Author note: Penny A. Weiss, Associate Professor of Political Science at Purdue University, is the author of Gendered Community: Rousseau, Sex, and Politics. Marilyn Friedman, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Washington University, is the author of What Are Friends For? Feminist Perspectives on Personal Relationships and Moral Theory.

In this unique volume, some of today's most eminent political philosophers examine the thought of John Rawls, focusing in particular on his most recent work. These original essays explore diverse issues, including the problem of pluralism, the relationship between constitutive commitment and liberal institutions, just treatment of dissident minorities, the constitutional implications of liberalism, international relations, and the structure of international law. The first comprehensive study of Rawls's recent work, The Idea of Political Liberalism will be indispensable for political philosophers (...) and theorists interested in contemporary political thought. (shrink)

Several decades ago, feminists differentiated between the biologically given basis of sex identity (sex) and the socially constructed cultural practices anchored by sex identity (gender). In recent years, many feminists have challenged that distinction, arguing that biological sex is as much a social construct as are the practices comprising gender. I survey two examples from biological studies of sex identity that, by contrast (I maintain), warrant saving the concept of biologically given sex identity. The result is not antithetical to feminism, (...) however, since these studies also suggest that sex identity proliferates beyond the rigid female/male dichotomy. If articulated carefully, this view can avoid metaphysically essentialist baggage while enriching feminist conceptions of sex identity. (shrink)

Carol Gilligan heard a ‘distinct moral language’ in the voices of women who were subjects in her studies of moral reasoning. Though herself a developmental psychologist, Gilligan has put her mark on contemporary feminist moral philosophy by daring to claim the competence of this voice and the worth of its message. Her book, In a Different Voice, which one theorist has aptly described as a best-seller, explored the concern with care and relationships which Gilligan discerned in the moral reasoning of (...) women and contrasted it with the orientation toward justice and rights which she found to typify the moral reasoning of men. (shrink)

This essay counteracts that trend [regarding the debate about whether partiality can be justified, those supporting impartiality have generally been on the offensive arguing that morality calls for impartiality] by taking a closer look at the moral complexity of our social practices of partiality. My adoption of this approach does not represent an endorsement of current notions of impartiality. The ideal of impartiality, in my view, should be substantially reformulated. However, that the concept of partiality is transparently defensible. In this (...) discussion, I focus on the aspects of partiality that complicate the philosophical defense of it. In the first part of the discussion, I argue that the moral value of partiality depends partly on the moral value of the relationships it helps to sustain. It matters to the philosophical issues at stake that personal relationships can be abusive and oppressive. In Section II, I refer to the vastly unequal social distribution of the means for favoring loved ones. Because many people have inadequate resources for caring for their loved ones, our conventional relationship practices of partiality-practices by which we care only for our ``own''-can be disasterous for many people. This seriously complicates the defense of partiality. The paper ends with a discussion, in Section III, of ``global moral concern'' and the resistance which most partialists show to it. (shrink)

This chapter presents a variety of considerations suggesting that autonomy is a valuable ideal, focusing on its value for women. The focus is on women for several reasons. First, autonomy has not always been idealized for women. Even though autonomy is more widely encouraged and supported in women than ever before, it is still not regarded as a particularly feminine value or virtue. If a case for autonomy can be made out for women in particular against this history, then the (...) case for autonomy in general should prove easier to secure. Second, feminist philosophers have figured prominently among those who have expressed doubts and reservations about the value of autonomy. Focusing on the case of women's autonomy in particular helps to answer those criticisms. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on John Rawls's recent approach to liberal political legitimacy. His views on reasonableness and rationality are considered. It is argued that Rawls's legitimation pool for political liberalism is defined precisely in such a way as to exclude those whose prior commitments would lead them to reject political liberalism. The challenge for Rawls is to find good but politically independent reasons for eliminating so-called unreasonable people from the legitimation pool.

This chapter focuses on the ideal of a merger, fusion, or union of lovers in heterosexual romantic love. It explores a recent cultural ideal of love that places value on personal autonomy in romantic relationships, and sketches out some persistent gender asymmetries that compromise those trends. It is argued that even women who place overriding importance on romantic relationships need some degree of autonomy in love.

This paper raises some minor questions about Lisa Tessman's book, Burdened Virtues. Friedman's questions pertain, among other things, to the adequacy of a virtue ethical focus on character, the apparent implication of virtue ethics that oppressors suffer damaged characters and are not any better off than the oppressed, the importance of whether privileged persons may have earned their privileges, and the oppositional anger that movement feminists sometimes direct against each other.

Debates about how to incorporate the severely cognitively disabled into liberal theory typically focus on John Rawls’s assumption that citizens choosing the principles of justice should be understood as full social cooperators. In this paper, we argue that social cooperation is not the fundamental barrier to the inclusion of the severely cognitively disabled. We argue that these persons are excluded from the entire project of liberal legitimacy in virtue of the apparent inability of a severely cognitively disabled person to understand (...) and evaluate the legitimacy of political principles for herself. Severely cognitively disabled persons lack a kind of access to political principles that is crucial, according to liberal theory, for political principles to be legitimate to someone, and not simply for someone. (shrink)

Can men who dominate women nevertheless be happy or lead flourishing lives? Building on Claudia Card's exploration of moral luck, this paper considers the belief that male dominators cannot be happy. The discussion ranges over both virtue theory and empirical research into the "belief in a just world." I conclude that there are reasons to avoid believing that male dominators cannot be happy or flourish, and that feminism does not need that belief.

Feminist ethics supports the contemporary educational trend toward increased multiculturalism and a diminished emphasis on the Western canon. First, I outline a feminist ethical justification for this development. Second, I argue that Western canon studies should not be altogether abandoned in a multicultural curriculum. Third, I suggest that multicultural education should help combat oppression in addition to simply promoting awareness of diversity. Fourth, I caution against an arrogant moralism in the teaching of multiculturalism.

: Nancy J. Hirschmann presents a feminist, social constructionist account of women's freedom. Friedman's discussion of Hirschmann's account deals with (1) some conceptual problems facing a thoroughgoing social constructionism; (2) three ways to modify social constructionism to avoid those problems; and (3) an assessment of Hirschmann's version of social constructionism in light of the previous discussion.

Nancy J. Hirschmann presents a feminist, social constructionist account of women's freedom. Friedman's discussion of Hirschmanns account deals with some conceptual problems facing a thoroughgoing social constructionism; three ways to modify social constructionism to avoid those problems; and an assessment of Hirschmann's version of social constructionism in light of the previous discussion.

Autonomy has risen in esteem, then fallen, only to rise again in recent theorizing about women in society and culture. In this paper, I further bolster the renewed feminist interest in autonomy. I characterize feminist social aspirations in terms of three very abstract goals and then argue that women’s individual autonomy promotes at least two of them in crucial ways. Women’s autonomy will improve the quality of the close personal relationships that pervade women’s traditional moral concems (the first goal) and (...) it will enable women the better to resist traditional, gender-based constraints on their lives (the second goal). My conclusion is tempered, however, by the view that individual autonomy interferes to a significant degree with the solidarity and collective action by women needed to effect feminist social change (the third goal). In passing, I gesture toward a conception of autonomy as a certain kind of narrative of self-development. (shrink)

Autonomy has risen in esteem, then fallen, only to rise again in recent theorizing about women in society and culture. In this paper, I further bolster the renewed feminist interest in autonomy. I characterize feminist social aspirations in terms of three very abstract goals and then argue that women’s individual autonomy promotes at least two of them in crucial ways. Women’s autonomy will improve the quality of the close personal relationships that pervade women’s traditional moral concems (the first goal) and (...) it will enable women the better to resist traditional, gender-based constraints on their lives (the second goal). My conclusion is tempered, however, by the view that individual autonomy interferes to a significant degree with the solidarity and collective action by women needed to effect feminist social change (the third goal). In passing, I gesture toward a conception of autonomy as a certain kind of narrative of self-development. (shrink)

Recent welfare cuts have revealed that the patriarchal control of women's domestic labor has been significantly relocated from the home and the governmental bureaucracy to the marketplace. Through the sale of domestic and reproductive labor, many low income women have come to occupy a class position in relation to middle and upper income families which parallels the position occupied by the traditional wife in relation to her husband.

In modern Western philosophy, impartial reasoning has defined the moral point of view and determined the strategies of moral justification. Political philosophers have invoked it as well, to legitimate certain governmental and social institutions. Normative impartiality has become highly controversial in recent years, however, and feminists have contributed substantially to these debates.

Two prominent philosophers here engage in a forthright debate over some of the centrally disputed topics in the political correctness controversy now taking place on college campuses across the nation, including feminism, campus speech codes, the western canon, and the nature of truth. Friedman and Narveson conclude the volume with direct replies to each other's positions.

This book is a passionate report on the state of feminist thinking and practice after the linguistic turn. A critical assessment of masculinist notions of the sublime in modern and postmodern accounts grounds the author's positive and constructive recuperation of sublime experience in a feminist voice.

Feminist ethics supports the contemporary educational trend toward increased multiculturalism and a diminished emphasis on the Western canon. First, I outline a feminist ethical justification for this development. Second, I argue that Western canon studies should not be altogether abandoned in a multicultural curriculum. Third, I suggest that multicultural education should help combat oppression in addition to simply promoting awareness of diversity. Fourth, I caution against an arrogant moralism in the teaching of multiculturalism.

Should women’s terrorist acts be understood differently than similar acts carried out by men? Does the gender identity of a terrorist make a difference to the meaning of a terrorist’s acts? Commentators who explain women’s involvement in terrorism often offer explanations other than political commitment. They often refer instead to factors in the women’s personal relationships, thereby drawing on gender stereotypes and diminishing the women’s political commitments. I suggest instead that terrorism by a woman involves symbolic political “testimony.” It amounts (...) to saying that someone who is a typically nonviolent sort of person has engaged in violence on behalf of a political cause. Because of this significance, women’s terrorism merits a more serious consideration as testimony than similar acts by men. (shrink)

InThe View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel develops a theory of practical reasoning which attempts to give the personal, or subjective, point of view its due2 while still insisting on the objectivity of ethics.On the objective side, Nagel affirms that there are truths about values and reasons for action which are independent of the ways in which reasons and values appear to us, independent of our own particular beliefs and inclinations (p. 144). The objective foundation for these truths consists in a (...) certain distinctive process of understanding. Objective understanding is explicated in terms of an objective standpoint, a standpoint defined as impersonal, that is, as detached from the subjective point of view. The objective standpoint is structured by a conception ‘of the world as centerless—as containing ourselves and other beings with particular points of view’ (p. 140). As with scientific reasoning, ‘we begin from our position inside the world and try to transcend it by regarding what we find here as a sample of the whole’ (p. 141). (shrink)

Virginia Held, in How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence, proposes a method by which moral theories can be "tested" by moral experience. Building on her previous work, she considers here how to utilize this method in the moral assessment of terrorism. Held's method is morally pluralistic; it encompasses a variety of moral theories and principles, including care ethics. Held's evolving account of how to test moral theories in terms of real-world moral experience remains an important and welcome contribution (...) of hers to moral theory. Anyone who thinks rational intuition is not enough to determine which moral principles are justified, or who distrusts the moral "tests" that involve bizarre hypothetical examples devised by philosophers in armchairs, should consider Held's experiential moral method. If daily lived experience really matters to moral theorizing—and how could it not?—then we need an account of how to interpret our experiences morally, how to "test" moral judgments in terms of those experiences, and how best to revise our moral convictions in light of further experiences. (shrink)

This highly interdisciplinary volume explores the political and cultural dimensions of citizenship and their relevance to women and gender. Containing essays by leading scholars such as Iris Marion Young, Alison Jaggar, Martha Nussbaum, and Sandra Bartky, it examines the conceptual issues and strategies at play in the feminist quest to give women full citizenship status. The contributors take a fresh look at issues, going beyond conventional critiques, and examining problems in the political and social arrangements, practices, and conditions that diminish (...) women's citizenship in various parts of the world including both Western and undeveloped nations. (shrink)

This review of Janice Raymond's A Passion for Friends focuses on her strong sense of the individual and of individuality. However, and this is the central contention of my paper, her perspective is quite distinct from liberal individualism. It is also a complex variation on the feminist concern with selves in relationships.

An exploration of commercially available technologies that can enhance energy security and address climate change and public policy options crucial to their adoption.

Women have historically been prevented from living autonomously by systematic injustice, subordination, and oppression. The lingering effects of these practices have prompted many feminists to view autonomy with suspicion. Here, Marilyn Friedman defends the ideal of feminist autonomy. In her eyes, behavior is autonomous if it accords with the wants, cares, values, or commitments that the actor has reaffirmed and is able to sustain in the face of opposition. By her account, autonomy is socially grounded yet also individualizing (...) and sometimes socially disruptive, qualities that can be ultimately advantageous for women. Friedman applies the concept of autonomy to domains of special interest to women. She defends the importance of autonomy in romantic love, considers how social institutions should respond to women who choose to remain in abusive relationships, and argues that liberal societies should tolerate minority cultural practices that violate women's rights so long as the women in question have chosen autonomously to live according to those practices. (shrink)

The eight pieces constituting this Meeting Report are summaries of presentations made during a panel session at the 2011 Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE) annual meeting held between March 3rd and 6th in Cincinnati. Lisa Newton organized the session and served as chair. The panel of eight consisted both of pioneers in the field and more recent arrivals. It covered a range of topics from how the field has developed to where it should be going, from identification of (...) issues needing further study to problems of training the next generation of engineers and engineering-ethics scholars. (shrink)