Feminism
Not too long ago a prominent university president suggested that there might be differences between men and women and in doing so sparked a heated controversy both in and out of academia. This is a potentially contentious issue. For those who disagree with this idea, it must be rejected outright as a dangerous and outdated notion. For those who agree it seems nothing short of obvious and good common sense. Are there differences between men and women? Are these purely cultural or biological or a combination of both? If there are significant and intractable differences what implications do they have for ethical theory? We may not be able to address each of these questions in the detail they deserve but we will try to shed some light on these issues and investigate what part they may play in ethics.
The debate these days concerning sex differences seems to revolve around what their origin is. I don't think most people would argue about the fact that there are some differences between men and women. In fact, John Gray has created a cottage industry and sold countless books based on the idea. As he puts it, men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Clearly, he thinks there are differences! And many agree with him. But, are these simply cultural differences, or do they go much deeper than that? The answer to this question seems to be central to the debate. If they are cultural then they can be mitigated and cannot be used to justify different treatment. On the other hand, if they turn out to be more fundamental and intractable, many fear that this will be used to justify different treatment and worse than that discriminatory treatment. Then, the question has ethical implications.
There's another twist to the story as well which is this. What do we mean by "different?" On the one hand, we could mean that the difference can be cast in terms of better or worse. One sex could be better than the other or, as has often been claimed in the past, superior. In fact, Aristotle believed that men were superior to women and that women lacked the capacity for rational thought. Or they were not as good at it as men. Kant might have agreed and would have also maintained, as Aristotle did, that women should not participate in public life. It has taken a long time to refute this rationale for different treatment. Consider that it has only been within the last century that women won the right to vote.
Countless studies have been put forward purporting to show differences and to speculate on their cause. One study in particular that is interesting was recounted in James Q. Wilson's book The Moral Sense. The studies were done by Melford and Audrey Spiro on an Israeli collective farm known as a kibbutz. They were attempting to show that sex differences were due to cultural influences and so they resolved to take these influences away. A kibbutz was the perfect environment for this since the children were separated from their parents at a very early age. In this particular study the children, from a very early age, ate together, wore the same clothes, did the same chores, slept in the same buildings, and in all ways were treated the same regardless of whether they were male or female. For a while, this seemed to eliminate sex differences. Girls and boys played the same games and exhibited similar behaviors. But, as they grew older differences started to creep in even though they were treated the same and encouraged to regard each other the same. The study concluded that at least some portion of sex differences were innate.
In ethics, one of the famous examples of a study of sex differences was conducted by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Studying children led Kohlberg to maintain that there are six distinct stages of moral development and women seem to progress more slowly through these stages and perhaps don't progress as far as men. The stages begin with an emphasis on punishment and obedience and seem very egoistic. Slowly, children begin to progress to notions such as rights, duties, and responsibilities. Eventually, these ideas become more abstract until the child can formulate and understand universal ethical principles. This, for Kohlberg, signaled full moral maturity though not everyone attained this level. While Kohlberg observed that many men don't make it to stage six, many more women seem to fall short. Here we see that the differences carry through to ethical thinking and seem to validate Aristotle's claim. Or do they?
As with other cases of differences, the real question seems to be what we mean by "different." Aristotle and Kohlberg mean better or worse. That is, men have a better or more advanced thought process when it comes to ethical thinking. But, could the differences suggest something else? This was the idea put forward by another psychologist named Carol Gilligan in her book In A Different Voice. Yes, says Gilligan, men, and women think differently but one is not inferior to the other. Their emphasis is just different.
In the Kohlberg studies what we see is that the male kids focus on some aspects of the dilemma, while the females focus on other areas. It's not that one focus is better than the other, it's simply that they're different. The females tend to focus on personal relationships and caring while the males focus more on rules and rights and abstract principles. Not surprisingly we have focused more on the latter in this course perhaps because the philosophers we've looked at have been mostly men (Ayn Rand being a prominent exception). But, these other sentiments seem to be important for ethical theory and so we should investigate what role they play in our moral judgments.
When we investigated the ethics of utilitarianism and deontology we focused primarily on the ideas of consequences, duties, and impartiality. Both theories encouraged us to treat people in certain ways as a matter of principle not based on how they were related to us. Remember that the utilitarian stressed the greatest happiness of the greatest number and Kant pointed out that our actions were only moral if they were done out of recognition of our duty. But these seem at odds with the notions of love, family, and friendship; precisely the caring relationships that many feminist philosophers emphasize. An ethical theory should address these relationships. But, our previous theories seem unable to make room for the sentiments expressed here. Kant would not endorse treating your family differently simply because they were family. John Stuart Mill suggests that we treat everyone impartially. But if you had a choice between saving one of your children or a houseful of another person's (say there's a fire), you would save your own. And we would expect you to do so and perhaps even question you if you didn't. To explain this we need to appeal to the ethics of care.
But, there are shortcomings to this ethics of care. As Rachels points out, the actions we're bound to do depend on their being a relationship, and if there's not we may have no incentive to act. As Rachels points out, some feminist philosophers such as Nel Noddings, recognize the implications here and say that we have no obligation to help "the needy in the far regions of the earth." We don't have these obligations because there is no relationship of caring between us and them. This is at odds with other ethical theories such as utilitarianism.
For this reason, we may regard feminist theory and the ethics of care as a supplement to other ethical theories which do outline further obligations and principles. Many feminist philosophers regard the ethics of care as part of a much larger tradition known as virtue theory. This theory contrasts with the more abstract theories such as deontology by emphasizing the character of a person as opposed to their obligations. The irony here is that one of the important founders of virtue theory was Aristotle! It is to his version of virtue theory that we turn next.
The debate these days concerning sex differences seems to revolve around what their origin is. I don't think most people would argue about the fact that there are some differences between men and women. In fact, John Gray has created a cottage industry and sold countless books based on the idea. As he puts it, men are from Mars, women are from Venus. Clearly, he thinks there are differences! And many agree with him. But, are these simply cultural differences, or do they go much deeper than that? The answer to this question seems to be central to the debate. If they are cultural then they can be mitigated and cannot be used to justify different treatment. On the other hand, if they turn out to be more fundamental and intractable, many fear that this will be used to justify different treatment and worse than that discriminatory treatment. Then, the question has ethical implications.
There's another twist to the story as well which is this. What do we mean by "different?" On the one hand, we could mean that the difference can be cast in terms of better or worse. One sex could be better than the other or, as has often been claimed in the past, superior. In fact, Aristotle believed that men were superior to women and that women lacked the capacity for rational thought. Or they were not as good at it as men. Kant might have agreed and would have also maintained, as Aristotle did, that women should not participate in public life. It has taken a long time to refute this rationale for different treatment. Consider that it has only been within the last century that women won the right to vote.
Countless studies have been put forward purporting to show differences and to speculate on their cause. One study in particular that is interesting was recounted in James Q. Wilson's book The Moral Sense. The studies were done by Melford and Audrey Spiro on an Israeli collective farm known as a kibbutz. They were attempting to show that sex differences were due to cultural influences and so they resolved to take these influences away. A kibbutz was the perfect environment for this since the children were separated from their parents at a very early age. In this particular study the children, from a very early age, ate together, wore the same clothes, did the same chores, slept in the same buildings, and in all ways were treated the same regardless of whether they were male or female. For a while, this seemed to eliminate sex differences. Girls and boys played the same games and exhibited similar behaviors. But, as they grew older differences started to creep in even though they were treated the same and encouraged to regard each other the same. The study concluded that at least some portion of sex differences were innate.
In ethics, one of the famous examples of a study of sex differences was conducted by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Studying children led Kohlberg to maintain that there are six distinct stages of moral development and women seem to progress more slowly through these stages and perhaps don't progress as far as men. The stages begin with an emphasis on punishment and obedience and seem very egoistic. Slowly, children begin to progress to notions such as rights, duties, and responsibilities. Eventually, these ideas become more abstract until the child can formulate and understand universal ethical principles. This, for Kohlberg, signaled full moral maturity though not everyone attained this level. While Kohlberg observed that many men don't make it to stage six, many more women seem to fall short. Here we see that the differences carry through to ethical thinking and seem to validate Aristotle's claim. Or do they?
As with other cases of differences, the real question seems to be what we mean by "different." Aristotle and Kohlberg mean better or worse. That is, men have a better or more advanced thought process when it comes to ethical thinking. But, could the differences suggest something else? This was the idea put forward by another psychologist named Carol Gilligan in her book In A Different Voice. Yes, says Gilligan, men, and women think differently but one is not inferior to the other. Their emphasis is just different.
In the Kohlberg studies what we see is that the male kids focus on some aspects of the dilemma, while the females focus on other areas. It's not that one focus is better than the other, it's simply that they're different. The females tend to focus on personal relationships and caring while the males focus more on rules and rights and abstract principles. Not surprisingly we have focused more on the latter in this course perhaps because the philosophers we've looked at have been mostly men (Ayn Rand being a prominent exception). But, these other sentiments seem to be important for ethical theory and so we should investigate what role they play in our moral judgments.
When we investigated the ethics of utilitarianism and deontology we focused primarily on the ideas of consequences, duties, and impartiality. Both theories encouraged us to treat people in certain ways as a matter of principle not based on how they were related to us. Remember that the utilitarian stressed the greatest happiness of the greatest number and Kant pointed out that our actions were only moral if they were done out of recognition of our duty. But these seem at odds with the notions of love, family, and friendship; precisely the caring relationships that many feminist philosophers emphasize. An ethical theory should address these relationships. But, our previous theories seem unable to make room for the sentiments expressed here. Kant would not endorse treating your family differently simply because they were family. John Stuart Mill suggests that we treat everyone impartially. But if you had a choice between saving one of your children or a houseful of another person's (say there's a fire), you would save your own. And we would expect you to do so and perhaps even question you if you didn't. To explain this we need to appeal to the ethics of care.
But, there are shortcomings to this ethics of care. As Rachels points out, the actions we're bound to do depend on their being a relationship, and if there's not we may have no incentive to act. As Rachels points out, some feminist philosophers such as Nel Noddings, recognize the implications here and say that we have no obligation to help "the needy in the far regions of the earth." We don't have these obligations because there is no relationship of caring between us and them. This is at odds with other ethical theories such as utilitarianism.
For this reason, we may regard feminist theory and the ethics of care as a supplement to other ethical theories which do outline further obligations and principles. Many feminist philosophers regard the ethics of care as part of a much larger tradition known as virtue theory. This theory contrasts with the more abstract theories such as deontology by emphasizing the character of a person as opposed to their obligations. The irony here is that one of the important founders of virtue theory was Aristotle! It is to his version of virtue theory that we turn next.