References
- I would like to thank Samantha Brennan for inviting me to participate in this volume, giving me the opportunity to present the work-in-progress at the Feminist Moral Philosophy Conference at the University of Western Ontario in August 2002, and providing helpful comments on earlier drafts. An earlier version of this paper was also presented at the Society for Analytical Feminism (SAF) meeting in Chicago in May 2002. Many thanks to Ann Cudd for her insightful commentary at that session, and to audiences at both the SAF meeting and the Feminist Moral Philosophy conference. I am grateful for funding for this project, awarded through the University of Western Ontario's internal Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) research grant competition.
- Card , Claudia . 1991 . “The Fiestiness of Feminist,” in ” . In Feminist Ethics Edited by: Card , C. Lawrence , KS : University Press of Kansas . Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality (Freedom, CA: The Crossing Press, 1983); Alison Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics: Projects, Problems, Prospects,” in Feminist Ethics (op. cit.).
- Bartky , Sandra . 1993 . Femininity and Domination: Studies in the Phenomenology of Oppression Edited by: Harding , S. and Hintikka , M. New York : Routledge . 1990); Card, “Fiestiness”; N. Hartsock, “The Feminist Standpoint: Developing a Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism,” in Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science, ed. (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1983); Diana Tietjens Meyers, “Agency,” in A Companion to Feminist Philosophy, Alison Jaggar and Iris Marion Young, (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000); Rosemarie Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth,.
- 1986 . Moral Responsibility Ithaca , NY : Cornell University Press . John Martin Fischer, “Responsibility and Control,” in !John Martin Fischer; Harry Frankfurt, “Freedom of the Will and the Concept of the Person,” Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971): 5–20; Immanuel Kant, Grounding of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785), trans. James W. Ellington (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993); John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971); R. Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics.
- It might strike some people as odd that I have left “autonomous” off of the list, for many people think of autonomy as a fundamental condition of agency. I have omitted autonomy because it means such different things to different people and because it is likely captured by several of the features that I have mentioned.
- Meyers, “Agency.”
- 1998 . The Politics of Women's Health: Exploring Agency and Autonomy Philadelphia : Temple University Press . Susan Sherwin has suggested that feminists should distinguish between agency and autonomy. She maintains that “agency” involves the exercising of reasonable choice, but does not take into account oppressive circumstances that circumscribe the range of choices available. Abroadened, more relational account of autonomy that goes beyond the traditional idea of self-governance would be sensitive to oppression. I have two reasons for not distinguishing here between agency and autonomy in the way that Sherwin recommends. First, I have presented the paradox of feminist agency as stemming from feminist assumptions about patriarchal oppression. Thus, it does not ignore circumstances of oppression. And second, I am not concerned so much with the idea of agency as the exercise of reasonable choice, as with the possibility of feminist agency. I understand feminist agency to be effective action by women against patriarchal oppression. Thus, my focus here is quite different from Sherwin's. I have consciously and explicitly set aside the task of articulating an account of autonomy (see note 5), as the paradox of feminist agency arises regardless of our conception of autonomy. See Susan Sherwin's “A Relational Approach to Autonomy in Health Care,” in Susan Sherwin, Coordinator 33.
- Blum , Lawrence . 2000 . Friendship, Altruism and Morality Edited by: Hanen , Marsha and Neilsen , Kai . London : Routledge & Kegan Paul . 1980); Adrienne Rich, Of Woman Born (New York: W. W. Norton, 1979); Lorraine Code, “Second Persons,” in Science, Morality and Feminist Theory (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1987); Caroline Whitbeck, “A Different Reality: Feminist Ontology,” in Women, Knowledge and Reality: Explorations in Feminist Philosophy, ed. Ann Garry and Marilyn Pearsall (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989); see also Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar, eds., Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press,.
- Gilligan , Carol . 1982 . In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press .
- Meyers . “Agency.”
- Ibid., 377.
- “Gender and the Complexity of Moral Voices,” in ” . In Feminist Ethics Card, “Fiestiness”; Michelle-Moody Adams ed. !C. Card; Adrienne Rich Of Woman Born; R. Tong, Feminist and Feminine Ethics.
- Frye , Marilyn . The Politics of Reality; R. Tong, Feminine and Feminist Ethics.
- 1998 . Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics New York : Routledge . Margaret Urban Walker
- Ibid., 96.
- Ibid., 100.
- Ibid., 107.
- Dwyer , Susan . 1998 . “Learning from Experience,” in ” . In Daring to Be Good: Essays in Feminist Ethico-Politics Edited by: Bar On , Bat-Ami and Ferguson , Ann . New York : Routledge . Jaggar, “Feminist Ethics.”
- Samantha Brennan suggested this example.
- Walker , Urban . Moral Understandings 107
- 1991 . The Chilly Climate for Women Faculty in Colleges and Universities executive producers, Western's Caucus on Women's Issues and the President's Standing Committee on Employment Equity, the University of Western Ontario, producer Kem Murch Productions, written and directed by Kem Murch
- The Politics of Reality As Marilyn Frye says, “to recognize a person as oppressed, one has to see that individual as belonging to a group of a certain sort.” Frye, 8.
- Bratman , Michael . 1988 . “Shared Intention,” . Ethics , 104 : 115 – 37 . (1993): 97–113; Margaret Gilbert, “What Is It for Us to Intend?” in Contemporary Action Theory, Vol. 2, ed. Raimo Tuomela and Ghita Holmström (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1997), 65–85; Christopher Kutz, Complicity: Ethics and Law for a Collective Age (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Larry May, The Morality of Groups (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987); Raimo Tuomela and Karl Miller, “We-Intentions,” Philosophical Studies 53:
- Ibid.
- 1986 . Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association , 59 : 471 – 82 . “Guidelines for the Use of Non-Sexist Language,”:
- e , Fry . Politics of Reality 16
- 2002 . Ann Cudd put this point to me in her helpful commentary on an earlier version of the paper, presented at the Meeting of the Society for Analytical Feminism, Chicago, April
- Griffiths , Morwenna and Whitford , Margaret , eds. 1988 . Feminist Perspectives in Philosophy Indianapolis : Indiana University Press . Such as Jean Grimshaw, “Autonomy and Identity in Feminist Thinking,” in
- Tong , R. Feminine and Feminist Ethics 59
- 1995 . Kidding Ourselves: Breadwinning, Babies, and Bargaining Power New York : Basic Books . For a very interesting discussion of the way that women make choices that leave them worse off, see Rhona Mahoney's
- Cudd , Ann . 2002 . “Comments on Isaacs,” presented at the meeting of the Society for Analytical Feminism, Chicago (April, 4.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- 1998 . Journal of Social Philosophy , 29 : 20 – 36 . Ann Cudd provides an excellent discussion of blaming the victim and of the moral duty of the oppressed to resist oppression in her article “Strikes, Housework, and the Moral Obligation to Resist,”:
- See ibid., 31.
- Ibid., 33.
- Ibid., 34.
- Ibid., 34.
- 2002 . London , On : University of Western Ontario . Lisa Tessman put this question to me in the discussion period of my session at the Feminist Moral Philosophy Conference, August 23–25, The tario, Canada.
- Lugones , Maria C. and Spelman , Elizabeth V. 1999 . “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism and the Demand for ‘The Woman's Voice,’” reprinted in ” . In Women and Values: Readings in Recent Feminist Philosophy Belmont , CA : Wadsworth . Marilyn Pearsall
- 15 – 16 . Ibid.
- Ibid., 17.
- See also Moody-Adams, “Gender and the Complexity of Moral Voices.”
- Lugones and Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You!”
- Frye , Marilyn . The Politics of Reality 16
- Card, “Feistiness.”