Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dsjbd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T21:04:01.471Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Particularity and Perspective Taking: On Feminism and Habermas's Discourse Theory of Morality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Charles Wright
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Seyla Benhabib's critique of Jürgen Habermas's moral theory claims that his approach is not adequate for the needs of a feminist moral theory. I argue that her analysis is mistaken. I also show that Habermas's moral theory, properly understood, satisfies many of the conditions identified by feminist moral philosophers as necessary for an adequate moral theory. A discussion of the compatibility between the model of reciprocal perspective taking found in Habermas's moral theory and that found in Maria Lugones's essay “Playfulness,‘World’-Travelling, and Loving Perception” reinforces the claim that his moral theory holds as yet unrecognized promise for feminist moral philosophy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , Fall 2004 , pp. 49 - 76
Copyright
Copyright © 2004 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baehr, Amy R. 1996. Toward a new feminist liberalism: Okin, Rawls, and Habermas. Hypatia 11(1): 49–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baier, Annette. 1987. The need for more than justice. In Science, morality & feminist theory, ed. Hanen, Marsha & Nielsen, Kai. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Baier, Annette. 1985. What do women want in a moral theory? Noûs 19: 53–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baynes, Kenneth. 1992. The normative grounds of social criticism: Kant, Rawls, and Habermas. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 1992a. Situating the self: Gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 1992b. Autonomy, modernity and community. In Situating the self: Gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Benhabib, Seyla. 1992c. The debate over women and moral theory revisited. In Situating the self: Gender, community and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Blum, Lawrence. 1991. Moral perception and particularity. Ethics 101(July): 701–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blum, Lawrence. 1987. Particularity and responsiveness. In The emergence of morality in youngchildren, ed. Kagan, Jerome and Lamb, Sharon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jean. 1995. Critical social theory and feminist critiques: The debate with Jiirgen Habermas. In Feminsts read Habermas: Gendering the subject of discourse, ed. Meehan, Johanna. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Couture, Tony. 1995. Feminist criticisms of Habermas's ethics and politics. Dialogue 34: 259–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dallmayr, Fred. 2002. “Asian values” and global human rights. Philosophy east & west 52(2): 173–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 1990. The social self and the partiality debates. In Feminist ethics, ed. Card, Claudia. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.Google Scholar
Friedman, Marilyn. 1987. Care and context in moral reasoning. In Women and moral theory, ed. Kittay, Eva F. and Meyers, Diana T.Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1987. Moral orientation and moral development. In Women and moral theory, ed. Kittay, Eva F. & Meyers, Diana T.Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1986. Remapping the moral domain: new images of the self in relationship. In Reconstructing individualism, ed. Heller, T. C., Sosna, M., and Wellberry., D. E. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Giinther, Klaus. 1993. The sense of appropriateness: Application discourses in morality and law. Trans.Farrell, John. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Giinther, Klaus. 1990a. Mora consciousness and communicative action. Trans.Lenhardt, Christian and Nicholsen, Shierry Weber. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Giinther, Klaus. 1990b. Reconstruction and interpretation in the social sciences. In Moral consciousness and communicative action. Trans.Lenhardt, Christian and Nicholsen, Shierry Weber. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Giinther, Klaus. 1990c. Moral consciousness and communicative action. In Moral consciousness and communicative action. Trans.Lenhardt, Christian and Nicholsen, Shierry Weber. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Giinther, Klaus. 1990d. Discourse ethics: Notes on a program of philosophical justification. In Mora consciousness and communicative action. Trans.Lenhardt, Christian and Nicholsen, Shierry Weber. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1998. Some further clarifications of the concept of communicative rationality. In On the pragmatics of communication, ed. Cook, Maeve. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1993a. Justification and application: Remarks on discourse ethics. Trans.Cronin, Ciaran P.Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1993b. Lawrence Kohlberg and neo‐aristotelianism. In Justification and application: Remarks on discourse ethics. Trans.Cronin, Ciaran P.Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1993c. Morality, society, and ethics: An interview with Torben Hviid Nielsen. In Justification and application: Remarks on discourse ethics. Trans.Cronin, Ciaran P.Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1993d. On the pragmatic, the ethical, and the moral employments of practical reason. In justification and application: Remarks on discourse ethics. Trans.Cronin, Ciaran P.Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1993e. Remarks on discourse ethics. In Justification and application: Remarks on discourse ethics. Trans.Cronin, Ciaran P.Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984. The theory of communicative action, Vol. 1, Reason and the rationalisation of society. Trans.McCarthy, Thomas. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1979. Moral development and ego identity. In Communication and the evolution of society. Trans.McCarthy, Thomas. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Hanen, Marsha, and Nielsen, Kai, eds. 1987. Science, morality & feminist theory. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Held, Virginia. 1987a. Feminism and moral theory. In Women and moral theory, ed. Kittay, Eva F. and Meyers, Diana T.Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Held, Virginia. 1987b. Non‐contractual society: A feminist view. In Science, morality & feminist theory, ed. Hanen, Marsha and Nielsen, Kai. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Allison M. 2000. Feminism in ethics: Moral justification. In The Cambridge companion to feminism in philosophy, ed. Fricker, Miranda and Hornsby, Jennifer. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jaggar, Allison M. 1995. Caring as a feminist practice of moral reason. Injustice and care: Essential readings in feminist ethics, ed. Held, Virginia. Boulder: Westview.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva E, and Meyers, Diana T., eds. 1987. Women and moral theory. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Kohlberg, Lawrence. 1981. Justice as reversibility: The claim to moral adequacy of a highest stage of moral judgment. In Kohlberg, Lawrence. Essays in moral development, Vol. I, The philosophy of moral development. San Francisco: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Lugones, María. 1987. Playfulness, “world”‐travelling, and loving perception. Hypatia 2(2): 3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meehan, Johanna. 2000. Feminism and Habermas's discourse ethics. Philosophy & social criticism 26(3): 39–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meehan, Johanna. 1998. Communicative ethics. In A companion to feminist philosophy, ed. Jaggar, Alison M. and Young, Iris Marion. Maiden, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Meehan, Johanna. 1995. Feminists read Habermas: Gendering the subject of discourse. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Okin, Susan Moller. 1989. Reason and feeling in thinking about justice. Ethics 99(January): 229–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pamerleau, William C. 1996. Can Habermas's discourse ethics accommodate the feminist perspective? In Rending and renewing the social order: Studies in social andpolitical philosophy, Vol. 17, ed. Hudson, Yeager. Lewiston, Pa.: Edwin Mellon Press.Google Scholar
Rehg, William. 1994. Insight and solidarity: A study in the discourse ethics of]urgen Habermas. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Sen, Amartya. 1997. Human rights and Asian values: What Kee Kuan Yew and Le Peng don't understand about Asia. The New Republic 217(2‐‐3): 33–41.Google Scholar
Tronto, Joan. 1993. Beyond gender difference to a theory of care. In An ethic of care: Feminist and interdisciplinary perspectives, ed. Larrabee, Mary Jeanne. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Vetlesen, Arne Johan. 1994. Perception, empathy, and judgment: An inquiry into the preconditions of moral performance. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.Google Scholar
Young, Iris Marion. 1987. Impartiality and the civic public: Some implications of feminist critiques of moral and political philosophy. In Feminism as critique, ed. Benhabib, Seyla and Cornell, Drucilla. Minneapolis: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar