Feminist Ethics

Catalog description

As ethicists, we ask how to act rightly, develop moral understanding, respect others, cultivate virtues, and live flourishing lives. In this class, we ask these ethical questions from a feminist perspective, taking into account how gender-based oppression threatens our ability to act, understand, and live well. We examine feminist criticisms of the very concepts - contracts, rights, justice - through which central ethical questions have traditionally been asked. And we explore alternative moral frameworks, including care- and dependency-based reasoning, lesbian separatism, and the cultivation of resistant moral emotions.