Abstract

The author analyzes the origin and meaning of the expression ‘Ethics of Sexual Difference’ (ESD), contextualising it in the paradigm ‘thought of Sexual Difference’, in which the potentiality and aporias arising from the debate within the feminist movement are highlighted. Possible interpretations of these ethics, developed in the Italian philosophical context, are illustrated and evaluated. The author proposes a critical comparison with other models, for example, the queer theories, and attempts to show how the ‘Thought of Sexual Difference’ (TSD) opens itself to destabilization produced by the emergence of new subjects (gay and lesbian, transgender, intersex) and their corresponding scientific knowledge. The author therefore proposes an update to the plural, ‘Ethics of Sexual Differences’ (ESDs), listing the possible methodological and content assumptions (including the development of a relational model in all scientific disciplines) and the disciplinary implications (also in the psychoanalytic field) of an ethics so defined. A reference is made to the discussion of socalled "gender ideology", in which the protagonists have often showed a certain difficulty in implementing an ESDs.