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Feminism, the Naturalistic Fallacy, and Evolutionary Biology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 May 2016

Barbara Smuts
Barbara Smuts*
Affiliation:
University of Michigan, USA
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Extract

Arnhart argues that a scientific understanding of women's nature, achieved through primatology and related disciplines, can serve as a basis for judging social arrangements. Those arrangements that promote the expression of women's “natural potentials” should be encouraged. Based on this argument, the key issues are (1) how to determine the “natural” potential of women, and (2) how to use this information to judge social arrangements. I will begin by focusing on the second and more fundamental issue; I will return later to the first.

Type
Roundtable Commentaries
Information
Politics and the Life Sciences , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , August 1992 , pp. 174 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Politics and the Life Sciences 

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