Abstract

The central thesis of my dissertation is that oppressed, or marginalized, peoples have a privileged epistemological standpoint that can provide a privileged moral position. I argue that the very possibility of achieving ethical human relations depends upon the initial actions of the oppressed. In support of my argument I draw upon both the continental and analytic traditions within philosophy, as well as African-American philosophy, feminist theory and critical race theory. I defend Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialist ethical project as developed from Being and Nothingness to the Critique of Dialectical Reason, Volume 1. I develop a modified version of Sartre's existential phenomenological argument for the primacy of the standpoint of the oppressed in the formation of an ethics. I defend this view against Maurice Merleau-Ponty's objections by reexamining his debate with Simone de Beauvoir concerning Sartre's appeal to the "gaze of the least favored." I further enrich my argument by exploring recent works in feminist standpoint theory, including that of Sandra Harding, who argues for a privileged feminist epistemic standpoint that also implies a privileged moral position. Finally, by drawing upon the works of Frantz Fanon and Anna Julia Cooper I bring race to bear in feminist standpoint theory to establish new connections between feminism and race theory. I argue that in Black Skin, White Masks , which critically addresses Sartre's existentialist ethics, Fanon develops a viable epistemological standpoint of the colonized which entails the privileged moral standpoint of these marginalized people. I also make the case that the particularity of Black feminist thought, which highlights the interlocking nature of oppression, can give rise to an alternative vision of an ethical society devoid of racial and sexual oppression. I articulate this claim through an examination of Cooper's 19th century text A Voice from the South, in which she articulates the importance of black feminist thought to the regeneration and moral progress of both the black race and American society as a whole