The object of this essay is to explore the central role played by the ‘ethic of care’ in debates within and beyond feminist legal theory. The author claims that the ethic of care has attracted feminist legal scholars in particular, as a means of resolving the theoretical, political and strategic difficulties to which the perceived ‘crisis of subjectivity’ in feminist theory has given rise. She argues that feminist legal scholars are peculiarly placed in relation to this crisis because of their (...) reliance on the social ‘woman’ whose interests are the predominant concern of feminist legal engagement. With the problematisation of subjectivity, the object of feminist legal attention disappears and it is in attempts to deflect the negative political consequences of this that the ethic of care has been invoked, the author argues, unsuccessfully. The essay concludes with suggestions as to how the feminist project in law might proceed in the wake of the crisis of subjectivity and the failure of the ethic of care to resolve it. (shrink)

Sacrificing one's own interests in order to serve another is, in general, supposed to be a good thing, an example of altruism, the hallmark of morality, and something we should commend to (but not always require of) the entirely-too-selfish human beings of our society. But let me recount a story that I hope will persuade the reader to start questioning this conventional philosophical wisdom. Last year, a friend of mine was talking with me about a mutual acquaintance whose two sons (...) were in the same nursery school as our sons. This woman, whom I will call Terry, had been pregnant with twins, but one of the twins had died during the fourth month of pregnancy, and the other twin had just been born prematurely at six months with a host of medical problems. We were discussing how stressful this woman's life had been while she was pregnant: she was a housewife, and her two boys, aged three and five, were lively, challenging, often unruly--a real handful to raise. Her husband worked long hours in a law firm, so the vast majority of the childcare and household chores fell on her shoulders. "You could see that she was exhausted by end of the first trimester," I maintained, "because her eyes were tired, and her cheeks were sunken--she looked almost like a cadaver." My friend agreed. I went on to blame her exhaustion on the fact that she had to do too much during a pregnancy that anyone would have found difficuIt. "I don't understand her husband," I maintained. "Surely he could how badly she looked. If he had concern for his future children, why didn't he do something to help her so that the pregnancy had a chance of going better? And if he loved her, why didn't he cut down his hours so that he could help out at home? Surely he could see just by looking at her that she was in trouble," My friend said nothing at the time, but after a week she called me, and told me that my criticism of this woman's husband had bothered her all week. "You're wrong about Terry's husband not caring enough about her, They have a good marriage," she insisted, and then she continued: "You know, you're not like us, We accept the fact that we should do most of the childcare and housework.. (shrink)

Punishment stands in need of justification because it involves intentionally harming offenders. Trust-based retributivists attempt to justify punishment by appeal to the offender’s violation of the victim’s trust, maintaining that the state is entitled to punish offenders as a means of restoring conditions of trust to their pre-offense levels. I argue that trust-based retributivism fails on two counts. First, it entails the permissibility of punishing the legally innocent and fails to justify the punishment of some offenders. Second, it cannot satisfactorily (...) explain why it is morally permissible for the government to intentionally harm offenders. (shrink)

Despite the importance of ethics in corporate crisis management, they have received limited attention in the academic literature. This article contributes to the evolving conversation on ethics in crisis management by elucidating the ethics of "justice" and "care" and distinguishing between them. Examples of the two approaches are offered through consideration of cases in corporate crisis management, including the alleged glass contamination case faced by Gerber Products Company, and, the shooting tragedy at San Ysidro faced by McDonald''s Corporation. It is (...) argued that both an ethic of justice and an ethic of care can be appropriate approaches in corporate crisis management. Areas for future research are discussed. (shrink)

It may be a myth that Plato wrote over the entrance to the Academy “Let no-one ignorant of geometry enter here.” But it is a well-chosen motto for his view in the Republic that mathematical training is especially productive of understanding in abstract realms, notably ethics. That view is sound and we should return to it. Ethical theory has been bedevilled by the idea that ethics is fundamentally about actions (right and wrong, rights, duties, virtues, dilemmas and so on). That (...) is an error like the one Plato mentions of thinking mathematics is about actions (of adding, constructing, extracting roots and so on). Mathematics is about eternal relations between universals, such as the ratio of the diagonal of a square to the side. Ethics too is about eternal verities, such as the equal worth of persons and just distributions. Mathematical and ethical verities do both constrain actions, such as the possibility of walking over the seven bridges of Königsberg once and once only or of justly discriminating between races. But they are not themselves about action. In principle, neither mathematical nor ethical verities are subject to historical forces or disagreement among tribes (though they can be better understood as time goes on). Plato is right: immersion in mathematics induces an understanding of the necessities underpinning reality, an understanding that is essential for distinguishing objective ethics from tribal custom. Equality, for example, is an abstract concept which is foundational for both mathematics and ethics. (shrink)

In this article, I examine the moral dimensions of gender affirmation. I argue that the moral value of gender affirmation is rooted in what Iris Murdoch called loving attention. Loving attention is central to the moral value of gender affirmation because such affirmation is otherwise too fragile or insincere to have such value. Moral reasons to engage in acts that gender affirm derive from the commitment to give and express loving attention to trans people as a way of challenging their (...) marginalization. In the latter part of the paper, I will discuss how my arguments bear on recent arguments by Robin Dembroff and Daniel Wodak (2018) on the use of gender-neutral language. They argue that we have a duty not to use gender-specific pronouns for anyone. Their conclusion turns, in part, on a rejection of gender affirmation as a moral duty. The value of gender affirmation, rooted in our moral perception of trans people, should make us skeptical of this conclusion, in favor of a more nuanced and pluralistic approach to the ethics of gendering. (shrink)

It is a commonplace that there are limits to the ways we can permissibly treat people, even in the service of good ends. For example, we may not steal someone’s wallet, even if we plan to donate the contents to famine relief, or break a promise to help a colleague move, even if we encounter someone else on the way whose need is somewhat more urgent. In other words, we should observe certain constraints against mistreating people, where a constraint is (...) a moral principle that we should not violate, even when that is the only way to prevent further, similar violations or other, greater evils. But, despite its intuitive appeal, the view that there are constraints has drawn considerable criticism, and attempts to provide a rationale for constraints have been, at best, substantially incomplete. In this paper, I develop a novel rationale for constraints that fills important gaps left by views in the literature. The account helps make sense of constraints by identifying a morally significant relation that we bear to people when, and only when, we observe certain constraints against mistreating them. Put roughly, observing these constraints is a condition for being worthy of a form of trust that I call civic trust, and being worthy of such trust is an essential part of living with others in the sort of harmony that characterizes morally permissible interaction. By focusing, in ways other accounts do not, on the role that observing constraints plays in our psychological lives, this approach not only makes the structure of constraints more intelligible, but also helps us better appreciate the force of our reason to observe constraints, and better understand the kind of moral community to which we should aspire. (shrink)

Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac emphasizes values of receptivity and perceptivity that appear to be mutually reinforcing, critical to an ecological conscience, and cultivatable through concrete and embodied experience. His priorities bear striking similarities to elements of the ethics of care elaborated by feminist philosophers, especially Nel Noddings, who notably recommended receptivity, direct and personal experience, and even shared Leopold’s attentiveness to joy and play as sources of moral motivation. These commonalities are so fundamental that ecofeminists can and should (...) see Leopold as a philosophical ally. The three ecofeminist scholars who have devoted the most concerted attention to Leopold’s work argue that his Land Ethic is not, and does not provide a basis for, an ecofeminist ethic. I dispute the main criticisms of these scholars, and conclude that ecofeminists should attend more often to Leopold’s work, which extends possibilities for excellent praxis. (shrink)

A prominent trend in moral philosophy today is the interest in the rich textures of actual human practices and lives. This has prompted engagements with other disciplines, such as anthropology, history, literature, law and empirical science, which have produced various forms of contextual ethics. These engagements motivate reflections on why and how context is important ethically, and such metaethical reflection is what this article undertakes. Inspired by the work of the later Wittgenstein and the Danish theologian K.E. Løgstrup, I first (...) describe one of the ways in which context plays a central role with regard to ethical meaning and normativity. I then examine how ‘context’ is to be defined, and finally I discuss some of the questions which arise when giving context prominence in ethics – namely, how to delimit the scope of relevant context, the relevant traits of a particular context and what ‘the ethical’ is. (shrink)

I argue that Plato holds a medical model of virtue as health which does not have themorally unacceptable implications which have led some to describe it as authoritarian.This model, which draws on the educational virtues of the elenchos, lacks anyimplication that all criminals are mad or all mad people criminals – this implication beingat the source of many criticisms of Plato’s analogy of virtue and health. After setting upthe analogy and the model, I defend my argument against two objections. The (...) firstclaims that Plato's picture of virtue as health is unacceptable because it entails that vice isa defect and therefore that criminals are all mad. The second resists Kenny'sinterpretation but does so by attacking its first premise, i.e. that Plato believes virtue issome kind of health. I reply that both objections are misguided. (shrink)

Twelfth-century ethics is commonly thought of as following a stoic influence rather than an Aristotelian one. It is also assumed that these two schools are widely different, in particular with regards to the social aspect of the virtuous life. In this paper I argue that this picture is misleading and that Heloise of Argenteuil recognized that stoic ethics did not entail isolation but could be played out in a social context. I argue that her philosophical contribution does not end there, (...) but that she departs from both the stoics and her teacher, Abelard, in her defence of the ideal of moderation. By insisting that virtue must strike a mean between two extremes, she shows that Aristotelian virtue ethics were present in the intellectual life of the twelfth century. (shrink)

The association of women with caring dispositions and thinking has become a persistent theme in recent feminist writing. There are a number of reasons for this. One reason is the impetus that has been provided by the empirical work of Carol Gilligan on women’s moral development. The fact that this association is not merely an ideologically or philosophically postulated one, but is argued for on empirical grounds, tends to add to its credibility. Another reason for the resilience of the association (...) is the existence of an increasingly prominent theme in feminist thought and action that focuses on the importance of women’s difference from men, both as a fact and as a goal. Within this theme, there are various views on what the relevant differences are between women and men, and why the differences ought to be emphasized and properly respected. Women’s caring, as will be seen, turns out to have a firm presence in all of these views, and as a result, many women argue that caring should form the basis of a distinctive feminist ethic. On these views, women’s approaches to understanding moral situations, defining selfconceptions, choosing goals and roles, and guiding behaviour, should all be informed by and based upon dispositions of caring. However, if this idea of a feminist ethic of care is to be plausible, it will need to be reconciled with another strong theme in feminism, according to which in fundamental moral respects women ought not be considered or treated differently from men. We will examine the standing of a feminist ethic of care in the context of this tension between the difference theme and the sameness theme in feminism. The discussion begins by re-characterizing the justice and care debate in terms of impartialist and partialist ethical perspectives, and it then goes on to indicate the various ways in which women’s presumed disposition to caring and partialism finds prominence within the difference theme. The central focus of the discussion, however, will be the question of how to reconcile the conflict that exists between impartialist, justice-based moral thinking, and a partialist, caring approach to morality.. (shrink)

Self-conflict is a feature of most women’s lives, particularly as we struggle to balance the demands of work and family. Theories of autonomy that rest on a notion of a coherent self treat self-conflict as incompatible with autonomy; therefore, women who suffer self-conflict fail to act autonomously. Though autonomy and self-conflict can be accommodated by conceiving of autonomy as a matter of degree relative to a context of choice, this result sanctions a political system that forces the prioritization of one (...) context over another. Yet choices in one context often compromise choices in another context, creating a situation where acting autonomously simultaneously diminishes autonomy. Given that autonomous choice justifies political liberalism, it is unjust that choices are set against one another in this way. Consequently, the burden on liberal governments to address the structural sources of self-conflict is far greater than is often supposed. (shrink)

Autonomy in bioethics is coming under sustained criticism from a variety of perspectives. The criticisms, which target personal or individual autonomy, are largely justified. Moral conceptions of autonomy, such as Kant’s, on the other hand, cannot simply be applied in bioethical situations without moralizing care provision and recipience. The discussion concludes with a proposal for re-thinking autonomy by focusing on what different agents count as reasons for choosing one rather than another course of action, thus recognising their involvement in the (...) decision process. (shrink)

The role of ethics in organizational crisis management has received limited but growing attention. However, the majority of research has focused on applications of ethical theories to managing crisis events after they have occurred, as opposed to the implications of ethical theories for the primary prevention of these situations. The relationship between concepts derived from a contemporary ethic of care, pp. 141–158, Gilligan, C.: 1990, ‘Preface’, in C. Gilligan, N. P. Lyons and T. J. Hanmer, pp. 6–29, Gilligan, C.: 1991, (...) ‘Women’s Psychological Development: Implications for Psychotherapy’, in C. Gilligan, A. G. Rogers and D. L. Tolman, pp. 5–32), and, concepts derived from a classic theory of organizational decline and recovery ) is described. The relevance of these notions for signal detection and uptake in organizational crisis prevention is discussed. Implications for prevention are highlighted through consideration of a case involving organizational crisis, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger. Directions for both business practice and future research are identified. (shrink)

Philosophical tradition demands rational reflection as a condition for genuine moral acts. But the grounds for that requirement are untenable, and when the requirement is dropped morality comes into clearer view as a naturally developing phenomenon that is not confined to human beings and does not require higher-level rational reflective processes. Rational consideration of rules and duties can enhance and extend moral behavior, but rationality is not necessary for morality and (contrary to the Kantian tradition represented by Thomas Nagel) morality (...) cannot transcend its biological roots. Recognizing this helps forge a complementary rather than competitive relation between feminist care-based ethics and rationalistic duty-based ethics. (shrink)

In this article, I investigate how we may include investigations of actual context in the investigation of moral problems in philosophy. The article has three main parts. The focus of the first is a survey of the dominant view of how to incorporate context into moral philosophy and to exemplify this view, I investigate examples from influential introductions to moral philosophy, identifying what I call the assumption of abstraction. In the second part I present three traditions which attribute a more (...) prominent place to context in philosophical work and which therefore offer resources for thinking about context: moral contextualism, particularism and contextualism in political philosophy. Unconvinced that these resources are sufficient for an understanding of how actual context may be of importance in philosophy, I in the third part turn to a systematic investigation of three suggestions for how to incorporate actual context onto philosophy: the application approach, the bottom-up approach and the contextual approach. Furthermore, I argue that the third and most radical approach develops a superior understanding of how to include context in moral philosophy, reflecting the impossibility of making normatively neutral investigations of context in moral philosophy. (shrink)

Philosophy and Literature is an internationally renowned refereed journal founded by Denis Dutton at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch. It is now published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. Since its inception in 1976, Philosophy and Literature has been concerned with the relation between literary and philosophical studies, publishing articles on the philosophical interpretation of literature as well as the literary treatment of philosophy. Philosophy and Literature has sometimes been regarded as iconoclastic, in the sense that it repudiates academic pretensions, (...) insidious jargon and institutional vogue. Dutton, who remains the editor, still writes a regular column. A distinctive feature of Philosophy and Literature was the annual Bad Writing Contest, held from 1995–98, which sought to identify (and publish) the ‘most stylistically lamentable passages’ of academic prose, often to great amusement. (shrink)

Muchos autores que se han ocupado de la autonomía personal parecen identificar la capacidad de autonomía esencialmente con la capacidad de todo agente racional para identificar preferencias y tomar decisiones conforme a las mismas. Estos autores -entre los que podríamos ubicar a C. Nino- prescinden a menudo de ulteriores elementos o condiciones para su ejercicio. Sin embargo, resulta fundamental ahondar en esos aspectos a veces pasados por alto; ahondar principalmente en las opciones y el proceso de formación de preferencias de (...) los agentes, para delinear mejor los aspectos normativos de la autonomía. En este trabajo propongo recuperar un elemento central del concepto que ha sido extensamente desarrollado en la literatura feminista, me refiero al contexto de relaciones que ha dado lugar a la llamada "autonomía relacional". Propongo incorporar esta noción al núcleo conceptual de la autonomía sin renunciar, sin embargo, a otros elementos del concepto entre los que destacaré las "opciones relevantes", es decir, la presencia de cursos de acción, de oportunidades, que la persona es capaz de reconocer como propuestas no solo viables sino legítimas para sí. Para desarrollar esta idea comenzaré por definir la autonomía a través de los que considero los elementos o condiciones centrales del concepto, deteniéndome especialmente en la condición de opciones relevantes. A continuación se abordará la cuestión relativa al modo en que las opciones se perfilan, se construyen y son percibidas por los sujetos. En este punto el estudio se fijará específicamente en el entorno contextual y de relaciones que sirve de trasfondo para la construcción de las opciones, para proponer la noción de opciones relacionales. Many authors have written about autonomy focusing mainly on the capacity of the autonomous agent for identifying preferences and making decisions. These authors -C. Nino among them- do not take into consideration further elements or conditions for being autonomous. However, it is necessary to take other aspects into consideration; mainly it is important to take account of both options and the building of the agent’s preferences. This way, autonomy normative aspects will be better understood. I propose here to analyse the concept of "relational autonomy", which has been largely elaborated within feminist theory. My aim is to incorporate relations and options to the core of the concept of personal autonomy. In this article, I will define personal autonomy first, highlighting the importance of relevant options. Second, I will describe the way options are built and their perception by the agent. Finally, I will focus on the context and relations on the background, and I will propose the notion of relational options. (shrink)

The ethics of care has contributed to modifying a dominant conception of ethics and changed the way we conceive vulnerability. It has introduced ethical stakes into politics, weakening, through its critique of theories of justice, the seemingly obvious link between an ethics of justice and political liberalism. However, care corresponds to a quite ordinary reality: the fact that people look after one another, take care of one another and thus are responsible. The aim of this paper is to connect the (...) ethics of care to the idea of the vulnerability of the human as it is developed in the moral philosophy inspired by Wittgenstein. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the ethical possibility of rethinking the role of care and human bonds outside a patriarchal framework. First of all, I revise some philosophical understandings of friendship that havemaintained that women were incapable of it. Equality and symmetry were the requirements for friendship and the subordinated status of women in history was the fact that had made impossible for them to aspire to the moral excellence of philía. Secondly, I analyze the gender subtext (...) of the idea of autonomy to show that have been constructed by masculine patterns, specially, when it dismiss the constitutive fact of human interdependence. Finally, I focus on the last contributions of feminist bioethics to reflect about the need of conceiving autonomy in a framework of relationships and mutual obligations of care. This opens the possibility of recovering a new sense of a autonomy , that is coherent with the moral experience of women, focused on care, and this relational autonomy seems to me a essential point of depart to rethinkmany of the current bioethical debates. (shrink)

This article considers the forces which act to prevent women in Ireland from speaking about their experiences of abortion. It considers the various forms such silencing can take and the complexity of feelings and circumstance which women who have had abortions are subject to. In so doing it raises important questions about the way public debate about abortion between pro-choice and pro-life arguments — couched in terms of rights — acts to further silence women. Finally, the article calls for the (...) creation of a new public and intellectual space in which the complexities of the issues can be realized. A new public space such as this could then facilitate the enactment of permissive legislation which in turn could enable women to decide the best pregnancy option available for them at any particular moment in their lives. (shrink)

The theses supported in this essay are that the world is to some extent constructed by each of us, that it can and ought to be constructed in a more benign way, that such construction will require more trust than most people are currently willing to grant, and that most of us will be better off if most of us can manage to be more trusting in spite of our doubts.

This paper attempts to sort out some of the current tensions and ambiguities inherent in the field of bioethics as it continues to mature. In particular it focuses on the question of the methodological relevance of theory or ethical principles to the domain of clinical ethics. I offer an approach to reasoning about moral conflict that combines the insights of contemporary moral theorists, the philosophy of American pragmatism, and the skills of rhetorical deliberation. This synthetic approach locates a proper role (...) for moral theory in the practice of clinical ethics, thus linking abstract philosophical ideas about morality, humanity, suffering, and health to specific deeds, actions, and decisions in the concrete lives of particular individuals. The aim of this synthetic approach of bioethical inquiry is a rapprochement between theoretical knowledge in moral philosophy and the contextualized, relational, and practical understanding of what morality demands of us in our daily lives. I argue for a conception of bioethical inquiry that takes morality to be a study of certain practical, socially embedded concerns about matters of right and wrong, good and evil, as well as a study of the moral theories by which these actual concerns can be explored and critically evaluated. (shrink)