Abortion has long been a central issue in the arena of applied ethics, but, the distinctive analysis of feminist ethics is generally overlooked in most philosophic discussions. Authors and readers commonly presume a familiarity with the feminist position and equate it with liberal defences of women's right to choose abortion, but, in fact, feminist ethics yields a different analysis of the moral questions surrounding abortion than that usually offered by the more familiar liberal defenders of abortion rights. Most feminists can (...) agree with some of the conclusions that arise from certain non-feminist arguments on abortion, but they often disagree about the way the issues are formulated and the sorts of reasons that are invoked in the mainstream literature. (shrink)

The construction of difference is central to racism, sexism and other forms of oppression. This paper examines the similar and dissimilar ways in which race and gender have been constructed in the United States and analyzes the consequences of these differences in construction for the development of social policy and the growth and nature of movements for social change.

How many individuals are present where we see a pregnant individual? Within a substance ontological framework, there are exactly two possible answers to this question. The standard answer—two individuals—is typically championed by scholars endorsing the predominant Containment View of pregnancy, according to which the foetus resides in the gestating organism like in a container. The alternative answer—one individual—has recently found support in the Parthood View, according to which the foetus is a part of the gestating organism. Here I propose a (...) third answer: a pregnant individual is neither two individuals nor one individual but something in between one and two. This is because organisms are better understood as processes than as substances. With a special focus on the Parthood View, I explain why a Process View of pregnancy, according to which a pregnant individual is a bifurcating hypercomplex process, surpasses the substance ontological approaches. (shrink)

This paper argues that cyborg perspectives offer real possibilities for the debate around enforced caesareans and the search for a language to encompass embodied maternal subjectivity. It is suggested, with reference to the fictional narrative of Star Trek, that cyborg figures have the power to disrupt the liberal subject and the body in legal discourse, not least because the plethora of cyborgs challenges simple conceptions of connections/disconnections between bodies. Feminist readings of case law relating to enforced caesarean sections have raised (...) questions about the notion of autonomy at the heart of liberal legalism, have argued that law is complicit with white male techno-medicine's approach to childbirth and focused upon the pregnant woman's lived experience of pregnancy. The recent Court of Appeal decision in St George's Healthcare N.H.S Trust v. S., Regina v. Collins and Others, ex parte S., where the pregnant woman's self-determination was upheld, provides a good opportunity to confront both the liberal story and the idea of connectedness between mother and unborn child. (shrink)

Carol Gilligan has delineated two ethics, the ethic of rights and the ethic of care. In this article I argue that the two ethics are part of one overall system, the ethic of care functioning as a necessary base for the ethic of rights. I also argue that the system is seriously flawed. Because women are held accountable to both ethics and because the two ethics frequently conflict, women recurrently find themselves in a moral double bind.

Carol Gilligan has delineated two ethics, the ethic of rights and the ethic of care. In this article I argue that the two ethics are part of one overall system, the ethic of care functioning as a necessary base for the ethic of rights. 1 also argue that the system is seriously flawed. Because women are held accountable to both ethics and because the two ethics frequently conflict, women recurrently find themselves in a moral double bind.

William Harper presents five reasons for concluding that God should be referred to exclusively in male terms. To the contrary, I argue that: (1) by devaluating the feminine gender, Harper is guilty of the same reductionist and dichotomous thinking as his protagonists, (2) Harper’s view of God is contrary to “the Biblical example,” and (3) Harper’s position rests on a number of logical confusions. I conclude that Harper’s view should be rejected by both men and women of Christian convictions.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ethics & the Environment 10.2 (2005) 75-99 [Access article in PDF] Gynocentric Eco-Logics Trish Glazebrook All of our teachings come from things in nature, they come from the growing cycle, and everything is tied to the earth.1Ludwig Fleck describes in his Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact how the concept of syphilis is "a result of the development and confluence of several lines of collective thought" (Fleck 1979, (...) 23). Diagnosis and treatment of the disease required that its symptomatology undergo transformation from "an undifferentiated and confused mass of information about chronic diseases characterized by skin symptoms" (1979, 1) into the concept of a single disease. Identifying the Spirochaeta pallida bacterium and diagnosing syphilis by means of the Wasserman reaction was only possible when an unclearly related collection of symptoms could be experienced as belonging together in a unified phenomenology.Likewise, I wish to provide a diagnosis and etiology, and suggest a curative possibility for a disease of modernity I will call phallic logic. Symptomatic of this sickness are wide-spread social alienation, global domination and oppression on the basis of gender, race, class and color, and epidemic eco-destruction. A body of critique exists in ecofeminist analyses that experiences these symptoms as a single disease: the phallic logic of modernity. "Logic" in this context does not mean the formal discipline [End Page 75] in which rules for the proper manipulation of abstract statements are laid down. Rather, "logic" in the sense used here is an epistemological term. It means the ways that understanding is structured. Phallic logic is the structure of understanding that permeates patriarchy. This logic takes its paradigm from scientific objectivity, but even voices from within the sciences themselves are arguing that contemporary human being must establish new ways of thinking about nature.I propose that such new eco-logics, that is, ways of thinking about nature, take their guidance from the physical environment. If nature informs knowledge claims, then knowledge itself is construed organically: it is finite and changing rather than fixed and eternal. Such logics can encompass the finitude of physical embodiment as an epistemological principle, and hence I identify them as gynocentric. They are not grounded in the disembodied Cartesian subject that feminists have shown so often and clearly to be typical of androcentric philosophizing. These logics draw instead on the physicality of environmental elements as well as of the thinker, and thus they allow nature's temporality to resonate within knowledge itself. They are not satisfied with a conceptual contrast between nature's on-going coming-to-be and passing-away and the alleged universality of knowledge. Rather, they take nature as a model for truth and acknowledge that nature infuses the things we say to be truth.There is an abundance of arguments for the differences between male and female writing and thinking.2 I speak in accord with these voices, but I frame my project differently. I will begin by presenting evidence of a call for alternative epistemologies from within the sciences, and then use ecofeminist analyses to argue that the scientists in question are moving away from a phallic logic toward gynocentric eco-logics. Next I will make clear three assumptions that underlie my account. The first two are Heideggerian. I accept his argument that the logic of modernity is scientific objectivity, and I use his account of truth and essence to argue that knowledge is situated rather than universal. Hence gynocentric eco-logics entail an essentialism that is historical rather than biological. I give up biology as the fixative for essence, but avoid a decline into what is entirely arbitrary and subjective by fixing essence in terms of cultural and historical location. Hence I am using a Heideggerian notion of situatedness, but applying it specifically to gender such that I can maintain that the category of "woman" is neither universal, nor shattered irreparably into [End Page 76] fragmented individualism. My Heideggerianism is further qualified in that I am not writing in the spirit of Heidegger's life-time project. I will take the force of his insights to be epistemological rather than metaphysical or ontological... (shrink)

Divided into eight sections, each with introductory essays, the selections offer rich and detailed insights into a diverse multinational philosophical landscape. Revealed in this pathbreaking work is the way in which traditional philosophical issues related to ethics, metaphysics, and epistemology, for instance, take on specific forms in Africa's postcolonial struggles. Much of its moral, political, and social philosophy is concerned with the turbulent processes of embracing modern identities while protecting ancient cultures.