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Feminism, Friendship, and Philosophy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2020
Extract
In recent years, more and more philosophical work has come to be done under the rubric of ‘feminist philosophy.’ In particular, more and more work in philosophical ethics has come to be identified by both those who produce it and those who read it as within the domain of ‘feminist ethics.’ As a philosophical ethicist and a feminist, the question naturally arises as to whether I do feminist ethics. The question seems particularly natural in my case, because a great deal of my research has focussed on the nature of intimate relationships, the types of reasons to which such relationships give rise, and how moral theory ought to accommodate such relationships and their attendant reasons. Intimacy, after all, has been one of the areas to which feminist ethicists have paid a great deal of attention in their attempts to carve out a peculiarly’ feminist’ ethics, arguing that traditional or canonical theories need, at the very least, a great deal of revision if they are to respond appropriately to the ‘data’ acquired as the result of the inclusion and responsiveness to the experience of women.
- Type
- I. Virtue Theory: Challenges and Developments
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 28: Feminist Moral Philosophy , 2002 , pp. 63 - 82
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Authors 2002
References
1 Of course, I have now implicitly generated a meta-question about the appropriateness of using traditional analytic tools of conceptual analysis in order to understand the nature of an area of inquiry that may reject the methodological presuppositions of ‘mainstream’ analytic ethics. Here we have yet another reason for not venturing to undertake such a project.
2 I have borrowed the distinction between methodological generalism and methodological particularism from Roderick Chisholm's discussion of the problem of the criterion. See his Theory of Knawledge, 3d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1989), 6–7. (I would like to thank Richard Fumerton for suggesting that Chisholm's distinction would be helpful to me in the present context.)
3 What I am here calling ‘particularism’ is not to be confused with the view that is now often discussed under that label, i.e., the view that there are no general moral truths or, at least, that there are no general truths that we can come to know. The particularism that I here describe is entirely methodological in nature. For discussions both for and against the other kind of particularism, see Moral Particularism, ed. Brad, Hooker and Margaret, Little (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000).Google Scholar
4 For discussion of these difficulties, see my and Thomas Williams’ “We Hold These Truths to be Self-Evident: A Defense of Intuitionism.“
5 For a small sampling of the invective that male philosophers have directed at women, page through Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition, ed. Beverley, Clack (New York: Routledge, 1999).Google Scholar
6 The title of Annette Baier's now famous piece, “What Do Women Want in a Moral Theory?”, in her Moral Prejudices: Essays on Ethics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), 1–17, seems to suggest an endorsement of this meta-ethical feminist tack.
7 Much depends here on the theory of truth that is accepted- there is often some vagueness as to what the status of moral claims is taken to be.
8 See, for example, Susan, Sherwin, “Philosophical Methodology and Feminist Methodology: Are They Compatible?”, in Feminist Perspectives: Philosophical Essays on Method and Morals (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1988), 13–28.Google Scholar
9 I myself regard many of the most well-known attacks on utilitarianism, such as Williams', to be either misguided or thoroughly opaque. I do, however, ultimately reject utilitarianism or any form of consequentialism as an adequate complete theory of reasons. See my “Friendship and Reasons of Intimacy,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2001): 329-46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
10 It is not always clear as to the nature of this objection. In many cases, it seems to be a substantive rather than a methodological point, a point close to the type of particularism, mentioned in footnote 3 above, that I am not discussing. What I am doing here is offering what I take to be a sympathetic rendering of the objection to abstraction or generality.
11 My view is developed most fully in my The Metaphysics of Reasons.
12 By doing so I do not mean to be denying the interest or significance of such an area of study. However, as I made clear at the outset, my project is philosophical and meta-philosophical, and I do not regard psychological generalizations as appropriate objects of philosophical inquiry.
13 Virginia, Held, “Feminist Moral Inquiry and the Feminist Future,” in Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics, ed. Virginia, Held (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 153-76; 158.Google Scholar
14 As I indicated above, I will not pursue (3), feminist reflective equilibrium, any further than I already have.
15 For a brilliant literary exploration of this idea, see Andrew, Miller'sIngenious Pain (New York: Harcourt, 1998).Google Scholar
16 In her “Moral Understandings: Alternative ‘Epistemology’ for a Feminist Ethics,” in Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics, ed. Virginia, Held (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1995), 139-52.Google Scholar All page references to Urban Walker in the text are to this work.
17 Of course, she might also reject the label ‘meta-ethics,’ given its suggestion of and association with theory, analysis, abstraction, universalization, etc.
18 The term ‘epistemology’ is used loosely: Urban Walker is not engaged in a discussion of what, if anything, justifies moral beliefs. Given her rejection of moral philosophy as conceived of as the acquisition of moral knowledge, this is not surprising. I would suggest that ‘outlook’ is probably a better term for Urban Walker's purposes. However, I will follow her usage in what follows.
19 Urban Walker agrees with this claim, but for different sorts of reasons than those I offer below. Seep. 145.
20 It should be clear that such a view could be a version of any of (1) to (3) in terms of methodology. But it certainly would not be a version of (5), as Urban Walker clearly intends her view to be.