FEMINIST ETHICS - PROJECTS, PROBLEMS, PROSPECTS

Presently in the United States there is much talk about so-called feminist ethics. Unfortunately, there is less self-conscious reflection about just what feminist ethics might be, a situation that I hope to remedy, at least partially, in this presentation. My paper is divided into there parts. In the first, I describe the emergence of what has come to be known as feminist ethics in the U.S., and identify several distinct enterprises sometimes characterized as feminist ethics. These are: a) critical feminist discussions of so-called "women's issues"; b) feminist evaluations of the Western ethical canon; c) attempts to distil feminist ethics from varieties of moral experience believed to be distinctively feminine; d) explicitly non-universalist approaches to ethics designed specifially for limited communities, such as the lesbian community; e) approaches to ethics that supposedly transcend gender. In the second part of the paper, I discuss each of these enterprises in turn, noting problems faced by each. My discussion is both sympathetic and critical. It identifies some common misconstruals of feminist ethics, as well as some traps into which those practising feminist ethics may fall, but also points towards an agenda for future work in this area. I draw on these discussions, in the third and final part of paper, to summarize my own understanding of feminist ethics. On the basis of this understanding, I formulate several conditions of adequacy for any feminist approach to ethics. In conclusion, I suggest, though I do not have time to argue, that feminist concerns bring into sharp focus certain deep problems in moral epistemology, problems that have not been adequately addressed or even recognized by contemporary nonfeminist theorists.