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The Feminist Turn in Ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 September 2014
Extract
Anyone who plies the noble art-science of social ethics (moral theology, Christian ethics), while taking no account of the feminist turn of consciousness, is open to charges of professional irresponsibility and incompetence. No. That is not an overstatement or an overblown rhetorical lead-in. The history of ethics is turning an epochal corner. To miss the turn is to be lost and useless.
Feminism is concerned with the shift in roles and the question of the rights that have been unjustly denied women. But all of that, however important and even essential, is secondary. The main event is epistemological. Changes in what we know are normal; changes in how we know are revolutionary. Feminism is a challenge to the way we have gone about knowing. The epistemological terra firma of the recent past is rocking and as the event develops, it promises to change the face of the earth.
The main impact of feminism will be felt in the area of moral knowledge. That, of course, is broader than ethics since all of the social sciences are heavy with moral assumptions and evaluations. Economics, politics (simplistically called political science), education, journalism, business administration, engineering, et al. are all intra-familial siblings of social ethics, although educational systems have treated them as separable strangers. (This mischievous separation, indeed, is a natural target of the emerging feminist consciousness.)
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References
1 Aside from Marjorie, my wife, who is cited in the text, my advisory committee for this article included Judith and Bill Kelsey who while specializing in Christology on their way to Marquette doctorates are majoring in feminism together; and Fran Leap whose dissertation on the contributions of feminism to Christian ethics, will, with the help of God and the permission of new baby Aloysius, be completed within a year at Marquette.
2 On the role of belief in moral knowledge see my The Moral Choice (Minneapolis, MN: Winston, 1979), chapter 3.Google Scholar
3 Harrison, Beverly Wildung, “The Power of Anger in the Work of Love: Christian Ethics for Women and Other Strangers,” Union Seminary Quarterly Review 36 (Supplementary 1981), 57.Google Scholar See also, Ruether's, Rosemary newest contribution, Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology (Boston: Beacon, 1983).Google Scholar
4 Maguire, Daniel C., “The Feminization of God and Ethics,” Christianity and Crisis 43 (March 15, 1982), 59.Google Scholar
5 Perhaps the most helpful book showing the pervasive poison of sexism infecting issues such as racism, anti-Semitism, classism, religion, even psychoanalysis and ecology is Ruether's, Rosemary RadfordNew Woman New Earth (New York: Seabury, 1975).Google Scholar
6 Harrison, p. 50.
7 Farley, Margaret A. R.S.M., “New Patterns of Relationship: Beginnings of a Moral Revolution,” Theological Studies 36 (December 1975), 627–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Maguire, Marjorie Reiley, “Personhood, Covenant, and Abortion,” in The Annual of the Society of Christian Ethics, 1983, ed. Allen, Joseph (Waterloo, Ontario: The Council on the Study of Religion, 1983).Google Scholar
8 Mott, Stephen Charles, Biblical Ethics and Social Change (New York: Oxford, 1982)Google Scholar, and Maguire, Daniel C., “The Primacy of Justice in Moral Theology,” Horizons 10 (Spring, 1983), 72–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also, I do not hesitate to recommend my A New American Justice (Minneapolis, MN: Winston, 1982), esp. pp. 53–124.Google Scholar
9 See my “Ratio practica and Intellectualistic Fallacy,” The Journal of Heligious Ethics 10 (Spring, 1982), 22–39.Google Scholar
10 Kolbenschlag, Madonna, Kiss Sleeping Beauty Good-Bye: Breaking the Spell of Feminine Myths and Models (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1979), p. xiv.Google Scholar