This article surveys recent feminist contributions to moral philosophy with an emphasis on those works which engage with debates within mainstream ethics. The article begins by examining a tension said to arise from the two criteria a theory must meet if it is to count as feminist moral theory: the women's experience requirement and the feminist conclusion requirement. Subsequent sections deal with feminist relational theories of rights, feminist work on responsibility and feminist contractarian approaches to ethics. A final section looks (...) at the application of some feminist moral theories to the problem of abortion. (shrink)

This paper explores how Schutz’s ideas enrich and extend the ethic of care promulgated by feminist theorists such as Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings,Sara Ruddick, and Eva Feder Kittay. Using Schutz’s ideas about the I-Thou relationship, systems of relevances, and growing old together, the authorlays a foundation for continuing dialogue between feminist theorists of care and Schutzian phenomenologists.

This paper explores how Schutz’s ideas enrich and extend the ethic of care promulgated by feminist theorists such as Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings,Sara Ruddick, and Eva Feder Kittay. Using Schutz’s ideas about the I-Thou relationship, systems of relevances, and growing old together, the authorlays a foundation for continuing dialogue between feminist theorists of care and Schutzian phenomenologists.

This paper problematises the ways women’s leadership has been understood in relation to male leadership rather than on its own terms. Focusing specifically on ethical leadership, we challenge and politicise the symbolic status of women in leadership by considering the practice of New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern. In so doing, we demonstrate how leadership ethics based on feminised ideals such as care and empathy are problematic in their typecasting of women as being simply the other to men. We apply (...) different strategies of mimesis for developing feminist leadership ethics that does not derive from the masculine. This offers a radical vision for leadership that liberates the feminine and women’s subjectivities from the masculine order. It also offers a practical project for changing women’s working lives through relationality, intercorporeality, collective agency and ethical openness with the desire for fundamental political transformation in the ways in which women can lead. (shrink)

This essay distinguishes three types of appeals to experience in ethics, identifies problems with appealing to experience, and argues that appeals to experience must be open to critical assessment, if experientially-based arguments are to be useful. Unless competing and potentially irreconcilable experiences can be assessed and adjudicated, experientially-based arguments will be problematic. The paper recommends thinking of the appeal to experience as a kind of storytelling to be evaluated as other stories are.

Environmental ethicists often hold that organisms, species, ecosystems, and the like have goods of their own. But, even given that such goods exist, whether we ought to value them is controversial. Hence an environmental philosophy needs, in addition to an account of what sorts of values there are, an explanation what, how and why we morally ought to value—that is, an account of moral valuing. This paper presents one such an account. Specifically, I aim to show that unless there are (...) eternal goods (and maybe even if there are), we have a duty of self-transcendence toward nature—that is, a duty to value nature's goods as ends. This duty is owed, however, not to nature, but to ourselves. It is grounded in what I call an imperative of hope. The argument, in a nutshell, is that we have a duty to ourselves to (in a certain sense) optimize hope. This optimization requires self-transcendence toward entities whose goods are more diverse and enduring than any human goods. But unless there are eternal goods, such goods occur only in nature. (shrink)

In this article I describe the theoretical underpinnings of 20th-century British philosopher W. D. Ross's approach to linking deontological and teleological decision making. I attempt to fill in what Ross left on the whole unanswered, that is, how to use his duties to resolve dilemmas. A case study in journalism demonstrates how to apply the theory. I conclude with an analysis of what I take to be the strengths and weaknesses in Ross's theory.

Like the dominant moral philosophers in the Western tradition, Mahatma Gandhi reaches moral conclusions that emphasize universality, impartiality, and detachment. This is in apparent contrast to feminist philosophers who have put forth a scheme for reaching moral conclusions that gives centrality to feeling, experience, and interdependence. In the following, I show that Gandhi shares significant agreement with feminists in spite of the kinds of moral conclusions he reaches. The crucial difference between Gandhi and the feminist critics lies in how the (...) distinctiveness of the other is understood. For Gandhi, I show, that the distinctiveness of others which evokes our affection is significant only in so far as it is a starting point that aides us in reaching the highest form of moral concern—a kind of agape (unselfish love for all). (shrink)

This article summarizes the development of the stakeholder concept in the last decade. The academic debate has been dominated over the last ten years by the managerial version of the stakeholder concept. The case of Shell in Ogoniland is elaborated to demonstrate that the managerial version does not pay sufficient respect to other interpretations of the concept. The article criticizes this dominant interpretation and argues for the need of an ongoing — academic and practical — debate on organizing and ethics. (...) An ongoing "organizational stakeholder debate" is required. Social and ethical accounting, auditing, and reporting can be seen as one way to operationalize this notion of the "organizational debate", if it addresses the creation and diversity of moral meaning in the context of organizations. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:This article reviews a conversation between business ethicists and feminist scholars begun in the early 1990s and traces the development of that conversation in relation to feminist theory. A bibliographic analysis of the business ethics and corporate social responsibility literatures over a twenty-five-year period elucidates the degree to which gender has been a salient concern, the methodologies adopted, and the ways in which gender has been analyzed. Identifying significant limitations to the incorporation of feminist theory in these literatures, we discuss (...) how feminist scholarship relating to behavior, organizations, and economics could be integrated. We suggest that a better integration of feminist theory would strengthen BE/CSR research, and point to new research directions and agendas arising from our approach. (shrink)

This paper examines how progress on gender equality in the field of corporate social responsibility (CSR) might contribute to broader EU gender and sustainability objectives. It focuses on corporations and citizenship, and on company stakeholder relations (SR) in particular. While the literature on SR has previously engaged with scholarship on feminist ethics, and in particular the ‘ethics of care’, this paper draws upon the feminist citizenship and feminist ethics literature, and upon gender mainstreaming strategy to suggest a more comprehensive approach (...) to gender equality within SR. The aim is to extend our understanding of CSR as a potential policy instrument to advance gender equality. (shrink)

This paper provides an overview of twenty years of feminist philosophy in Northamerica. The professionalization of feminist theory that has occurred through the mainstreaming of feminist philosophy creates a danger of a gap between theory and practice that creates the danger of co-optation. Three stages of feminist philosophizing are outlined, including the radical critique, gender difference and difference/post-modernist stages. The last stage, it is argued, leads to an conceptual impasse about feminist strategies for social change.

Philosophy Compass, Volume 17, Issue 4, April 2022. -/- In a moment where needs for care are acute and their provision precarious, feminist care ethics has gained new relevance as a framework for understanding and responding to necessary interdependence. This article reviews and evaluates two long-standing critiques of care ethics in light of this recent research. First, I assess what I call the pluralist feminist critique, or the dispute over the ability of care ethics to address the needs and histories (...) of a range of marginalized subjects. I identify two forms of this critique: the first disputes the biased starting points shaping the development of the theory, and the second concerns the weaponization of care in support of domination. Although these critiques are well-established, I draw attention to recent responses that move care theory in generative directions. I argue that the pluralist feminist critique demands both self-critical transformation in dialog with other feminist schools of thought and a robust account of care ethics' normative authority. I then take up critiques those levied by mainstream ethicists concerned with care theory's adequacy as an ethical approach. I show that recent work on normative authority, conceptual uniqueness, and the grounding of responsibility must be engaged before care theory can be dismissed as “under-theorized.” In articulating these two sets of critiques and evaluating recent rebuttals to them, I argue for a pluralist feminist theory of care within which strands informed by varying philosophical schools and methods can coexist. (shrink)

Stakeholder theory, as a method of management based on morals and behavior, must be grounded by a theory of ethics. However, traditional ethics of justice and rights cannot completely ground the theory. Following and expanding on the work of Wicks, Gilbert, and Freeman (1994), we believe that feminist ethics, invoking principles of caring, provides the missing element that allows moral theory to ground the stakeholder approach to management. Examples are given to support the suggested general principle for making business decisions (...) under feminist moral theory. (shrink)

This response to Dobson and White’s call for a feminine firm argues that such a concept is based on amisinterpretation of Gilligan’s research. Moreover, virtue ethics and feminine ethics do not share a common approach to nurturing relationships or the moral orientation of care. Acknowledging the worthwhile goals of Dobson and White’s endeavor, the feminist firm is presented as offering greater potential to achieve these goals.

This study examines local communities’ lived experiences and organizations’ care-giving processes regarding four oil and gas projects deployed in three countries. Analyzing the empirical data through the lens of ethics of care reveals that, together with mature justice, the inclination to care conceived at the focal organization creates an ethical culture encouraging caring activities by individuals at the local level. Through close communications with communities, project decision makers at the local level recognize the demanded care of local communities and develop (...) organizations’ caring capacity. The empirical analysis revealed that the care-giving process can also be influenced by the power dynamics of the network of stakeholders. This research emphasizes on the success of a bottom-up approach in caring for local communities, and sheds light on the capability of large organizations in giving care to their distal stakeholders by adopting this approach. Furthermore, it indicates that justice and care both have some useful characteristics and are complementary but, most importantly, are socially constructed and not mutually exclusive. (shrink)

Recent work in clinical nursing ethics has been influenced by two main areas of insight associated with the challenge levelled by the women's movement to traditional thinking about morality and ethics. Broadly speaking these two realms have been distinguished as articulating ‘feminist’ socio‐political and ‘feminine’ ethic of care concerns. Often these two impulses are seen as pulling against each other, or worse, the ‘feminine’ emphasis on the ethics of care is seen as reinforcing the dynamics that elicit the ‘feminist’ concern. (...) In this paper I suggest how an expanded understanding of an ethic of care in clinical settings can provide resources for dealing with both concerns. A discussion of the way institutional relations can ride rough‐shod over the ‘feminist’ insights of ethical care, in the second part of the paper, provides evidence for my conclusion that ethical nursing care depends on recognizing that both areas of insight are imperative for its success. (shrink)

If business requires ethical solutions that are viable in the liminal landscape between concepts and corporate office, then business ethics and corporate social responsibility should offer tools that can survive the trek, that flourish in this well-traveled, but often unarticulated, environment. Indeed, feminist ethics produces, accesses, and engages such tools. However, work in BE and CSR consistently conflates feminist ethics and feminine ethics and care ethics. I offer clarification and invoke the analytic power of three feminist ethicists 'in action' whose (...) investigations into the "grey zones" of harms; identity and representational conventions; and "asymmetrical reciprocity" harmonize with business ethics' requirements. (shrink)

At healthcare facilities worldwide, women during childbirth undergo medical procedures they haven’t consented to and experience mistreatment and disrespect. This phenomenon is recognized as obstetric violence (OV), a distinct form of gender violence. The resulting trauma carries both immediate and long-term implications, making it vital to address for promoting women’s health. OV is partly shaped by a narrow, paternalistic conception of vulnerability. A flawed conception of the vulnerability of pregnant women and fetuses has opened the door to medical control and (...) coercion during childbirth. In this paper we examine what role notions of vulnerability play in perpetuating OV and consider recent attitudinal shifts in research ethics as a model for addressing it. (shrink)

This paper reviews the relatively small body of work in computer ethics which looks at the question of whether gender makes any difference to ethical decisions. There are two strands of writing on gender and computer ethics. The first focuses on problems of women's access to computer technology; the second concentrates on whether there are differences between men and women's ethical decision making in relation to information and computing technologies. I criticize the latter area, arguing that such studies survey student (...) audiences, that they emphasize the result of an ethical decision over the process of arriving at the decision, that they are problematic in relation to research methodology and that they are undertheorized. Given that traditional ethical theories largely ignore gender, I offer a gender based ethics in terms of feminist ethics as the best place to look for theoretical substance. The paper concludes by considering how feminist ethics can be combined with empirical studies that emphasize observation and interviewing in order to move gender and computer ethics onward from statistical studies of men's and women's ethical decisions toward more substantially theorized studies of areas in computer ethics which have gender implications, such as privacy and power. (shrink)

In The Case for Animal Rights, Tom Regan argues that although all subjects-of-a-life have equal inherent value, there are often differences in the value of lives. According to Regan, lives that have the highest value are lives which have more possible sources of satisfaction. Regan claims that the highest source of satisfaction, which is available to only rational beings, is the satisfaction associated with thinking impartially about moral choices. Since rational beings can bring impartial reasons to bear on decision making, (...) Regan maintains that they have an additional possible source of satisfaction that nonrational beings do not have and, consequently, the lives of rational beings turn out to have greater value.. (shrink)

Straipsnyje, analizuojant skirtingus Carol Gilligan darbus, pristatoma šiuo metu vis didesnį matomumą šiuolaikinėje moralės filosofijoje įgaunanti, bet Lietuvoje dar mažai žinoma rūpesčio etika. Gilligan yra amerikiečių psichologė, kurios pagrindiniai darbai skirti moterų psichologijos ir mergaičių vystymosi problematikai. Nors ir pripažįstamas jos, kaip rū-pesčio etikos pradininkės, statusas, tačiau neretai akcentuojamas jos darbų psichologinis, o ne etinis aspektas, tai yra, plėtojami empiriniai tyrimai, paneigiantys ar patvirtinantys moterų ir vyrų moralinio žodyno skirtumus, moralinių samprotavimų ir lyties koreliaciją. Šiame straipsnyje analizuosime, kaip Gilligan darbuose (...) susipina etinė bei psichologinė plotmės, ir teigsime, kad ją galima laikyti naujos etinės paradigmos pradininke, kadangi normatyvinę rūpesčio sampratą ji grindžia nauja moralės filosofijai reliacinio subjekto prielaida, tokio subjekto, kurį formuoja ir konstituoja santykiai su konkrečiais žmonėmis. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explore the ethical possibility of rethinking the role of care and human bonds outside a patriarchal framework. First of all, I revise some philosophical understandings of friendship that havemaintained that women were incapable of it. Equality and symmetry were the requirements for friendship and the subordinated status of women in history was the fact that had made impossible for them to aspire to the moral excellence of philía. Secondly, I analyze the gender subtext (...) of the idea of autonomy to show that have been constructed by masculine patterns, specially, when it dismiss the constitutive fact of human interdependence. Finally, I focus on the last contributions of feminist bioethics to reflect about the need of conceiving autonomy in a framework of relationships and mutual obligations of care. This opens the possibility of recovering a new sense of a autonomy , that is coherent with the moral experience of women, focused on care, and this relational autonomy seems to me a essential point of depart to rethinkmany of the current bioethical debates. (shrink)