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Afterword: Feminist Theory—Some Twistings and Turnings

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Kai Nielsen*
Affiliation:
The University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, CanadaT2N 1N4
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Extract

Feminist philosophy, along with, and as a part of, feminist thought more generally, is rapidly developing and will, and rightly, become an increasing force in our cultural life. The essays in this rich and varied volume contribute to this. They have a cluster of salient features in common that is generally characteristic of feminist philosophy and contrasts markedly with most other philosophy as presently practiced. I refer here to the fact that feminist philosophy is more receptive than more traditional modes of philosophizing to currents of thought coming from a very considerable number of often quite different sources, less defensively adversarial and more tolerant of a lack of closure in philosophical thought.

Type
IV—Selves and Integration
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

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References

1 Pages, references and titles to the essays in this volume are not given. Where the author of these essays is mentioned in the text it is to be assumed, unless otherwise indicated, that the reference is to the author’s essay in this volume. Other references will be given in the standard way.

2 Okin, Susan MollerWomen and the Making of the Sentimental Family,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 11 (Winter 1982) 65-88.Google Scholar See also her Women in Western Political Thought (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1979) and her ‘Philosopher Queens and Private Wives: Plato on Women and the Family,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 6 (1976) 345-69.

3 Gilligan, CarolIn a Different Voice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1982) 172.Google Scholar

4 Nagel, ThomasMortal Questions (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1979) 106-27;Google ScholarNielsen, KaiEquality and Liberty (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allan-held 1985) 15-35;Google Scholar and Nielsen, KaiArguing for Equality,’ Philosophic Exchange 17 (1986) 5-23Google Scholar

5 Kant, ImmanuelTheory and Practice,” in Kant’s Political Writings, Reiss, Hans ed., trans. Nisbet, H.B. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1970) 62-72Google Scholar

6 This is perhaps clearest in Rawls, JohnJustice as Fairness: Political not MetaphysicalPhilosophy and Public Affairs 14 (Summer 1985) 223-51;Google Scholar see Mouffe, ChantalWhat is the Crisis of Socialism?Symposium of Socialist Scholars Conference (New York, April 11 1987).Google Scholar

7 This is Exdell’s paraphrase but see Maclntyre, AlasdairAfter Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press 1981) 143-88.Google Scholar

8 Rawls, JohnSocial Unity and Primary Goods,’ in Sen, Amartya and Williams, Bernard eds., Utilitarianism and Beyond (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1982) 159-85CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 Okin, Women and the Making of the Sentimental Family,’ 65-88,Google Scholar clearly reveals the ideology of the sentimental family. See also Exdell and Morgan in this volume.

10 Sections III and IV of Friedman’s essay are particularly relevant here. She challenges the dichotomy, realizes that within the justice orientation itself there are two distinct orientations, points to inadequacies in Gilligan’s formulations and brings to our attention an array of considerations that still need sorting out.

11 Okin, Justice and Gender,’ Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (Winter 1987) 42-72Google Scholar

12 Ibid., 48.

13 Ibid., 65. It is interesting to note that there is a similar failure in the work of Jurgen Habermas. See Fraser, NancyWhat’s Critical about Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender,’ New German Critique 35 (Spring/Summer 1985) 97-131.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Rawls, A Theory of Justice, 440, 396Google Scholar and 178-9. See also Okin, Justice and Gender67-8.Google Scholar

15 Okin, Justice and Gender,’ 71.Google Scholar See her argument 69-72.

16 Ibid., 60.

17 Ibid., 70.

18 Ibid.

19 Fraser, Nancy and Nicholson, LindaCriticism Without Philosophy: An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernismpresented at the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association (Boston, December 1986).Google Scholar

20 Fraser, Nancy and Nicholson, Linda ‘“Criticism Without Philosophy:” An Encounter Between Feminism and Postmodernism.Google Scholar

21 Even if it is too totalizing to speak of the human condition of women or of the gender-system, we can limit our generalizations to generalizations about the condition of women across classes and strata in modernizing societies such as our own. Such generalizations limited in scope as they are could be both theoretically interesting and have an emancipatory wallop in modernizing societies.

23 If that is a persuasive definition make the most of it. Not all persuasive definitions, as C.L. Stevenson well argued, need be bad. See Stevenson, C.L.Ethics and Language (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press 1944),Google Scholar Chapters IX and XIII.

22 Rawls, JohnA Theory of Justice, 19-21,Google Scholar 48-51, 577-87; Rawls, The Independence of Moral Theory,’ in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47 (1974/5) 7-10;Google ScholarRawls, The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,’ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 7 (1987) 1-25;CrossRefGoogle ScholarEnglish, JaneEthics and Science,’ Proceedings of the XVI Congress of Philosophy;Google ScholarHanen, MarshaJustification as Coherence’ in Stewart, M. A. ed., Law, Morality and Rights (Dordrecht, Netherlands: D. Reidel 1983), 67-92;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDaniels, NormanWide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptancein Ethics/ The Journal of Philosophy 76 (1979);Google Scholar ‘Some Methods of Ethics and Linguistics,’ Philosophical Studies 7 (1980); ‘Moral Theory and the Plasticity of Persons,’ The Monist 62 (1979); ‘Reflective Equilibrium and Archimedean Points,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (March 1980); Two Approaches to Theory Acceptance in Ethics,’ Copp, David and Zimmerman, David eds., Morality, Reason and Truth (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allan-held 1985);Google ScholarPutnam, HilaryRealism and Reason (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1983) 229-47;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Rorty, RichardThe Priority of Democracy to Philosophy” in Patterson, Meryl and Vaughan, Robert eds., The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1987).Google Scholar

22 Rawls, JohnA Theory of Justice, 19-21,Google Scholar 48-51, 577-87; Rawls, The Independence of Moral Theory,’ in Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 47 (1974/5) 7-10;Google ScholarRawls, The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus,’ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 7 (1987) 1-25;CrossRefGoogle ScholarEnglish, JaneEthics and Science,’ Proceedings of the XVI Congress of Philosophy;Google ScholarHanen, MarshaJustification as Coherence’ in Stewart, M. A. ed., Law, Morality and Rights (Dordrecht, Netherlands: D. Reidel 1983), 67-92;CrossRefGoogle ScholarDaniels, NormanWide Reflective Equilibrium and Theory Acceptancein Ethics The Journal of Philosophy 76 (1979);Google Scholar ‘Some Methods of Ethics and Linguistics,’ Philosophical Studies 7 (1980); ‘Moral Theory and the Plasticity of Persons,’ The Monist 62 (1979); ‘Reflective Equilibrium and Archimedean Points,’ Canadian Journal of Philosophy 10 (March 1980); Two Approaches to Theory Acceptance in Ethics,’ Copp, David and Zimmerman, David eds., Morality, Reason and Truth (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allan-held 1985);Google ScholarPutnam, HilaryRealism and Reason (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1983) 229-47;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Rorty, RichardThe Priority of Democracy to Philosophy” in Patterson, Meryl and Vaughan, Robert eds., The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 1987).Google Scholar

24 Fraser, NancyWhat’s Critical About Critical Theory? The Case of Habermas and Gender,’ 97CrossRefGoogle Scholar

25 I am grateful to Russell Cornett and Marsha Hanen for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this essay.