Feminist Ethics SYNOPSIS
What is "feminist" about feminist ethics? Do women's voices yield a distinct approach to the study of ethics?
Although they're far from uniform, women's voices, shaped by legacies of sexual politics, differ enough from men's to warrant a separate hearing. In Feminist Ethics feminist philosopher Claudia Card provides the forum. She brings together fifteen new essays on the nature, current state, and implications of feminist ethics, including many by some of the best and best known feminist philosophers in the U.S.
The connecting threads?
"Feminist ethics is born of women's refusals to endure with grace the arrogance, indifference, hostility, and damage of oppressively sexist environments," Card writes. Thus, woven throughout feminist writings on ethics run experiences of oppression. From a variety of perspectives the writers of these essays address a fundamental question: If oppressive contexts shape the moral development of the oppressed, what does it mean for the oppressed to resist, to make morally responsible choices, to become moral agents, to develop character?
This volume presents no single answer. Instead, the essays collected here reflect the pluralism and "feistiness" of modern feminism. Subjects range from the history of feminist ethics to the logic of pluralist feminism, presenting feminist perspectives on such unexpected topics as terrorism, bitterness, women trusting other women, and survival and ethics.
Author Biography: Claudia Card, professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin, is the author of Lesbian Choices and The Unnatural Lottery: Character and Moral Luck and the editor of On Feminist Ethics and Politics.
FROM THE CRITICS
Library Journal
Fifteen authors here discuss the ramifications of radical feminist theory on ethical issues and systems. The result, which embraces scholarly dissertations on particular subjects (e.g., terrorism) and personal narratives on culture (e.g., white heterosexualism), is an extremely uneven collection in depth, scope, and style. The contributors are mostly philosophy teachers, and there is a distinct focus on the status of ethical thinking as colored by lesbian experience in contemporary U.S. culture. While a few of the essays are engaging (including those by Joyce Trebilcot, Lynne McFall, and Annette C. Baier), others seem limited to those already in full sympathy with their convictions. For special collections and graduate philosophy students.-- Francisca Goldsmith, Berkeley P.L., Cal.
Booknews
Fifteen essays address subjects ranging from the history of feminist ethics to the logic of pluralist feminism and present feminist perspectives on such topics as terrorism, bitterness, women trusting other women, and survival and ethics. Paper edition (unseen), $14.95. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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