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Chapter Ten:Chapter Ten:Gender and EthicsGender and Ethics
The female perspective of moral issues has been ignored in favor of a male perspective
Female Genital Mutilation Example
Alison Jaggar: Five Harms with Alison Jaggar: Five Harms with the Male Bias in Ethicsthe Male Bias in Ethics
Relegates to women subservient obligations (obedience, silence, and faithfulness)
Confines women to a socially isolated domestic realm of society with little legitimate political regulation
Denies the moral agency of women, claiming they lack the capacity for moral reasoning
Alison Jaggar: Five Harms with Alison Jaggar: Five Harms with the Male Bias in Ethicsthe Male Bias in Ethics
Preference for masculine values over female ones (e.g., independence, autonomy, intellect vs. interdependence, community, connection, sharing, emotion)
Prefers male notions of moral rules, judgments about particular actions, impartial moral assessments, contractual agreements.
Two Key QuestionsTwo Key Questions
How do men and women psychologically differ from each other (if at all)?
Based on those psychological differences, how do men and women differ from each other (if at all)?
Classic ViewsClassic Views
Aristotle: Women and Natural Subservience
Rousseau: Women as Objects of Sexual Desire
Wollstonecraft: Gender-Neutral Morality Instinct vs. Social Construction
Aristotle: Women and Natural Aristotle: Women and Natural SubservienceSubservience
Psychological question: men are designed to command, and women to obey
Different capacities of the soul
Slave: no deliberative faculty at all
Women: the deliberative faculty without authority
Child: an immature deliberative faculty
Aristotle: Women and Natural Aristotle: Women and Natural SubservienceSubservience
Moral question: women have subservient virtues
Different virtues for different capacities of the soul
Man: temperance and courage in commanding
Women: temperance and courage in obeying
Aristotle: Women and Natural Aristotle: Women and Natural SubservienceSubservience
Criticism: based on the roles of women in ancient patriarchal societies
Rousseau: Women as Objects Rousseau: Women as Objects of Sexual Desireof Sexual Desire
Psychological question: women are designed to sexually please men
“It is his strength that attracts her to him, and it is her allurement that attracts him to her.”
Rousseau: Women as Objects Rousseau: Women as Objects of Sexual Desireof Sexual Desire
Moral question: women should learn to entice men
He depends on her cooperation to satisfy his sexual desires, and she submits to his superior strength when she gets what she wants from him
Wollstonecraft: Gender-Neutral Wollstonecraft: Gender-Neutral MoralityMorality
Psychological question: men and women are fundamentally the same
The apparent differences are the result of sexist education
Wollstonecraft: Gender-Neutral Wollstonecraft: Gender-Neutral MoralityMorality
Moral question:
Three features of personhood(what separates humans from animals): reason, the exercise of virtue, and the passion for knowledge
Wollstonecraft: Gender-Neutral Wollstonecraft: Gender-Neutral MoralityMorality
Moral question:
All moral duties are human duties and there are no special female virtues or obligations• Child rearing: women are not
necessarily good at it• No special moral obligation to be
subservient and sexually alluring
Instinct vs. Social ConstructionInstinct vs. Social Construction
Criticism of Wollstonecraft: her basis for denying psychological gender differences was based on her own experience as a woman
Instinct vs. Social ConstructionInstinct vs. Social Construction
Nature-nurture issue regarding psychological gender differences
Today we are still unclear, and unsubstantiated stereotypes still abound
Toy study with rhesus monkeys: boys preferred wheeled toys over dolls, girls preferred both
Instinct vs. Social ConstructionInstinct vs. Social Construction
Best to postpone answering the nature-nurture question for now
But some psychological differences are so strong that they may form foundations for gender differences in ethics
Female Care EthicsFemale Care Ethics
Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. Care Care and Particularism Care and Virtues
Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. CareCare
Kohlberg's theory
Six stages of moral development, which move from selfishness to impartial justice
Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. CareCare
Gilligan's theory
Criticism of Kohlberg: his study used only males, and his justice view of morality was male-oriented
Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. CareCare
Gilligan's theory
A woman's moral point of view is different from a man's• Men typically emphasize rights and
principles of justice • Women typically focus on particular
relationships
Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. Kohlberg and Gilligan: Justice vs. CareCare
Gilligan's theory
Care-ethics: attitudes like caring and sensitivity to context is an important aspect of the moral life
Care and ParticularismCare and Particularism
Moral particularism: morality always involves particular relations with people, not lifeless abstractions
Classical moral theory incorporates some particularism by recognizing obligations to family, friends, and local community
Care and ParticularismCare and Particularism
Criticism: this is not a dominant feature of traditional ethics, and it may not go far enough
Care and VirtuesCare and Virtues
Nel Noddings: Care should be seen as a component of virtue theory, where care is a nurturing character trait that we personally internalize, as we do other virtues
Four options regarding gender and Four options regarding gender and ethicsethics
Male-Only Option Female-Only Option Separate-but-Equal Option Mutually-Inclusive Option
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