Question Some thinkers mention the possibility of a "feminine" (not feminist) form of ethical reasoning, and contrast this to prevailing forms of ethical reasoning, which are "masculine". What does it mean for a way of thinking about ethics to be masculine or feminine? What would a "feminine ethic" look like?

Accepted:
October 21, 2010

Comments

The idea that there is a distinctively 'feminine' approach to ethics was articulated forcefully in the pioneering work of Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Gilligan argued that there are certain distinctive virtues and traits--such as care, empathy, forgiveness, etc.--that are coded 'feminine' that had gone underemphasized in more traditional, 'masculine', approaches to ethics and character development, which stressed the primacy of the development of an impartial, more 'rational' standpoint in ethics. The basic idea, that there are differences in the way that men and women make moral judgments, that reflect the way that they are socialized, makes good sense to me, and has been championed by a number of philosophers and developed in various ways, particularly by those interested in the 'ethics of care'. However, it seems to me to be incorrect to think that these differences are somehow 'fixed', or that men cannot come to look at the world from a more 'feminine' perspective (and vice versa, of course), although it may well be a matter of psychological fact that men generally approach ethics from a more 'masculine' perspective, and women from a 'feminine' perspective. For more on this topic, and on feminist--not 'feminine'--ethics, you might follow the link to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy entry on feminist ethics.