setting the moral compass essays by women philosophers dec 2003

Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers CHESHIRE CALHOUN, Editor OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Setting the Moral Compass studies in feminist philosophy Cheshire Calhoun, Series Editor advisory board Susan Bordo, University of Kentucky Harry Brod, Temple University Claudia Card, University of Wisconsin Lorraine Code, York University, Toronto Kimberle Crenshaw, Columbia Law School/UCLA School of Law Jane Flax, Howard University Ann Garry, California State University, Los Angeles Sally Haslanger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Hilde Hein, College of the Holy Cross Alison Jaggar, University of Colorado, Boulder Helen Longino, University of Minnesota Maria Lugones, SUNY Binghamton Uma Narayan, Vassar College James Sterba, University of Notre Dame Rosemarie Tong, University of North Carolina, Charlotte Nancy Tuana, Penn State University Karen Warren, Macalester College Iris Marion Young, University of Chicago published in the series: Gender in the Mirror: Confounding Imagery Diana Tietjens Meyers Autonomy, Gender, Politics Marilyn Friedman Abortion and Social Responsibility Laurie Shrage Setting the Moral Compass Edited by Cheshire Calhoun edited by cheshire calhoun Setting the Moral Compass essays by women philosophers 1 2004 3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok Buenos Aires Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kolkata Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Sa ˜ o Paulo Shanghai Taipei Tokyo Toronto Copyright  2004 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Published by Oxford University Press Inc. 198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016 www.oup.com Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Setting the moral compass : essays by women philosophers / edited by Cheshire Calhoun. p. cm. — (Studies in feminist philosophy) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-19-515474-6; ISBN 0-19-515475-4 (pbk.) 1. Ethics.2.Feminist ethics. I. Calhoun, Cheshire. II. Series. BJ1395.S48 2003 170′.82—dc21 2003048636 987654321 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper Preface When I first thought about creating a collection of work in moral philosophy, this is not the collection I originally imagined. Hilde Lindemann Nelson had sug- gested to me that I put together an anthology of work in feminist ethics, and my first thought was to do one in feminist virtue ethics. But as I began the work of selecting contributors and writing a proposal, I found myself increasingly disinter- ested in that task. Instead, I began to think about all the women moral philoso- phers I have read since the early 1980s whom I have admired, been inspired by, and learned so much from, particularly how to write philosophy that speaks to ordinary moral experience. I wanted all of these women in one book so that I could honor (at least some of) the women who have made moral philosophy a place where women can work. And I wanted to see their work, finally, in one place because it seemed to me that there was some important way in which they are kindred philosophical minds. But there was one sizable obstacle to publishing such a collection: there didn’t seem to be a rationale for bringing the diverse set of philosophers I had in mind into one collection. There was no obvious principle of unity. Some of the authors were doing explicitly feminist philosophical work addressed primarily to other feminist thinkers. Others were squarely engaged in nonfeminist philosophical conversations with other moral philosophers, most of whom were men. So this couldn’t be a collection of feminist ethics. But there was no other obvious thematic unity to call upon because the sorts of moral phi- losophy they did were quite different. The only alternative was to envision the book as a kind of festschrift, honoring women who have contributed in important ways to moral philosophy. But this, too, was an unsatisfactory frame—not because the contributors didn’t deserve to be honored (surely they do) but because what I wanted to bring into view was the nonaccidental fact that all of the philosophers I felt were kindred minds were women. So this, in the end, is the conviction that unifies this volume: gender makes a difference. The difference it makes is some- times subtle, often unpredictable, and is compatible with deep philosophical dis- preface agreements among women philosophers. But the field of moral philosophy would not be the same without the women philosophers who helped construct it. It will be different yet in a future when it is no longer necessary to insist that the differ- ence women make to moral philosophy is something to be prized. I owe a debt of gratitude to the moral philosophers whose work appears in this volume—and to many others whose work does not. This collection is limited in many ways—to almost exclusively U.S. philosophers, many of whom are mem- bers of the same generation and all of whom do what might loosely be called “analytic” philosophy. Readers will probably notice many other limits. I am grateful to my home institution, Colby College, which has, as always, provided generous research support and a sabbatical leave. That support enabled me to work with Jason Beal, a student research assistant, who cut his editing teeth on this volume. I am deeply thankful for his persistence, collaborative spirit, and hard work. vi Acknowledgments My thanks to the following publishers for granting permission to reprint essays for this volume: Repair by Elizabeth V. Spelman. Copyright  2002 by Elizabeth V. Spelman. Reprinted by permission of Beacon Press, Boston. Martha C. Nussbaum, “The Future of Feminist Liberalism.” Proceedings and Ad- dresses of the American Philosophical Association, vol. 74, no.2(November 2000). Reprinted with permission of the American Philosophical Association. Barbara Herman, “The Scope of Moral Requirement.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, vol. 30, no.3(Summer 2001). Copyright Princeton University Press  2001. Susan Wolf, “The Moral of Moral Luck.” Philosophic Exchange, no.31(2000– 2001). Reprinted with permission of the Center for Philosophic Exchange. A substantial portion of the essay “Common Decency,” by Cheshire Calhoun, originally appeared in “Expecting Common Decency,” Philosophy of Education 2002: A Publication of the Philosophy of Education Society. Copyright held by the Philosophy of Education Society, reprinted with the society’s permission. Claudia Card, “Genocide and Social Death.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Phi- losophy, vol. 18, no.1(2003). Reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press. Alison Jaggar, “Globalizing Feminist Ethics.” Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Phi- losophy, vol. 13, no.2(1998). Reprinted with permission of Indiana University Press. acknowledgments Michele Moody-Adams, “The Idea of Moral Progress.” Metaphilosophy, vol.30 (July 1999). Reprinted with permission of Blackwell Publishing Ltd. “The Improvisatory Dramas of Deliberation,” by Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, is a revised version of “The Improvisatory Drama of Decision-Making,” which origi- nally appeared in Well-Being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin, ed. Roger Crisp. Copyright  2000. Reprinted with permission of Oxford University Press. Christine M. Korsgaard, “Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant.” The Journal of Ethics: An International Philosophical Review, vol.3(1999), pp.1–29. Copyright  1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Reprinted with kind permission of Christine M. Korsgaard, Harvard University, and Kluwer Academic Publishers. viii Contents Contributors xi Introduction 3 I An Ethics for Ordinary Life and Vulnerable Persons 1 Virtue and the Skills of Ordinary Life 23 Marcia Homiak 2 The Household as Repair Shop 43 Elizabeth V. Spelman 3 Taking Care: Care as Practice and Value 59 Virginia Held 4 The Future of Feminist Liberalism 72 Martha C. Nussbaum II What We Ought to Do for Each Other 5 The Scope of Moral Requirement 91 Barbara Herman 6 The Moral of Moral Luck 113 Susan Wolf 7 Common Decency 128 Cheshire Calhoun III The Normative Importance of a Shared Social World 8 Resentment and Assurance 145 Margaret Urban Walker [...]... greater cross-fertilization between explicitly feminist philosophy and other philosophical work by women The Essays of Setting the Moral Compass The first two essays in this volume, by Marcia Homiak and Elizabeth V Spelman, illustrate central themes and styles in women s moral philosophy Among the themes that emerge in these and later essays are a resistance to elitism and inegalitarianism in both social... that sustains gender inequality in the discipline 9 10 setting the moral compass There are other problems, too, with thematizing the gendered location of the contributors to this volume In a discipline that is now often self-conscious about the sadly low numbers of women in philosophy and its long history of not honoring even the most deserving women philosophers, taking women s gender into account is... philosophy It also invites the reader to rethink the boundaries between nonfeminist and feminist moral philosophy Over the past twenty-five years, the work of women philosophers has reshaped the field of moral philosophy The most obvious difference that they have made is in the development of explicitly feminist moral perspectives With very few exceptions, it has been women moral philosophers who have labored... and moral responsibility, and numerous articles on ethics and the philosophy of mind Her current research focuses on the relations among happiness, morality, and meaningfulness in life Setting the Moral Compass This page intentionally left blank Introduction Cheshire Calhoun This collection brings together nineteen of the leading women philosophers in ethics who have contributed to setting the compass. .. consequence 11 12 setting the moral compass of including in the profession philosophers who are also women Although it is no doubt true that feminist philosophy is a consequence of including women in the profession, the problem lies in the presumption that including women in the profession has no appreciable effects on philosophy “proper” as well Thus there are no practices whatsoever of both women and men... for the shifts in moral philosophy over the past twenty-five years The discipline of philosophy as a whole has undergone substantial pluralization as a result of pressure from a variety of sources Nevertheless women moral philosophers are owed much of the credit for the fact that the range of topics that are now taken to be legitimate in moral philosophy is much larger than it was in the 1970s Women philosophers. .. also resulted in part from the fact that women moral philosophers have more often included within the scope of political philosophy an attention to the justice of familial arrangements and the current distribution of care-giving work Because women make up the majority of care givers, especially for the most needy and dependent humans at both ends of the life span, women moral philosophers have been more... conventionally allow—or don’t allow women s difference to appear Before doing so, some cautionary remarks about using the category woman philosopher are in order introduction Presenting the work of stellar moral philosophers under the title of Essays by Women Philosophers is multiply problematic To be invited to contribute to a collection devoted to work by women moral philosophers is, as Annette Baier... compass in moral philosophy over the past two or three decades The result is a set of essays that collectively display the sorts of powerful and innovative contributions to ethics that women moral philosophers have made and continue to make It is a collection that makes visible women moral philosophers varied conceptions of the proper subjects, texts, methods, audiences, and purposes of moral philosophy... deserve most of the credit for the fact that the politics of theory construction—whose interests do moral theories serve and not serve?—can now be part of the self-reflective business of moral philosophy Women philosophers also deserve a sizable portion of the credit for making the use of multidisciplinary resources a component of properly done moral philosophy Inventive Realism If there is any one . Setting the Moral Compass: Essays by Women Philosophers CHESHIRE CALHOUN, Editor OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Setting the Moral Compass studies in feminist philosophy Cheshire. brings together nineteen of the leading women philosophers in ethics who have contributed to setting the compass in moral philosophy over the past two or three decades. The result is a set of essays. Responsibility Laurie Shrage Setting the Moral Compass Edited by Cheshire Calhoun edited by cheshire calhoun Setting the Moral Compass essays by women philosophers 1 2004 3 Oxford New York Auckland Bangkok