Christine Battersby and the Law

Abstract

In this article, Janice Richardson examines some of the implications for legal theory of the work of Christine Battersby, starting with a discussion of her view that dependency should be viewed as the norm. She then considers the way in which Battersby critiques and reworks Kantian metaphysics. By attending to women's position within Kant's conception of self, Battersby goes beyond a critique of his image of a self to produce a different image of selfhood. This alternative image is one she sees portrayed in the work of female artists of the sublime, in which selfhood and otherness emerge gradually, in contrast to one's self being cut off from otherness. Richardson illustrates the difference between Battersby and theorists Judith Butler and Jean-François Lyotard, and points to a family resemblance to the Spinozan work of Moira Gatens. After an examination of Battersby's critique of Kantian selfhood and her alternative conception of self, the article concludes by considering the role of history in Battersby's work. Her feminist recovery of past female artists, whose portrayal of the sublime and different views of the self–other relationship were initially dismissed but later re-evaluated, is important. The oeuvre of these artists was marginalized, in part, because they failed to fit within the artistic canon of their time. Later re-evaluation, by Battersby herself, allows us to see how they challenge the boundaries of the canon and puts the canon in a different light. In her analysis of this shift in the canon, Battersby is able to provide a model for philosophy (including politico-legal theory) itself. Her philosophical work illustrates how paying attention to the position of fleshy embodied women within a conceptual framework opens up the possibility of rethinking philosophical concepts, such as the Kantian view of selfhood, and to improve upon them by refusing to treat women (or men) as aberrations from the norm.

Keywords:

• Battersby
• Kant
• Lyotard
• self–other relationship
• autonomy
• law

Notes

¹See Smith v. Baker & Sons [1891] AC 325.

²See Beresford-Hope v. Sandhurst (1889) 23 QB 79.

³ De Souza v. Cobden (1891) 1 QB 687.