Abstract

Contemporary feminists, both theological and secular, celebrate friendship as a political norm. Defenders of liberal political theory express suspicion of friendship, fearing that the intrinsic particularity and partiality of friendship conflict with the impartiality appropriate to public life. ;In this dissertation, I speak as a sympathetic critic of feminism to address perceived tensions between friendship and impartiality. Feminists reject dominant models of impartiality that demand detachment and oversimplistically equate impartiality with generality or universality. Yet feminism must retain some notion of impartiality as critical fair-mindedness, to guard "caring" against parochialism and to protect carers against abuses of care. ;I argue that feminists should reconceptualize, rather than reject, impartiality as an ethical ideal. Conventional models of impartiality make two mistakes that must be bypassed: they equate the "impartial" and the "impersonal"; and they wrongly conceive of impartiality as a defined "standpoint." Non-feminist critics of impartiality inadequately question those presumptions. Despite their weaknesses, these critics helpfully press toward a more processive notion of impartiality that feminists can further advance. ;Drawing on a wide variety of feminist commentary I redescribe the goal of impartiality and recast its achievement as a moral practice. Feminists suggest the goal of impartiality is the least distorted adequate consideration of each, a more comprehensive formulation than the frequently cited "equal consideration of all." They elaborate what I call the "personal impartiality" of "extraordinary ordinary moral heroes." Exploring the accomplishment of such "ordinary" heroes leads to the rejection of impartiality conceived as a standpoint, and its reconceptualization as a practice. ;This practice integrates two levels of moral reasoning suggested by Alasdair MacIntyre but applied to areas of life he ignores. These are a "micro-practice" by which goods intrinsic to partial attachments provide standards for impartiality, and a "macro-practice" by which, through extended analogical reasoning, the insights of various micro-practices of impartiality inform each other and suggest generalizations. ;Once impartiality is appropriately re-conceived as a moral practice, apparent tensions between friendship and impartiality dissolve. In fact, friendship plays a special role in impartiality-as-practice, and thus offers special promise to political life