Beyond flow: the need for a feminist ethics of leisure

Abstract

In this paper five contemporary moral theories are compared insofar as they can be used to assess the moral impact on women of the body-shape industries. Considerations are raised in support of two claims. First, moral theories are incomplete; each one is suitable for articulating some moral insights, in some situations, but none are suitable as a description of every aspect of human flourishing. Second, narrative ethics and feminist ethics are better suited to articulate the specific harms to women of the multibillion dollar body-shape industries than are utilitarian, rights and virtue theories.