Feminist Ethics Essay, Research Paper
11-30-99 Feminist Ethics is not a special ethic in the manor that business,
medical, or environmental ethics are. Feminist ethics have not attempted to
determine special rules for special circumstances, rather they present the
opportunity to examine a historically neglected perspective when it comes to
traditional ethical thought. Feminist Ethics has been an attempt to revise,
reformulate, or rethink those aspects of traditional western ethics that have
historically depreciated or devalued a women’s moral experience, and a women?s
perspective on ethical thought. Among others, feminist philosopher Alison
Jaggar has faulted traditional western ethics for failing women in five related
ways. First, she argues that it shows little concern for women’s as opposed to
men’s interests and rights. Second, it dismisses as morally uninteresting the
problems that arise in the so-called private world, the realm in which women
cook, clean, and care for the young, the old, and the sick. Third, it suggests
that, on the average, women are not as morally developed as men. Fourth, it
overvalues culturally masculine traits like independence, autonomy, separation,
mind, reason, culture, transcendence, war, and death, and undervalues
culturally feminine traits like interdependence, community, connection, body,
emotion, nature, immanence, peace, and life. Fifth, and finally, it favours
culturally masculine ways of moral reasoning that emphases rules, universality,
and impartiality over culturally feminine ways of moral reasoning that emphasise
relationships, particularity, and partiality.[1]
In essence Jagger is pointing out what has been wrong with traditional ethical
thought. While it is convenient to call this feminist ethics, the term is
problematic in that it implies that there are masculine ethic?s. These are
arguably those ethical thoughts which are biased and centred on the idea of a
patriarchal world, or wrong as that old joke says about anything that comes out
of a man?s mouth. However there is a plethora of thought that is not biased and
has been spoken by men, so what is its label? For the same reason I would say
that there is a wide range of thought that women produce and can produce that
should not be labelled ?feminine? and be sidelined as some feminist thought is
for that reason. For the purpose of this paper I am going to accept the term
?Feminist ethic?s? and use it, since it is an answer to what has been wrong
with the study of ethics in general, namely the lack of a feminist point of
view, and if that is to be termed feminist ethics, so be it. It is possible to
argue that the overall aim of most all feminist approaches to ethics,
irrespective of their specific labels, is to create a gender-equal ethics, a
moral theory that generates non-sexist moral principles, policies, and
practices, and it is from this position that I am going to address the issue. Feminist
approaches to ethics, as well as debates about the allegedly gendered nature of
morality, are not contemporary developments. A variety of eighteenth and
nineteenth-century thinkers? discussed
what is probably best termed "women’s morality." Each of these
thinkers pondered questions such as: Are women’s psychological feminine traits
all natural? Or is it only women’s positive
psychological feminine traits that are natural, their negative ones being somehow socially-constructed? Is there a gender
neutral standard available to separate women’s good or positive traits from
women’s bad or negative traits? As it seems to be an underlying argument that
some men?s patriarchal traits are negative. Can it not be argued that traits
which are moral virtues as well as psychological traits are connected with
one’s affective as well as cognitive dimensions, indeed with one’s physiology
as Aristotle and Aquinas suggested, shouldn’t we expect men and women to manifest
different moral virtues as well as different psychological traits? Should all
individuals be urged to cultivate precisely the same set of psychological
traits and moral virtues, or should there be room for trait and virtue
specialisation, provided that this specialisation is not split specifically
down gender lines? Or even if this specialisation is split down gender lines?
Is that a negative, or positive idea? When it comes to
the questions about "women’s morality" that have been posed above,
the eighteenth-century thinker Mary Wollstonecraft answered that women’s and
men’s moralities are fundamentally the same. Although she did not use the term
"socially-constructed gender roles," Wollstonecraft refuted the
concept that women are by nature more pleasure seeking than men.
She reasoned that if men were confined to the same societal rules and roles
women find themselves locked into, as is the case with low-ranking military
men, for example, they would develop the same kind of weak characters women
have traditionally developed within these roles. Denied the chance to develop
their rational powers, to become moral persons who have concerns, causes, and
commitments over and beyond their own physical and psychological pleasure, men
as well as women would become overly "emotional." [2] Wollstonecraft believed in the distinction between manners and
morals, morals with lead to ethics and manners which are a societal training on
the right way to act within a situation. Manners do not require a subscription
to the moral belief behind them, only that you follow them. Morals require
educated thought to arrive at them and know why you have them, whereas manners
are simply something that you are taught to do and can be mastered by any one.
Historically society has taught men morals, and it teaches women manners. More
specifically, society encourages women to cultivate negative psychological
traits like "cunning," "vanity," and
"immaturity," all of which impede the development of more positive psychological
traits. Even worse, society twists what could be woman’s genuine virtue into
vices. Wollstonecraft specifically claimed that when strong women practice
gentleness, it is a grand, even godly, virtue; but when weak women practice it,
it is a demeaning, even subhuman, vice. ?"when it is the
submissive demeanour of dependence, the support of weakness that loves, because
it wants protection; and is forbearing because it must silently endure
injuries; smiling under the lash at which it dare not snarl" [3] However things had
changed a little by the nineteenth-century, women were regarded as more moral though
they were still considered to be less intellectual. than men, a view that
disturbed the utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill. As he saw it virtue along
with intellect had nothing to do with the gender of the subject in question. He
said that society was wrong to set up an ethical double standard when it comes to
assessing ?a women’s morality differently
than it assesses a man’s morality. Mill concluded that women’s "moral
nature" is not the result of innate female propensities but of systematic
social conditioning. To praise women on account of their great
"virtue" is merely to compliment patriarchal society for having
inculcated in women those psychological traits that serve to maintain it. Women
are taught to live for and sacrifice for others; to always give and never
receive; to submit, yield and obey; to be long-suffering. Their
"virt
imposes it upon them. [4] Proponents of the feminist
approach to ethics like Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings have stressed that the traditional
western moral theories, principles, practices, and policies are deficient to
the degree that they ignore, trivialise, or demean those personality traits and
virtues of character that are culturally associated with women. Gilligan has presented
her work as a response to the Freudian notion that whereas men have a
well-developed moral sense, women do not. Freud attributed women’s supposed
moral inferiority to girls’ psychosexual development. Whereas boys break their
attachment to their mothers out of the fear of being castrated by their fathers
if they don’t, girls remain emotionally tied to their mothers since the threat
of castration has no power over them. As a result of this state of affairs,
girls are supposedly much slower than boys to develop a sense of themselves as individual
moral agents who are personally responsible for the consequences of their
actions or inaction?s; as persons who must obey society’s rules or face its
punishments. In a sense this causes men to have to learn morals, while women
are able to just follow the manners that they are taught by their mothers, not
having to develop a set of moral understandings on their own. [5] In order to move
towards a more gender neutral study of ethics Gilligan has begun to study men’s
as well as women’s moral experience, as opposed to just a woman?s. Her central
aim is to expose the ways in which society continues to muffle men?s
sensitivity, encouraging them to be less than caring and fully nurturing human
persons. Gilligan stresses that unlike today’s women who speak the moral
language of justice and rights nearly as fluently as the moral language of care
and relationship, men remain largely unable to express their moral concerns in
anything other than the language of justice and rights, while women have
adapted and shown that they have the same capacity to operate in both spheres
of moral thought men have for the most part remained locked into the same pattern
of moral reasoning. One index of the
importance of Gilligan’s work the number of thinkers who have taken her work
seriously enough to critique it. To date Gilligan’s critics have focused either
on the relationship between justice and care, considered as two, gender-neutral
perspectives on morality, or on the fact, that women are culturally associated
with care and men are culturally associated with justice. Critics who have adopted
the first strategy are primarily non-feminist critics. Some of them argue that
even if care is a moral virtue and not just some pleasant psychological trait
that some people happen to have, it is a less essential moral virtue than
justice is. Among the statements such non feminist critics make is that it is
better to act out of a general moral principle like "aid the needy"
than a particular caring feeling, because principles are more reliable and less
ephemeral than feelings; and that, when justice and care conflict,
considerations of impartiality must overcome considerations of partiality: my
children’s fundamental rights and basic needs are neither more nor less
important than anyone else’s children’s, as opposed to the natural way that
most parents would weigh their children?s needs as more important then the
needs of other children. The concept of viewing all children as equal including
your own is much easier when ones emotions are not allowed into the debate. Or
when you are debating from a purely clinical point of view. The one question and
problem to this though is, is the tendency to view your own children?s needs as
more important, simply a issue of ?care? and therefor not within the male realm
of ?justice? for most fathers when faced with the same dilemma would have the
same reaction as any mother. Their children?s needs are more important then the
needs of others. To say that this view is essentially a feminist or feminine
ethic is to ignore the reaction of most fathers. This calls to question whether
or not this aspect of the ?ethics of care? is a trait that can be labelled
feminine, or is it one of the traits that can be considered gender neutral. Feminist Ethics offers to women multiple standards that validate a woman’s
different moral experiences in ways that point to the weaknesses as well as the
strengths of the values and virtues that culture has put the label of ?feminine?
on. ?In addition, they suggest to women
several paths, all of which lead toward the one goal that is essential to the
project of any women-centred ethics; namely, the elimination of gender
inequality. Although
feminists’ have different interpretations of what constitutes a voluntary and
intentional choice, an improper or legitimate exercise of control, and a
healthy or unhealthy relationship reassure the intellectual and moral community
that, after all, for the most part feminism and most feminists are trying not
to be an ideology that prescribes that there is one and only one way for all women to be. ?However this variety of thought is also the
occasion of considerable political fragmentation among feminists. Asked to come
to the policy table to express the
feminist perspective on a moral issue, all that an honest feminist ethicist can
say is that there is no such
perspective. Yet, if feminists have no clear, and unified position on a key
moral issue, then a perspective less appealing to women may fill the gap.
Although it is crucial for feminist ethicists to emphasise, for example, how a
policy that benefits one group of women might at the same time harm another
group of women, it is probably a mistake for feminist ethicists to leave the
policy table without suggesting policies that are able to serve the most important interests of the widest range of women. In the light of
the important contributions made by feminists by the way of theories,
perspectives and attention that has been given to issues. Feminist theory has
been beneficial in the field of ethics not only in opening up discourse, but
offering alternative theories. In this way Feminist ethic?s has been beneficial
to the field of ethics. Given the underlying questioning nature of Feminist
ethics, it is a very beneficial avenue of philosophical inquiry, given that a
questioning nature and analysis and discourse are important aspects of
philosophy. Bibliography Daly, Lois K. (ed.) (1994) Feminist
Theological Ethics. Louisville, Kentucky. Westminster John Knox PressGilligan, C. (1982). In a Different Voice:
Psychological Theory and Women?s Development. Cambrige, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.Jagger, A.M. (1983) Feminist Politics
and Human Nature. Totowa, NJ.: Allenheld.Jagger, A.M. (1991) Feminist ethics:
Projects, problems, prospects. In C. Card (ed) Feminist Ethics. (Lawrence,
Kan.: University Press of Kansas).Mill, J.S. (1970) The Subjegction of Women.
In A.S. Rossi (ed), Essays on Sex Equality. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press. Walker, Margaret U. (1998) Moral Understandings:
A Feminist study in Ethics. New York. Routledge. Wollstonecraft, M. (1988). A Vindication
of the Rights of Women, ed. M.Brody. (London: Penguin.) [1] (Jaggar, "Feminist Ethics," 1992). [2] (Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women,
1988). [3] (Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Women, p.
117). [4] (J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women, 1970). [5] (Gilligan, In a Different Voice, 1982).