Feminism, agency and objectivity

Public Reason 10 (1):81-100 (2018)
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Abstract

In this article I defend the capability approach by focusing on its built-in gender-sensitivity and on its concern with comprehensive outcomes and informationally-rich evaluation of well-being, two elements of Sen's work that are too rarely put together. I then try to show what the capability approach would have to gain by focusing on trans-positional objectivity (as Elizabeth Anderson does) and by leaving behind the narrow confines of states in favor of a more cosmopolitan stance. These preliminary discussions are followed by two more precise applications. At first, I show how a gender-sensitive capability approach that respects the criteria of trans-positional objectivity and cosmopolitanism can enhance the agency of women inhabiting third-world societies. I turn next to show how mainstream feminism can insulate itself against criticisms such as bell hooks' by switching to trans-positional objectivity in public reasoning.

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2018-10-26

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References found in this work

The View From Nowhere.Thomas Nagel - 1986 - New York: Oxford University Press.
The idea of justice.Amartya Sen - 2009 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
What is the point of equality.Elizabeth Anderson - 1999 - Ethics 109 (2):287-337.
Justice for hedgehogs.Ronald Dworkin - 2011 - Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

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