Reconciling Feminist Politics and Feminist Ethics on the Issue of Rights

Abstract

a component with feminist criticisms of rights. There are two parts to this project. First, I must respond to the criticisms feminists have made against rights theories in order to show that it is possible for a moral theory that includes rights to be a feminist moral theory. Answering these criticisms is necessary if I am to establish that moral theories that include rights are among the candidate theories from which feminists might choose. Second, I must develop a feminist moral theory that encompasses rights, and argue for its superiority to other sorts of moral theories in order to show that a moral theory that encompasses rights is a plausible feminist moral theory. Going beyond responding to criticisms and developing a positive feminist rights theory is necessary if feminists are to find rights theories to be attractive candidate moral theories. 2 In this paper I am concerned mostly with the first part of the project, responding to some feminist arguments against theorizing about morality in terms of rights, although in the course of responding to the objections I make remarks that might suggest ways in which some rights theories might be developed as feminist moral theories. 3 By this point in the paper, it should be clear what the project is that I am undertaking. However, some readers might still be wondering why Ia m undertaking it. Why should feminists care about reconciling feminist criticisms of moral theories that include rights with feminist concern for the oppression of women expressed in terms of “women’s rights”? Why isn’t it talk of “women’s rights” that ought to be abandoned in light of feminist criticisms of rights? I think that there are both pragmatic and principled reasons for thinking that feminist theorists ought to reconsider rights. First, the pragmatic answer to this question is that feminist moral theory ought not to abandon the moral and political language of the communities in which we live, if peace can be made with that language. Feminism does not exist in the academy alone and feminist intellectuals risk isolation if we reject the moral concepts that inform political debate. The language of rights is well established both in mainstream political institutions and in progressive political movements for social change. 4 If feminist theorists can rethink rights, rather than reject rights, then there is a role for feminist moral and political philosophers to participate in debates about the content of women’s rights and about what governments and individuals need to do to accord women rights.