Ethics: Chapter 10

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 MoralityInstinct 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


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


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


Moral question:

Three features of personhood(what separates humans from animals): reason, the exercise of virtue, and the passion for knowledge


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


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


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. CareCare and ParticularismCare 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


Gilligan's theory

Criticism of Kohlberg: his study used only males, and his justice view of morality was male-oriented


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


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 OptionFemale-Only OptionSeparate-but-Equal OptionMutually-Inclusive Option

Ethics: Chapter 10

Education

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