Kant's Ethical Duties and their Feminist Implications

References

• I would like to thank Samantha Brennan and Dennis Klimchuk for their comments on an earlier draft.
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• Card , C. , ed. 1990 . Feminist Ethics Lawrence , KS : University of Kansas Press . “Feminist Ethics: Projects, Problems, Prospects,” in 97.
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• Gregor , Mary J. , ed. 1997 . Metaphysics of Morals 314 – 15 . See Kant's (hereafter, MS), Mary J. Gregor, trans., The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 6: “On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but it is of no use in practice” (hereafter, TP), Mary J. Gregor, trans., op. cit., 8: 291–97; and Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (hereafter, Obs), John T. Goldthwait, trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 81. For discussions of these views, see Susan Mendus, “Kant: ‘An Honest but Narrow-Minded Bourgeois’?” in Essays on Kant's Political Philosophy, Howard Lloyd Williams, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); and Robin May Schott, “The Gender of Enlightenment”, in Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, Robin May Schott, ed. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,.
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• 1990 . Pacific Philosophical Quarterly , 71 : 72 – 76 . See “Can Kant's Ethics Survive the Feminist Critique?”: 60–79, especially
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• 1993 . Social Philosophy and Policy , 10 See “Selflessness and the Loss of Self,“: 135–65, especially pp. 147–48; and “Feminist Contractarianism” in A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, Louise M. Antony and Charlotte Witt, eds. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).
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• Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant See “Feminist Ethics: How It Could Benefit from Kant's Moral Philosophy,” Stephanie Morgenstern, trans., in op. cit. Other philosophers who could be mentioned here as feminist proponents of Kant include Barbara Herman (see “Could it be Worth Thinking about Kant on Sex and Marriage?” in A Mind of One's Own, op. cit.) and Marcia Baron (see “Kantian Ethics and Claims of Detachment,” in Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, op. cit.).
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• 1993 . Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals 389 – 90 . Indianapolis : Hackett . See (hereafter, G), James W. Ellington, trans. 4:
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• 1999 . Ethics , 109 : 862 – 64 . For a brief but helpful discussion of feminist ethics and relativism, see Samantha Brennan, “Recent Work in Feminist Ethics,”: 858–93, especially pp.
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• The formula of humanity reads, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, and never simply as a means,” G 4: 429.
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• Regan , Tom , ed. 1985 . Philosophy and Public Affairs 285 – 96 . See Onora O'Neill, “Between Consenting Adults,” 14: 252–77; and “The Moral Perplexities of Famine Relief,” in Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, (New York: Random House, 1980), especially pp.
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• 2001 . Moral Self-Regard: Duties to Oneself in Kant's Moral Theory 321 – 48 . New York : Garland . See my or “Kant's Ethics and Duties to Oneself,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (1997):
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• Reath , Andrews , Herman , Barbara and Korsgaard , Christine M. , eds. Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls New York : Cambridge University Press . Kant explains his notion of a kingdom of ends in part this way: By ‘kingdom’ I understand a systematic union of different rational beings under common laws.; if one abstracts from the personal differences of rational beings and also from all content of their private ends, then it will be possible to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and also of the particular ends which each may set for himself). G 4: 433. To get a richer sense of this notion, see Barbara Herman, “A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends,” in 1997).
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• 1998 . 93 – 100 . New York : Cambridge University Press . (Hereafter, Rel), Allen W. Wood and George Di Giovanni, trans. 6: 151–53
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• Wood , Allen W. 1999 . Kant's Ethical Thought New York : Cambridge University Press . See ch. 8, especially 309–17; and Sharon Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil: History and Moral Progress in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), especially ch. 3.
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• 1993 . Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, , 3d ed. New York : Macmillan . Belief in God makes the highest good seem possible. See, e.g., Lewis White Beck, trans., Book 2: The Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason.
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• 443 – 44 . MS 6:
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• 109 – 24 . Rel 6:
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• 379 – 97 . For Kant's distinction between the spheres and duties of right and ethics, see MS 6: 221–33
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• Keep in mind that, for Kant, willing is essentially practical. Willing thus differs from wishing or wanting. When one wills (or “adopts” or “sets oneself”) an end, one commits oneself to strive to bring it about (G 4: 394, 417; MS 6: 441).
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• Heath , Peter , Schneewind , J. B. and Heath , Peter , eds. 1997 . Immanuel Kant: Lectures on Ethics New York : Cambridge University Press . MS 6:468–69. “Moral Philosophy: Collins's Lecture Notes,”. The Collins lecture notes sometimes bring up issues of age, gender, etc. in their explanations of duties.
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• 2000 . Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings , Louden discusses the relation of Kant's empirical claims about humans to his ethics throughout by Robert B. Louden (Oxford: Oxford University Press,. For two different approaches to Kant's views about women in his discussion of marriage, see my “From Friendship to Marriage: Revising Kant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2001): 1–28; and Holly L. Wilson, “Kant's Evolutionary Theory of Marriage” in Autonomy and Community: Readings in Contemporary Kantian Social Philosophy, Jane Kneller and Sidney Axin, eds. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998).
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• The supreme principle of the doctrine of virtue is: Act in accordance with a maxim of ends that it can be a universal law for everyone to have. In accordance with this principle, the human being is an end for himself as well as for others, and it is not enough that he is not authorized to use either himself or others merely as a means (since he could then still be indifferent to them); it is in itself his duty to make the human being in general his end (MS 6: 395).
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• 417 – 47 . For Kant's discussion of duties to oneself, see MS 6:
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• Many philosophers are surprised, and heartened, to find that Kant's views our animal nature and its drives as good. See Rel 6: 28, 58.
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• 1999 . Kant's Ethical Thought , : 215 – 25 . For a general discussion of Kant's use of natural teleology in his ethics, see Wood, for a discussion of Kant's use of natural teleology in his arguments for duties to oneself as an animal and moral being, see my “Kant on the Wrongness of ‘Unnatural’ Sex,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 16: 225–47
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• MS 6:421.
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• MS 6:423.
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• In the examples of implications of these duties and other duties I will discuss, I do not mean to suggest that the implications I bring out are relevant to all women, or to no men; nor do I wish to suggest these implications are more important than those I do not discuss (e.g., here, suicide). I am simply choosing a few issues that feminists and others concerned with women's rights and welfare have highlighted.
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• Some abused women feel that they deserve their abuse. See the discussion of servility.
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• I do not mean to suggest that other people and larger social forces are not responsible for the pressures that encourage women to go on unsafe diets, have risky, medically unnecessary surgery, and stay in abusive relationships. That women have duties to themselves in these contexts does not entail that others have no duties to them; it means only that women in these circumstances nevertheless owe themselves certain treatment and care, given the dignity of their agency.
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• 1997 . Lectures on Ethics 384 – 85 . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . See the Collins lecture notes in Peter Heath, trans. 27:. Wood discusses Kant on the sexual drive in Kant's Ethical Thought, 256–59; he points out some parallels between some on feminists’ views of sex and Kant's on p. 259. While Kant is certainly aware of sexual differences, he nonetheless thinks men are as degraded by sex as women.
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• See Collins lecture notes, and MS 6: 424.
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• Collins lecture notes 27:384. See Herman, “A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends,” for a discussion of how marriage is supposed to solve the moral problems that sex presents.
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• See MS 6: 427.
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• MS 6: 434.
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• MS 6: 441.
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• See e.g., Kant's discussion of avarice in Collins lecture notes, 27: 402.
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• Zweig , Arnulf , ed. 1967 . Immanuel Kant: Philosophical Correspondence, 1759–99 Chicago : University of Chicago Press . Kant holds the plausible view that lying to others makes it harder to be honest with oneself, just as lying to oneself makes it harder to be honest to others. See MS 6:430–31 and Kant's letter to Maria von Herbert, in trans. 189.
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• Moral Self-Regard 92 – 96 . MS 6: 429. I do not think the correct Kantian position is that all lying is vicious, though Kant himself often seems to think so. For a fuller explanation of my view about this see my
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• 1973 . The Monist , 57 : 393 – 400 . See, most notably, Thomas E. Hill, Jr., “Servility and Self-Respect,”: 87–104; responding to Hill, Marilyn A. Friedman, “Moral Integrity and the Deferential Wife,” Philosophical Studies 47 (1985): 141–50; and responding to Friedman, Marcia Baron, “Servility, Critical Deference and the Deferential Wife,” Philosophical Studies 48 (1985):
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• 446 – 47 . MS 6:
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• 407 – 9 . MS 6:
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• 385 – 88 . MS 6:
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• MS 6: 392, 445.
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• 445 – 57 . MS 6: 444–45
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• Autonomy and Community Susan Feldman uses the duty to promote one's own natural perfection, along with the duty to avoid servility and consideration of women's autonomy more generally, to construct a feminist, Kantian argument for the permissibility of so-called “abortions of convenience.” See “From Occupied Bodies to Pregnant Persons: How Kantian Ethics Should Treat Pregnancy and Abortion,” in (op. cit.).
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• 1993 . Kant and the Experience of Freedom New York : Cambridge University Press . There is a lot of good work on this. See, for example, Paul Guyer, ch. 10; and Nancy Sherman, “Kantian Virtue: Priggish or Passional?” in Reclaiming the History of Ethics (op. cit.).
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• G 4: 399; MS 6: 386.
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• G 4: 417–19; MS 6: 388.
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• MS 6: 388, 451.
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• MS 6: 393.
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• See O'Neill, “The Moral Perplexities of Famine Relief,” for arguments about the derivation of duties of justice and duties of beneficence from the formula of humanity.
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• 462 – 64 . MS 6:
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• MS 6: 465.
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• MS 6: 466.
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• MS 6: 467.
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• MS 6: 462.
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• Flexner , Eleanor . 1972 . Century of Struggle New York : Atheneum . See especially ch. 13.
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• 1985 . Between Women: Domestics and their Employers Philadelphia : Temple University Press . For a myriad of examples of this, see Judith Rollins
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• 1978 . Feminism and Suffrage Ithaca : Cornell University Press . See Ellen Carol DuBois, 178.
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• 78 – 83 . Kant himself is guilty of at least some of these infractions. See, for example, Obs
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• MS 6: 450.
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• MS 6:453.
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• Nevertheless, Kant assumes that the truly beneficent will come to care for the objects of their aid, and to enjoy helping others. See MS 6: 402.
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• MS 6: 454.
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• 1984 . Ethics , 94 : 577 – 602 . See O'Neill, “The Moral Perplixities of Famine Relief”; and Barbara Herman, “Mutual Aid and Respect for Persons,”:
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• MS 6: 457.
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• MS 6: 454.
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• MS 6: 455.
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• Lugones , Maria C. and Spelman , Elizabeth V. 1983 . “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism, and the Demand for ‘The Woman's Voice,’” . Women's Studies International Forum , 6 : 573 – 81 . See:
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• 1988 . Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought Boston : Beacon Press . For an in-depth analysis of this problem, see Elizabeth V. Spelman
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• Jaggar . 97 – 98 . “Feminist Ethiics,”
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