Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T19:28:02.883Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Feminist Concept of Self and Modernity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Xiao Wei
Xiao Wei*
Affiliation:
Tsinghua University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The relationship between community and individual is the key issue in contemporary political philosophy and ethics. The concept of self seems very important for individualism, communitarianism and feminism when they respond to relationships, particularly when we have to situate selfhood in the conditions of modernity. Consequently, this paper can be divided into seven parts. First it introduces the debate about the concept of the self between individualism and communitarianism. Second, it discusses the feminist critique of this issue and analyses the feminist concept of self, and then addresses modernity as the condition of women. Next it attempts to analyze how women situate themselves in the conditions of modernity. Then it discusses how Chinese women are reshaping their selfhood under the conditions of modernity, and finally draws some brief conclusions claiming that neither communitarian nor individualist self is adequate in contemporary society. Chinese women, it is argued, are expected to reshape their own selfhood resting on the positive side of Confucian ethics and a feminist concept of self.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 117 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2009

References

Ames, R.T. and Hall, D.L. (1998) Thinking from the Han: Self, Truth and Transcendence in Chinese and Western Culture. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Avineri, S. and De-shalit, A. (eds) (1992) Communitarianism and Individualism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Beauchamp, T.L. and Childress, J.F. (2001) Principles of Biomedical Ethics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chan, W. (1963) A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Diller, Ann (1992) Pluralisms for Education: An Ethics of Care Perspectives. www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-Yearbook/92_docs/Diller.HTMGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. (1992) ‘Feminism and Modern Friendship: Dislocating the Community’, in Avineri, and De-shalit, (eds), Communitarianism and Individualism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, M. (2000) ‘Feminism in Ethics Conceptions of Autonomy’, in Fricker, M. and Horns, R. (eds), The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, C. (1993) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lau, D.C. (1979) Confucius: The Analects. New York: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Leppert, R. (2004) ‘The Social Discipline of Listening’, in Drobnick, J. (ed.), Aural Cultures. Toronto: YYZ Books.Google Scholar
Madison, G. B. and Fairbairn, M. (eds) (1999) The Ethics of Postmodernity: Current Trends in Continental Thought. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.Google Scholar
Sandel, M.J. (1998) Liberalism and the Limits of Justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandel, M.J. (1992) ‘The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self’, in Avineri, and De-shalit, (eds), Communitarianism and Individualism. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tietjens Meyers, D. (1997) Feminists Rethink the Self. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Waley, A. (1938) The Analects of Confucius. London: Allen & Unwin.Google Scholar