Feminist Ethics

Feminist ethics is a diverse set of gender-focused approaches to ethical theory and practice. The primary aims of feminist ethics are (1) to examine the traits, virtues, and values that have been culturally tied to women worldwide, but particularly in the Western world; and (2) to determine whether they have been wrongly assessed and underused by much of traditional (Western) ethical thought. According to philosopher Alison M. Jaggar, many schools of traditional (Western) ethics fail women in five interrelated ways. First, they focus far more on men's issues, interests, and rights than on women's. Second, they approach problems that arise in the private or domestic realm as morally uninteresting or trivial. Third, they imply that for a variety of biological as well as social reasons, women are not as morally developed as men. Fourth, they privilege traits linked to masculinity (autonomy, separation, mind, culture, and transcendence) over traits linked to femininity (interdependence, community, connection, body, emotion, nature, and immanence) as if the latter traits were not just as essential for human beings to cultivate as the former. Fifth, they present masculine modes of moral reasoning that emphasize rules, universality, and impartiality as somehow better than feminine modes of moral reasoning that emphasize relationships, particularity, and partiality when, in point of fact, both these modes of moral reasoning are equally capable of yielding wise moral judgments.