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Kant's Ethical Duties and their Feminist Implications1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Lara Denis
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If feminist ethics is to be “identified by its explicit commitment to challenging perceived male bias in ethics,” as Alison Jaggar states, then Kant's moral theory must be considered non-feminist. Indeed, many feminist philosophers have considered Kant's ethics to be anti-feminist. Some of these philosophers have noted such things as Kant's ascription, in his political theory, of all women to the class of passive citizens, and such reflections, in his writings about human nature, as “I hardly believe that the fair sex is capable of principles.” Other feminist critics have argued that Kant's ethics is scarred by male-bias at a fundamental level. For example, Sally Sedgwick has argued that Kant's conception of autonomous, rational agency, embodied in the categorical imperative's universal law tests, is inherently masculinist. Kant's ethics, however, has its feminist proponents as well. Jean Hampton endorses“ a Kantian conception of worth,” according to which “one must respect the value not only of others but also of oneself, and must therefore reject any roles, projects, or occupations which would be self-exploitative”; she develops her own “feminist form of Kantian contractarian theory” as an expression and elaboration of this Kantian notion of respect.

Type
III. Exploitation, Objectification and Contract Arguments
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 28: Feminist Moral Philosophy , 2002 , pp. 156 - 187
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2002

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Samantha Brennan and Dennis Klimchuk for their comments on an earlier draft.

References

2 “Feminist Ethics: Projects, Problems, Prospects,” in Feminist Ethics, ed. C., Card (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1990), 97.Google Scholar

3 See Kant's Metaphysics of Morals (hereafter, MS), Mary J., Gregor, trans., The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant: Practical Philosophy, Mary J., Gregor, ed., (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 6: 314-15;Google Scholar “On the common saying: That may be correct in theory, but. it is of no use in practice” (hereafter, TP), Mary J. Gregor, trans., op. cit., 8: 291-97; and Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (hereafter, Obs), John T., Goldthwait, trans. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960), 81.Google Scholar For discussions of these views, see Susan, Mendus, “Kant: ‘An Honest but Narrow-Minded Bourgeois'?” in Essays on Kant's Political Philosophy, Howard Lloyd, Williams, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992);Google Scholar and Robin May, Schott, “The Gender of Enlightenment'', in Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, Robin May, Schott, ed. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

4 See “Can, Kant'sEthics Survive the Feminist Critique?” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 71 (1990): 60–79Google Scholar, especially 72-76.

5 See “Selflessness and the Loss of Self;’ Social Philosophy and Policy 10 (1993): 135-65, especially pp. 147-48; and “Feminist Contractarianism” in A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, Louise M., Antony and Charlotte, Witt, eds. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1993).Google Scholar

6 See “Feminist Ethics: How It Could Benefit from Kant's Moral Philosophy,” Stephanie, Morgenstern, trans., in Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, op. cit.Google Scholar Other philosophers who could be mentioned here as feminist proponents of Kant include Barbara Herman (see “Could it be Worth Thinking about Kant on Sex and Marriage?” in A Mind of One's Own, op. cit.) and Marcia, Baron (see “Kantian Ethics and Claims of Detachment,” in Feminist Interpretations of Immanuel Kant, op. cit.)Google Scholar.

7 See Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals (hereafter, G), James W., Ellington, trans. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1993), 4: 389-90.Google Scholar

8 For a brief but helpful discussion of feminist ethics and relativism, see Samantha, Brennan, “Recent Work in Feminist Ethics,” Ethics 109 (1999): 858-93Google Scholar, especially pp. 862-64.

9 The formula of humanity reads, “Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at the same time as an end, and never simply as a means,” G 4: 429.

10 See Onora, O'Neill, “Between Consenting Adults,” Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (1985): 252-77;Google Scholar and “The Moral Perplexities of Famine Relief,” in Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, Tom, Regan, ed. (New York: Random House, 1980), especially pp. 285-96.Google Scholar

11 See my Moral Self-Regard: Duties to Oneself in Kant's Moral Theory (New York: Garland, 2001) or “Kant's, Ethics and Duties to Oneself,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 78 (1997): 321-48.Google Scholar

12 Kant explains his notion of a kingdom of ends in part this way: By ‘kingdom’ I understand a systematic union of different rational beings under common laws … ; if one abstracts from the personal differences of rational beings and also from all content of their private ends, then it will be possible to think of a whole of all ends in systematic connection (a whole both of rational beings as ends in themselves and also of the particular ends which each may set for himself). G 4: 433. To get a richer sense of this notion, see Barbara, Herman, “A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends,” in Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for fohn Rawls, Andrews, Reath, Barbara, Herman, and Christine M., Korsgaard, eds. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997).Google Scholar

13 (Hereafter, Rei), Allen W., Wood and George Di, Giovanni, trans. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 6:93–100, 151-53.Google Scholar

14 See Allen W., Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999), ch. 8, especially 309-17;Google Scholar and Sharon Anderson-Gold, Unnecessary Evil: History and Moral Progress in the Philosophy of Immanuel Kant (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2001), especially ch. 3.

15 Belief in God makes the highest good seem possible. See, e.g., Kant's Critique of Practical Reason, Lewis White, Beck, trans., 3d ed. (New York: Macmillan, 1993)Google Scholar, Book 2: The Dialectic of Pure Practical Reason.

16 MS 6: 443--44.

17 Rel6: 109-24.

18 For Kant's distinction between the spheres and duties of right and ethics, see MS 6: 221-33, 379-97.

19 Keep in mind that, for Kant, willing is essentially practical. Willing thus differs from wishing or wanting. When one wills (or “adopts” or “sets oneself“) an end, one commits oneself to strive to bring it about (G 4: 394, 417; MS 6: 441).

20 MS 6: 468-69. “Moral Philosophy: Collins's Lecture Notes,” Immanuel Kant:Lectures on Ethics, ed. Peter, Heath and J. B., Schneewind, trans. Peter Heath (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997)Google Scholar. The Collins lecture notes sometimes bring up issues of age, gender, etc. in their explanations of duties.

21 Louden discusses the relation of Kant's empirical claims about humans to his ethics throughout Kant's Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings, by Robert B., Louden (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000)Google Scholar. For two different approaches to Kant's views about women in his discussion of marriage, see my “From Friendship to Marriage: Revising Kant,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (2001): 1–28; and Holly L., Wilson, “Kant's Evolutionary Theory of Marriage” in Autonomy and Community: Readings in Contemporary Kantian Social Philosophy, Jane, Kneller and Sidney, Axin, eds. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998).Google Scholar

22 The supreme principle of the doctrine of virtue is: Act in accordance with a maxim of ends that it can be a universal law for everyone to have. In accordance with this principle, the human being is an end for himself as well as for others, and it is not enough that he is not authorized to use either himself or others merely as a means (since he could then still be indifferent to them); it is in itself his duty to make the human being in general his end (MS 6: 395).

23 For Kant's discussion of duties to oneself, seeMS 6:417-47.

24 Many philosophers are surprised, and heartened, to find that Kant's views our animal nature and its drives as good. See Rei 6: 28, 58.

25 For a general discussion of Kant's use of natural teleology in his ethics, see Wood, Kant's Ethical Thought, 215-25; for a discussion of Kant's use of natural teleology in his arguments for duties to oneself as an animal and moral being, see my “Kant on the Wrongness of ‘Unnatural’ Sex,” History of Philosophy Quarterly 16 (1999): 225-47.

26 MS6:421.

27 MS6:423.

28 In the examples of implications of these duties and other duties I will discuss, I do not mean to suggest that the implications I bring out are relevant to all women, or to no men; nor do I wish to suggest these implications are more important than those I do not discuss (e.g., here, suicide). I am simply choosing a few issues that feminists and others concerned with women's rights and welfare have highlighted.

29 Some abused women feel that they deserve their abuse. See the discussion of servility.

30 I do not mean to suggest that other people and larger social forces are not responsible for the pressures that encourage women to go on unsafe diets, have risky, medically unnecessary surgery, and stay in abusive relationships. That women have duties to themselves in these contexts does not entail that others have no duties to them; it means only that women in these circumstances nevertheless owe themselves certain treatment and care, given the dignity of their agency.

31 See the Collins lecture notes in Lectures on Ethics, Peter, Heath, trans. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 27:384-85.Google Scholar Wood discusses Kant on the sexual drive in Kant's Ethical Thought, 256-59; he points out some parallels between some on feminists’ views of sex and Kant's on p. 259. While Kant is certainly aware of sexual differences, he nonetheless thinks men are as degraded by sex as women.

32 See Collins lecture notes, and MS 6: 424.

33 Collins lecture notes 27: 384. See Herman,” A Cosmopolitan Kingdom of Ends,” for a discussion of how marriage is supposed to solve the moral problems that sex presents.

34 See MS 6: 427.

35 MS6:434.

36 MS 6:441.

37 See e.g., Kant's discussion of avarice in Collins lecture notes, 27:402.

38 Kant holds the plausible view that lying to others makes it harder to be honest with oneself, just as lying to oneself makes it harder to be honest to others. SeeMS 6: 430-31 and Kant's letter to Maria von Herbert, in Immanuel Kant: Philosophical Correspondence, 1759-99, Arnulf, Zweig, ed., trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), 189.Google Scholar

39 MS 6: 429. I do not think the correct Kantian position is that all lying is vicious, though Kant himself often seems to think so. For a fuller explanation of my view about this see my Moral Self-Regard, 92-96.

40 See, most notably, Thomas E., Hill Jr., “Servility and Self-Respect,” The Monist 57 (1973): 87–104;Google Scholar responding to Hill, Marilyn A., Friedman, “Moral Integrity and the Deferential Wife,” Philosophical Studies 47 (1985): 141-50;Google Scholar and responding to Friedman, , Marcia, Baron, “Servility; Critical Deference and the Deferential Wife,” Philosophical Studies 48 (1985): 393–400.Google Scholar

41 MS 6: 446-47.

42 MS 6: 407-9.

43 MS 6: 385-88.

44 MS 6: 392, 445.

45 MS 6: 442-43, 444-45, 455-57.

46 Susan Feldman uses the duty to promote one's own natural perfection, along with the duty to avoid servility and consideration of women's autonomy more generally, to construct a feminist, Kantian argument for the permissibility of so-called “abortions of convenience.” See “From Occupied Bodies to Pregnant Persons: How Kantian Ethics Should Treat Pregnancy and Abortion,” in Autonomy and Community (op. cit.).

47 There is a lot of good work on this. See, for example, Paul, Guyer, Kant and the Experience of Freedom (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993), ch. 10;Google Scholar and Nancy Sherman, “Kantian Virtue: Priggish or Passional?” in Reclaiming the History of Ethics (op. cit.).

48 G 4: 399; MS 6: 386.

49 G 4: 417-19; MS 6:388.

50 MS 6: 388, 451.

51 MS6:393.

52 See O'Neill, “The Moral Perplexities of Famine Relief,” for arguments about the derivation of duties of justice and duties of beneficence from the formula of humanity.

53 MS 6: 462-64.

54 MS6:465.

55 MS6:466.

56 MS6:467.

57 MS6:462.

58 See Eleanor, Flexner, Century of Struggle (New York: Atheneum, 1972), especially ch.13.Google Scholar

59 For a myriad of examples of this, see Judith, Rollins, Between Women: Domestics and their Employers (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1985).Google Scholar

60 See Ellen Carol, DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978), 178.Google Scholar

61 Kant himself is guilty of at least some of these infractions. See, for example, Obs 78-83.

62 MS6:450.

63 MS6:453.

64 Nevertheless, Kant assumes that the truly beneficent will come to care for the objects of their aid, and to enjoy helping others. See MS 6: 402.

65 MS6:454.

66 See O'Neill, “The Moral Perplixities of Famine Relief’; and Barbara, Herman, “Mutual Aid and Respect for Persons,” Ethics 94 (1984): 577–602.Google Scholar

67 MS6:457.

68 MS6:454.

69 MS6:455.

70 See Maria C., Lugones and Elizabeth V., Spelman, “Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism, and the Demand for ‘The Woman's Voice,“’ Women's Studies International Forum 6 (1983): 573-81.Google Scholar

71 For an in-depth analysis of this problem, see Elizabeth V., Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988).Google Scholar

72 Jaggar, , “Feminist Ethics,” 97-98.Google Scholar