Feminist Ethics and Natural Law

Feminist Ethics and Natural Law
Author: Cristina L. H. Traina
Publisher:
Total Pages: 408
Release: 1999
Genre: Law
ISBN:

This is an interpretation of both the Roman Catholic natural law tradition, and Anglo-American feminist ethics.

Feminist Ethics and Natural Law

Feminist Ethics and Natural Law
Author: Cristina L. H. Traina
Publisher: Georgetown University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 1999-04-28
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9781589018464

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.

Immovable Laws, Irresistible Rights

Immovable Laws, Irresistible Rights
Author: Christine Pierce
Publisher:
Total Pages: 192
Release: 2000
Genre: Law
ISBN:

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.

The Ethics of Care

The Ethics of Care
Author: Virginia Held
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 222
Release: 2006
Genre: Family & Relationships
ISBN: 0195180992

The author assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. Held examines what we mean by care and focuses on caring relationships. She also looks at the potential of care for dealing with social issues and global problems.

Feminism and Christian Ethics

Feminism and Christian Ethics
Author: Susan Frank Parsons
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 1996-02-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780521468206

Feminists are aware of the diversity of thinking within their own tradition, and of the different approaches to moral questions in which that is manifest. This book describes and analyses that diversity by distinguishing three distinct paradigms of moral reasoning to be found within feminism. Using the writings of feminists, the major strengths and weaknesses of each theory are considered, so that creative dialogue between them can be encouraged. Three common themes are drawn out - which are also on the agenda of new developments in philosophical and Christian ethics: the search for an appropriate universalism, the possibility of a redemptive community and the development of a new humanism. Feminists may be encouraged, through this account of their considerable scholarship in ethical thinking, to contribute to these changes with their special concern for the lives and the fulfilment of women.

Ethics for A-Level

Ethics for A-Level
Author: Mark Dimmock
Publisher: Open Book Publishers
Total Pages: 200
Release: 2017-07-31
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1783743913

What does pleasure have to do with morality? What role, if any, should intuition have in the formation of moral theory? If something is ‘simulated’, can it be immoral? This accessible and wide-ranging textbook explores these questions and many more. Key ideas in the fields of normative ethics, metaethics and applied ethics are explained rigorously and systematically, with a vivid writing style that enlivens the topics with energy and wit. Individual theories are discussed in detail in the first part of the book, before these positions are applied to a wide range of contemporary situations including business ethics, sexual ethics, and the acceptability of eating animals. A wealth of real-life examples, set out with depth and care, illuminate the complexities of different ethical approaches while conveying their modern-day relevance. This concise and highly engaging resource is tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies, with a clear and practical layout that includes end-of-chapter summaries, key terms, and common mistakes to avoid. It should also be of practical use for those teaching Philosophy as part of the International Baccalaureate. Ethics for A-Level is of particular value to students and teachers, but Fisher and Dimmock’s precise and scholarly approach will appeal to anyone seeking a rigorous and lively introduction to the challenging subject of ethics. Tailored to the Ethics components of AQA Philosophy and OCR Religious Studies.

An Invitation to Feminist Ethics

An Invitation to Feminist Ethics
Author: Hilde Lindemann
Publisher:
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2019
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190059311

An Invitation to Feminist Ethics is a hospitable approach to the study of feminist moral theory and practice. Designed to be small enough to be used as a supplement to other books, it also provides the theoretical depth necessary for stand-alone use in courses in feminist ethics, feminist philosophy, and women's studies. The "overviews" section introduces important concepts in feminist ethical theory and contrasts that theory with the standard moral theories. The "close-ups" section looks at three topics--bioethics, violence, and the globalized economy--to help students put the theories presented in the Overviews section to practical use.

The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics

The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics
Author: Josephine Donovan
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Total Pages: 404
Release: 2007
Genre: Nature
ISBN: 9780231140393

In Beyond Animal Rights, Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams introduced feminist "ethic of care" theory into philosophical discussions of the treatment of animals. In this new volume, seven essays from Beyond Animal Rights are joined by nine new articles-most of which were written in response to that book-and a new introduction that situates feminist animal care theory within feminist theory and the larger debate over animal rights. Contributors critique theorists' reliance on natural rights doctrine and utilitarianism, which, they suggest, have a masculine bias. They argue for ethical attentiveness and sympathy in our relationships with animals and propose a link between the continuing subjugation of women and the human domination of nature. Beginning with the earliest articulation of the idea in the mid-1980s and continuing to the theory's most recent revisions, this volume presents the most complete portrait of the evolution of the feminist-care tradition.

Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes

Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes
Author: Nancy J. Hirschmann
Publisher: Penn State Press
Total Pages: 313
Release: 2015-06-29
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0271061359

Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes features the work of feminist scholars who are centrally engaged with Hobbes’s ideas and texts and who view Hobbes as an important touchstone in modern political thought. Bringing together scholars from the disciplines of philosophy, history, political theory, and English literature who embrace diverse theoretical and philosophical approaches and a range of feminist perspectives, this interdisciplinary collection aims to appeal to an audience of Hobbes scholars and nonspecialists alike. As a theorist whose trademark is a compelling argument for absolute sovereignty, Hobbes may seem initially to have little to offer twenty-first-century feminist thought. Yet, as the contributors to this collection demonstrate, Hobbesian political thought provides fertile ground for feminist inquiry. Indeed, in engaging Hobbes, feminist theory engages with what is perhaps the clearest and most influential articulation of the foundational concepts and ideas associated with modernity: freedom, equality, human nature, authority, consent, coercion, political obligation, and citizenship. Aside from the editors, the contributors are Joanne Boucher, Karen Detlefsen, Karen Green, Wendy Gunther-Canada, Jane S. Jaquette, S. A. Lloyd, Su Fang Ng, Carole Pateman, Gordon Schochet, Quentin Skinner, and Susanne Sreedhar.

Ethical Issues in Women's Healthcare

Ethical Issues in Women's Healthcare
Author: Lori D'Agincourt-Canning
Publisher:
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2019
Genre: Health & Fitness
ISBN: 0190851376

Numerous issues confront women's healthcare today, among them the medicalization of women's bodies, cosmetic genital surgery, violence against women, HIV, perinatal mental health disorders. This volume uniquely explores such difficult topics and others at the intersection of clinical practice, policy, and bioethics in women's health care through a feminist ethics lens. With in-depth discussions of issues in women's reproductive health, it also broadens scholarship by responding to a wider array of ethical challenges that many women experience in accessing health care. Contributions touch on many themes previously tackled by feminist ethics, but in new, contemporary ways. Some chapters expand into new fields in the bioethics literature, such as the ethical issues related to the care of Indigenous women, uninsured refugees and immigrants, women engaged in sex work, and those with HIV at different life stages and perinatal mental health disorders. Authors seek to connect theory and practice with users of the health system by including women's voices in their research. Bringing to bear their experience in active clinical practice in medicine, nursing, and ethics, the authors contemplate new conceptual approaches to important issues in women's healthcare, and make ethical practice recommendations for those grappling with these issues. Topical and up-to-date, this book provides a valuable resource for physicians, nurses, clinical ethicists, and researchers working in some of the most critical areas of women's health and applied ethics today.