The Feminist Challenge

Beyond the moral theorizing of Aquinas, Kant, Hobbes, and Mill, there is a different approach to moral thinking
and feeling that constitutes a serious challenge to them: feminist ethics. Feminist ethics is not a moral theory so much as
an alternative way of looking at the concepts and concerns of the moral life. It is an approach focused on women’s
interests and experiences and devoted to supporting the moral equality of women and men. Those who see ethics from
this perspective are reacting to some hard facts. One is that most of the great ethical theorists (and many of their
followers, past and present) have assumed that women are somehow morally inferior to men—less rational, less
important, less mature, or less moral. Coupled with this bias is a trend that is even more alarming: most women
throughout the world are in a thousand ways second-class citizens (or worse). By law, by religion, or by custom, they are
the victims of violence, stereotype, bigotry, coercion, forced dependence, and social, political, and professional
inequality. Modern Western societies are as guilty of some of these evils as many countries in the developing world. In
the West, some ways of thinking and feeling have been regarded as characteristic of women, and these ways, whether
distinctive of women or not, have been largely neglected by moral philosophers (who have traditionally been men).
According to the feminist philosopher Alison M. Jaggar, Western moral theory is said to embody values that are
“masculine,” insofar as they are associated, empirically, normatively, or symbolically, with men. For instance, western
ethics is alleged to prefer the supposedly masculine or male-associated values of independence, autonomy, intellect,
will, wariness, hierarchy, domination, culture, transcendence, product, asceticism, war and death over the supposedly
feminine or female-associated values of interdependence, community, connection, sharing, emotion, body, trust,
absence of hierarchy, nature, immanence, process, joy, peace and life.

Some moral issues are more likely to arise from women’s experiences than men’s, and these too have been
overlooked:

Issues of special concern to women are said to have been ignored by modern moral philosophers, who
have tended to portray the domestic realm as an arena outside the economy and beyond justice, private in the
sense of being beyond the scope of legitimate political regulation. Even philosophers like Aristotle or Hegel
(1770–1831), who give some ethical importance to the domestic realm, have tended to portray the home as an
arena in which the most fully human excellences are incapable of being realized. . . . [Feminist philosophers]
argued that the philosophical devaluation of the domestic realm made it impossible to raise questions about the
justice of the domestic division of labor, because it obscured the far-reaching social significance and creativity of
women’s work in the home, and concealed, even legitimated, the domestic abuse of women and girls.

In the past few decades, feminist philosophers and other thinkers (mostly women but some men) have tried to shed
light on all of these dark corners. The result—still an ongoing project—is feminist ethics and its grandchild, the ethics of
care.

FEMINIST ETHICS

Feminists are a diverse group with contrasting viewpoints, so it should not be a surprise that they approach
feminist ethics in different ways and arrive at different conclusions. Still, some generalizations are possible.

An emphasis on personal relationships. For the most part, traditional moral theories have been concerned with
what we could call “public life”—the realm where unrelated individuals try to figure out how to behave toward one
another and how to ensure that, among strangers, justice is done, rights are respected, and utility is maximized. The
focus has been mostly on moral judgments and theories pertaining to people as separate members of the community,
the polity, and the culture. But feminist ethics narrows the area of moral concern down to the interconnected and
familiar small group—to the people with whom we have close personal relationships. The relationships of interest are
the ties of kinship, the bonds of friendship, or the connections between caregivers and the cared-for—the sphere of the
domestic and the private. This is the realm of intimate relations, sexual behavior, child rearing, and family struggles—the
place we all come from and perhaps never leave, and where we live a large part of our moral lives.
 A suspicion of moral principles. Feminist philosophers resist the temptation to map out moral actions according
to moral principles. Whereas Kant wants to reduce all moral deliberation to adherence to a single rule (the categorical
imperative), feminists demur. They argue that principles such as autonomy, justice, and utility are too general and too
unwieldy to be of much use in the complicated, multifaceted arena of the domestic, social, and personal. The principle
of autonomy may tell a woman she has freedom of choice, but it has nothing to say about her particular situation and
the restraints placed on her by her poverty, culture, religion, upbringing, male relatives, social expectations, financial
dependence on her husband or other males, and overwhelming domestic duties.

The rejection of impartiality. Recall that the principle of impartiality is regarded as a defining characteristic of
morality itself. Impartiality says that from the moral point of view, all persons are considered equal and should be
treated accordingly. But in the domestic sphere we are anything but impartial. We are naturally partial to the people we
care about—our family and friends. Typically we would not think of treating our spouse the same way we treat a store
clerk or the bus driver. We have moral duties to the former that we do not have to the latter. Feminist ethics tries to
take these duties into account instead of ignoring them as Kant and Mill would have us do. A greater respect for
emotions. As we’ve seen, Kant has no place for emotions in his theory. Reading our moral duties off the categorical
imperative is all that is required. But in feminist ethics, emotions play a larger role. Feminist ethics is more comfortable
with moral guides in the form of virtues rather than rules (see the next chapter on virtue ethics), and the cornerstones
of the ethics of care are not rules but feelings. Moral philosophers of all stripes recognize the importance of emotions.
They understand that emotions can alert us to moral evil, provide the motivation to pursue the good, and enable us to
empathize with the suffering of others. (Moral philosophers also caution that feelings without thinking are blind, and
thinking without feelings makes for a sterile morality.)

THE ETHICS OF CARE

The ethics of care is a good example of feminist ethics. It is a perspective on moral issues that emphasizes close
personal relationships and moral virtues such as compassion, faithfulness, kindness, love, and sympathy. It contrasts
dramatically with traditional moral theories preoccupied with principles and legalistic moral reasoning. Much of the
interest in the ethics of care was sparked by research done by the psychologist Carol Gilligan on how men and women
think about moral problems.3 She maintains that men and women think in radically different ways when making moral
decisions. According to Gilligan, in moral decision making, men deliberate about rights, justice, and rules; women, on the
other hand, focus on personal relationships, caring for others, and being aware of people’s feelings, needs, and
viewpoints. She dubbed these two approaches the ethic of justice and the ethic of care. More recent research has raised
doubts about whether there really is a gap between the moral thinking styles of men and women. But these findings do
not dilute the relevance of caring to ethics. The ethics of care, regardless of any empirical underpinnings, is a reminder
that caring is a vital and inescapable part of the moral life—a conclusion that few philosophers would deny. If virtues are
a part of the moral life (as they surely are), and if caring (or compassion, sympathy, or love) is a virtue, then there must
be a place for caring alongside principles of moral conduct and moral reasoning. The philosopher Annette C. Baier, an
early proponent of the ethics of care, makes a case for both care and justice: “It is clear, I think, that the best moral
theory has to be a cooperative product of women and men, has to harmonize justice and care. The morality it theorizes
about is after all for all persons, for men and women, and will need their combined insights.

Here is the feminist philosopher Virginia Held explaining the need for care in the moral life:

First, the central focus of the ethics of care is on the compelling moral salience of attending to and
meeting the needs of the particular others for whom we take responsibility. Caring for one’s child, for instance, may well
and defensibly be at the forefront of a person’s moral concerns. The ethics of care recognizes that human beings are
dependent for many years of their lives, that the moral claim of those dependent on us for the care they need is
pressing, and that there are highly important moral aspects in developing the relations of caring that enable human
beings to live and progress. All persons need care for at least their early years. Prospects for human progress and
flourishing hinge fundamentally on the care that those needing it receive, and the ethics of care stresses the moral force
of the responsibility to respond to the needs of the dependent. Many persons will become ill and dependent for some
periods of their later lives, including in frail old age, and some who are permanently disabled will need care the whole of
their lives. Moralities built on the image of the independent, autonomous, rational individual largely overlook the reality
of human dependence and the morality for which it calls. The ethics of care attends to this central concern of human life
and delineates the moral values involved. It refuses to relegate care to a realm “outside morality.”

KEYWORDS

ethics of care—A perspective on moral issues that emphasizes close personal relationships and moral virtues
such as compassion, love, and sympathy.

feminist ethics—An approach to ethics focused on women’s interests and experiences and devoted to
supporting the moral equality of women and men.