Feminist Ethics And Natural Law

Same-sex partnerships. Pregnancy through in vitro fertilization. Ending one's own life in dignity. All are deemed inherently wrong by the standards of natural law ethics, but for many people they represent legitimate life choices that are morally right. Now a leading feminist critic of the natural law tradition explores the ongoing confrontation between natural law and moral rights to argue that rights constitute a more solid grounding for ethics in human affairs—and for feminist thought. In this volume, Christine Pierce's important essays—including the celebrated "Natural Law Language and Women"—expand, reflect, and refine this central controversy. Reaching back to Aristotle and Aquinas and drawing on modern papal encyclicals and Supreme Court cases, Pierce demonstrates that the natural law tradition, with its doctrine of a supposed hierarchy of natural purpose, has served to mystify women's nature and thereby justify restricting women to a predetermined social stratum. Addressing issues that concern not only feminism but legal theory as well, she defends her views on equality and universalization against a growing postmodern critique and presents rights theory as an alternative to an ethics of responsibility based on Aristotelian notions of friendship and trust. Through tightly constructed arguments presented in engaging prose, Pierce conveys her deep knowledge of legal philosophy and her passion for rights as she takes on such issues as AIDS, gay marriage, animal liberation, and feminist separatism. She combats the prevailing view of Plato as sexist and explores Sartre's views of "holes and slime." She also examines the work of contemporary authors in ecology, biology, sociobiology, and religion to reveal their reliance on nature for ethical conclusions, and she criticizes recent efforts to root a feminist natural law in Thomism. With natural law concepts now in fashion with many conservatives and even some Supreme Court justices, Pierce's essays offer a necessary perspective on where current legal and ethical thinking is headed. Immovable Laws, Irresistible Rights is invigorating reading for all scholars, students, and interested readers who seek a better understanding of these arguments and the issues affected by them.

Heated debates over such issues as abortion, contraception, ordination, and Church hierarchy suggest that feminist and natural law ethics are diametrically opposed. Cristina L.H. Traina now reexamines both Roman Catholic natural law tradition and Anglo-American feminist ethics and reconciles the two positions by showing how some of their aims and assumptions complement one another. After carefully scrutinizing Aquinas’s moral theology, she analyzes trends in both contemporary feminist ethics, theological as well as secular, and twentieth-century Roman Catholic moral theology. Although feminist ethics reject many of the methods and conclusions of the scholastic and revisionist natural law schools, Traina shows that a truly Thomistic natural law ethic nonetheless provides a much-needed holistic foundation for contemporary feminist ethics. On the other hand, she offers new perspectives on the writings of Josef Fuchs, Richard McCormick, and Gustavo Gutierrez, arguing that their failure to catch the full spirit of Thomas’s moral vision is due to inadequate attention to feminist critical methods. This highly original book proposes an innovative union of two supposedly antagonistic schools of thought, a new feminist natural law that would yield more comprehensive moral analysis than either existing tradition alone. This is a provocative book not only for students of moral theology but also for feminists who may object to the very notion of natural law ethics, suggesting how each might find insight in an unlikely place.

This book, an essential tool for anyone studying the state of feminist thought in particular or ethical theory in general, shows the outlines of an ethic of care in the distinctive practices of African American communities and considers how the values of care and justice can be reformulated.

This volume is fourth in the series of annuals created under the auspices of The Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory (FEAST). The topics covered herein--from peacekeeping and terrorism, to sex trafficking and women's paid labor, to poverty and religious fundamentalism--are vital to women and to feminist movements throughout the world.

How is feminism changing the way women and men think, feel, and act? Virginia Held explores how feminist theory is changing contemporary views of moral choice. She proposes a comprehensive philosophy of feminist ethics, arguing persuasively for reconceptualizations of the self; of relations between the self and others; and of images of birth and death, nurturing and violence. Held shows how social, political, and cultural institutions have traditionally been founded upon masculine ideals of morality. She then identifies a distinct feminist morality that moves beyond culturally embedded notions about motherhood and female emotionality. Examining the effects of this alternative moral and ethical system on changing social values, Held discusses its far-reaching implications for altering standards of freedom, democracy, equality, and personal development. Ultimately, she concludes, the culture of feminism could provide a fresh perspective on—even solutions to—contemporary social problems. Feminist Morality makes a vital contribution to the ongoing debate in feminist theory on the importance of motherhood. For philosophers and other readers outside feminist theory, it offers a feminist moral and social critique in clear and accessible terms.

As the initial book in the Feminist Constructions series, Feminists Doing Ethics broaches the ideas of critiquing social practice and developing an ethics of universal justness. The essays collected within explore the intricacies and impact of reasoned moral action, the virtues of character, and the empowering responsibility that comes with morality. These and other essays were taken from Feminist Ethics Revisited: An International Conference on Feminist Ethics held in October of 1999. Waugh and DesAutels bring to light in these pages work discussed at this conference that extends our understanding of morality and ourselves.

This compact anthology traces the exploration of the relationship between the ideals of justice and carea discussion at the core of contemporary feminist ethics. In addition to compiling the most influential previously published work, "Justice and Care" offers two important new chapters by Alison Jaggar and Sara Ruddick."