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o Susan Sherwin addresses the what pregnancy means in the life of the pregnant, whether she
had control over the circumstances by which she came to be pregnant, how pregnancy might
affect her health, and the responsibilities and economic circumstances that face her
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MacKinnon challenges the social and political control that men have historically
exercised over women's reproductive lives and choices
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SUSAN MOLLER OKIN argues that these conditions have persisted because normative gender roles have
confined women to domestic life and women lacked the resources (unable to acquire income outside family) to
“exit” from unjust family situations
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However, IRIS YOUNG argues that they are available in a discriminatory manner, claiming that marital
privileges should be extended to partners in any long-term, sexual or affectionate relationship
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Also, Bolte argues against CLAUDIA CARD'S view that gays and lesbians
should reject marriage
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However, Bolte argues
that these problems will not be avoided through private contracts as they won’t allow access to the rights
granted exclusively by the government
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Before, (arguably now) law and culture
treated rape in a shameful manner
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CULTURE: Rape victims were frequently held responsible for provoking their attackers, women's
resistance to sexual overtures were often disregarded, and rape jokes abounded
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Feminists also successfully called for greater protection for female rape victims and for
legal improvements in the manner in which rape was prosecuted as a crime
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In many societies, husbands were free to domestically abuse their wives without fear of persecution
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They also founded battered women's shelters to provide safe refuge for domestic violence
victims and called for legal improvements in the manner in which domestic violence was prosecuted as a crime
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Some argue it should treat men and women
the same, some argue it should treat them different to correct the differences (i
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childbearing)
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Despite an extensive effort by many to eliminate sexual harassment from the workplace, it continues to occur
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Gayle Baugh explains this persistence in terms of “a pervasive tendency to blame the victim for her

own plight by discounting her definitions of sexual harassment or searching for causes of
harassment in her own behaviour
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Cohen argues that an increase in employment “at will” allows employers easily to ignore
sexual harassment charges or to terminate those who bring charges
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UMA NARAYAN AND LUKE CHARLES HARRIS, for example, argue that the historical exclusion of women and
people of colour from both white-collar positions of power and skilled blue-collar professions makes

affirmative action policies crucial for transforming the status quo
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Young
argues that this focus “fails to bring into question issues of institutional organization and decision-

making power” and, as such, is too limited in scope
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Victims of sexism are typically thought of as if they were white straight
middle-class women rather than, say, black, lesbian, lower-class women
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DOMESTIC LABOUR
Domestic labour’s potential for exploitation is great, particularly for care workers who also reside in the home
as full-time nannies or housekeepers
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Tronto argues for a move
away from individualized childcare or better working conditions for domestic workers
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Instead she calls for the

“formalization” of domestic labour, which will create “contracts for service” (good pay, mutually agreeable
boundaries for employer and worker)
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In large part, ecofeminism rests on a critique of value dualisms
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g
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Karen J
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According to this logic, some are superior to others in ways that embody significant value dualisms
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Thus, any movement to liberate one must also strive to liberate the other in order to be successful
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THE IDEAL OF AUTONOMY
The character ideal of autonomy lies at the juncture of these issues
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Later, feminists challenged the ideal of autonomy on several grounds:
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Autonomy historically inaccessible to subordinated and oppressed social groups, such as women,
Historical association of autonomy with men led conceptions of autonomy had become biased toward
traditional norms of masculinity
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Now most feminists defend a
relational version of autonomy that focuses on the social context in which autonomy emerges and on the social
nature of the self who realizes autonomy
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This approach to autonomy is an outgrowth of care ethics and its
relational conception of the self
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INDIVIDUALISM
Feminists are suspicious of excessive individualism, viewing it as exemplifying a narrow liberal and masculine
bias toward certain styles of social and political interaction
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Individualism is the foundation of the liberal state in the
form of individual rights and contractian defences
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This suspicion about
individualism has led feminists, for example, to repudiate

“monological” methods of moral reasoning and

justification in favour of “dialogical,” or communicative models
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Universal claims disregard human differences; yet in many moral situations, particularly those involving
oppression, those differences are crucial to understanding the moral significance of what is happening and what
ought to happen
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Feminists worry that this dichotomous association continues to exercise a covert influence over contemporary
ethical thinking by implicitly enshrining the rational perspective (covertly stereotyped as male or masculine) into
a position of moral authority over a de-valued emotional perspective (covertly stereotyped as female or
feminine)
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In the
United States today, the vast majority of professional philosophers are white, male, middle-class and (given the
absence of evidence to the contrary) presumptively hetero-sexual
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For example, the number of professional philosophers in the United States who
are African-American, male or female, is under 2 percent
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