Feminist Ethics

Feminist ethics encompasses a number of philosophical approaches that aim to illuminate the moral worlds of a wide variety of women. According to feminist philosopher Alison Jaggar, proponents of feminist ethics typically fault traditional ethics for failing to take women's moral perspectives and experiences as seriously as men's. Specifically, they claim that traditional ethics has focused much more on men's interests and rights than on women's; has ignored most of women's everyday moral work, particularly their caregiving work; has suggested that men are on average more morally developed than women; has privileged phenomena considered “masculine” over phenomena considered “feminine” (so that independence is voiced over interdependence, separation over connection, mind over body, culture over nature, war over peace, and death over life); and, finally, has ...