Rachels, Chapter 11: Feminism and the Ethics of Care
1. Definition of Feminism:
a. A commitment to ending the subordination/domination/oppression of women
2. Are there psychological (not physical) differences between men and women?
a. Do men and women think differently?
3. Yes answer usually been used to subjugate women to men
a. Aristotle: Women not as rational as men, so naturally ruled by men
b. Kant: Women lack civil personality and should have no voice in public life
c. Rousseau: They possess different virtues, neither better than the others. But it turns out that men’s virtues fit them for leadership and women’s for home and hearth.
4. Feminism’s answer to question of whether men and women think differently:
a. They disagree; no unified answer to question of possible psychological differences between women
5. Women’s movement of 60's and 70's rejected psychological differences
a. Supposed differences–e.g., men rational, women emotional--a mere stereotype
b. If see such differences, due to conditioning/up bringing
i. Women have been conditioned by an oppressive system to behave in “feminine” ways
6. Recent feminist thinkers suggested women/men do think differently
a. And not in inferior ways, but in some respect better
b. Nancy Chodorow table of differences
c. Female style of thinking has insights missed in more male-dominated thinking
d. By attending to distinctive female approach, new insights can be gained and progress made in areas that were stalled
e. Ethics is good example (feminist ethics)
8. Famous Harvard education psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg has a scale of moral development that suggests women are less morally developed than men
a. The scale put a focus on relationships and keeping loyalty and trust with people (typical of women) on a lower level than the typical male approach of appealing to universal ethical principles
9. Heinz drug stealing story: shows how girls and boys think differently and girls end up lower on this scale (161-163)
a. Jake thinks like typical male, seeing it as a conflict life/property solved by logic
i. An ethic of principle
ii. Male way of thinking abstracts away from details that give each situation its special flavor
iii. Men’s moral theories: impersonal duty, contracts, harmonization of competing interests, and calculation of costs and benefits.
b. Amy responds in a typically female fashion to personal aspects of situation
i. Ethic of caring
ii. Intimacy, caring, and personal relationships
iii. Women don’t like to abstract away from detail of situation
iv. Basic moral orientation is caring for others, taking care of others in a personal way, not general concern for all humanity
v. Sensitivity to the needs of others
vi. Include the points of view of the other in one’s deliberation
(1) Amy couldn’t just reject the druggist’s point of view
vii. Overriding concern with relationship and responsibility
10. Feminist ethics (Carol Gilligan’s In a Different Voice) argues for a feminist point of view in ethics and rejects idea that an ethic of care is a lower level of moral development
a. Caring, empathy, feeling with others, being sensitive to each other’s feelings, may all be better guides to what morality requires in actual contexts than applying abstract rules of reason, rational calculation
b. At least they are necessary components of an adequate morality
11. Rachels’ view: The two sexes don’t inhabit different moral universes
a. Even if do think differently about ethics, difference can’t be very great, rather difference in emphasis
b. Also some men prefer caring perspective and some women prefer an ethic of principle
c. Still it could be that in general, women tend to the former and men the latter.
12. How account for this general difference between men and women (if there is such)?
a. Nurture: Women think differently because of social role to which they have been assigned
i. Been assigned to home and hearth
ii. Values of care could be part of this psychological conditioning
b. Nature: Since women are child-bearers, women’s nature as mothers makes them natural care-givers
i. The come equipped by nature with required (care giving) skills
13. Evolutionary Psychology: Major features of human psychological life are products of natural selection
a. Evolution by natural selection: Moth evolution story
b. Evolutionary psychology claims we have psychological features (emotions and behavioral tendencies) because it allowed our ancestors to survive and reproduce in past
c. Darwin’s struggle for existence: get as many copies of one’s genes as possible in next generation
d. Men can father hundreds of children, women only one baby each nine months
e. Men reproductive strategy to impregnate as many females as possible, investing only as much energy as necessary to insure offspring survives
f. Women invest heavily in each child and choose males partners who will stay around and make similar investment
g. Explains why men more promiscuous than women
h. Explains why women are more attracted than men to values of nuclear family
i. Perhaps explains the care ethics of women
14. IMPLICATIONS OF ETHICS OF CARE AS OPPOSED TO ETHICS OF PRINCIPLE FOR THREE ISSUES
15. Family and Friends (Ethics of care does better here)
a. Ethic of duty/obligation/principle ill-suited to life among family and friends: acting only out of duty toward them leads to being a bad friend or parent
b. Strict impartiality doesn’t work with family and friends and it is antagonistic to values of love and friendship
c. Ethic of care doesn’t take obligation as fundamental or require us to impartially promote interests of everyone.
d. Moral life a network of relationships with specific other people, and involves caring for them
e. Ethic of care confirms the priority we give to our family and friends.
16. Helping children with HIV (Ethics of care does not work so well)\
a. Around the world two million children infected with HIV virus, that causes AIDS; only about 10% get help they need; should we help them?
b. (Male) Ethic of principle, like utilitarianism, suggests we have a substantial duty to help; our luxuries not as important as their lives
c. An ethic of care based on close personal relations will not reach this conclusion
i. W/o a relationship, caring can’t take place. And we have not relations with these children on other side of the globe
d. Better to help in a personal than impersonal way?
17. Rachels criticizes exclusive concern with personal relations
a. Making personal relationships the whole of ethics seems as wrong-headed as ignoring them altogether
b. Ethical life includes both caring personal relations and benevolent concern for people generally
c. Ethics of care should be a supplement to, rather than replacement of traditional moral theories.
18. Animals
a. Feminist ethics:
i. Appeals to feeling and intuition rather than principle
ii. Involves an individual relationship between one who cares and one who is cared for.
(1) The cared for must be able to participate in the relationship and respond
b. We do have such a relation with pets, and so have obligations to them
c. No such feelings or relations to cows and so no obligation to them (says Nel Noddings a feminist ethicist)
19. Rachels response:
a. If there is a role in morality for ethical principles (one should not inflict unnecessary suffering), then even cows get in the moral arena
b. Feelings and intuitions are an unsteady guide to morality
i. Many peoples feelings (once did and even now) tell them that the subordination of women is God’s plan
Transition to virtue ethics
20. Feminists believe that modern moral philosophy incorporates a male bias
a. Men have dominated public life and developed a “male ethic” of principle/obligation/impartial justice based on it
b. Concerns that arise in private life–where women traditionally dominate–are almost wholly absent
c. In private life, morality does not involve bargaining and calculating, but loving and caring–feminist ethics
21. Feminist ethics involves being a certain kind of person (loving, caring)
22. Feminist ethics is thus a subset of virtue ethics
23. Virtue ethics versus theories of obligation (Utilitarianism/Kantianism)
a. Being a certain kind of person (virtue ethics) versus doing one’s duty (theories of obligation)
24. Theories of obligation: Morality involves impartial duty, the moral persons listens to reason
25. Virtue theory: Being a moral person is having certain traits of character (virtues); e.g., being kind, generous, courageous, just
a. Virtue theory goes well with both public and private life
i. For public life need virtues of beneficence and justice
ii. For private life virtues of love and caring