Anyway, was interested in whether other people have studied feminist philosophies and such. What's your take on feelings such as care or love be the guiding force to moral decisions? Is it overly simplistic or elegantly simplistic? — Posty McPostface
In regards to virtue, I think people are generally stuck to their psychological types and it's only through an immense amount of effort that a person can "change" - yet even this possibility is dependent on the person being of a certain psychological type. If this is true, then not everyone can be "virtuous" - yet certainly there are things people should and should not do even if they are incapable of being "virtuous". In that sense, right action is to be sharply distinguished from good natured-ness (i.e. it cannot be a moral requirement to act from a certain intention or motivation). — darthbarracuda
In regards to love, I think it is entirely unreasonable to demand people love each other, because love is not something that can be voluntarily made. Love is not a foundation of ethics, at least, not in the romantic or deep friend-like way. Love is sometimes said to be the desire to see the good develop in someone else - yet this is a motivation, and I don't think motivations can ever be morally required (since we have no control over them). — darthbarracuda
Am I to understand that women's philosophy is about care, education, families, communities, virtue, being a good person and matters of personality and men's philosophy is about duty, right and wrong, law, politics and matters of principle? I don't think anyone has said such a thing in this thread and yet it seems to be a thought that's hanging around on the edge of the party waiting to be invited in. Or alternatively uninvited explicitly. — Cuthbert
It may also be used to imply that they need not bother themselves too much with politics, law, duty and matters of principle. Let them concentrate on looking after the children and the old folk. True on face value or not I think some reflection is needed on the implications of the view I expressed.
Generalisations are often invidious. I could say 'But look at this wonderfully ethical man, and look at this despicable woman!' Then someone else chooses contrary examples. Eventually it becomes clear that we are not talking about men and women at all but about virtue, care, law, politics etc as those things are relevant to us all. But by that time we have wasted our energy on an ill-advised battle of the sexes. — Cuthbert
It seemed to be hovering on the edge by implication - because of the link made between feminist philosophy and virtue-ethics; and the comparison between the ethical goodness of men vs women. — Cuthbert
I don't think there was a value judgment made about the ability to care for women more-so than men. If you want me to make a value judgment for the sake of discussion, then I can say that women profess an attitude of care more than men do on average. Does that make them more ethical beings? Not really, it's just that they are more caring than men are in regards to the welfare of others. — Posty McPostface
Virtue-care-ethics is elegantly simplistic because it puts the emphasis on the individual to extend their sphere of interest to include others than one's self. I'd rather live in a democratic collectivist ethical society than have a benevolent dictator tell me what is good. — Posty McPostface
To deflate this a bit, all you're really saying is that helping others in need is moral. — schopenhauer1
The issue with command type ethics is that you're left with a person who doesn't realize what they're doing is good, or why it should be counted as something good over some other action. This greatly stupifies the whole moral framework. There's no point in telling that some action is good unless they can't rationalize it themselves, and if you follow the news, then most of ethics can't be rationalized at all, it's rather a trait that can only be observed but not modeled. — Posty McPostface
Virtue-care-ethics is elegantly simplistic because it puts the emphasis on the individual to extend their sphere of interest to include others than one's self. I'd rather live in a democratic collectivist ethical society than have a benevolent dictator tell me what is good. Ethics of care is inherently democratic and education is focused on not habituating a person to be good but rather giving them the tools to want to be ethical and moral. What's more, a person who is motivated by care or love or other noble traits will always be a better moral actor than one guided by command type prescriptivist ethical theories. And, that get's neglected in philosophy nowadays. The pursuit of moral absolutes or as you say, monistic tendencies are largely a failure in terms of ethics. — Posty McPostface
Yes, but if doing what is ethical isn't motivated by a sense of care or compassion, then what are we left with? The alternative is worse than having a personal care and go through the process of deliberation about what's best for someone other than one's self to decide what is moral. — Posty McPostface
Like, I said, having a person motivated to be ethical through encouraging kindness, care, and love will in almost all regards be better than even the best Kantian. — Posty McPostface
To put this another way, emotivism and intuitionalism are superior to other ethical theories because they don't really rely on a yet undiscovered rationale as to what actions are the best, they are just intuitively obvious. — Posty McPostface
I seriously doubt a calculus of utility could also be imagined to discern what actions are best or worst in some or any predicament or situation. — Posty McPostface
Care is a feeling that may manifest as action or inaction. It all depends — Rich
Yes, but what of the problem I mentioned? What is it that we need to perpetuate the help-cycle to begin with? In other words, why do we keep the whole society thing going where people are in constant need to be helped? Why is this a good thing to persist and continue into the future for more people? This becomes circular reasoning, and rather absurd. — schopenhauer1
The "help cycle" is complicated. At a community level one can choose to participate depending upon circumstances. At the government level it is automatic with unpredictable results. I chose whether or not to participate based upon my experiences, which are constantly changing. There is no straightforward answer, there are only choices we make in our lives when there are choices to be made. — Rich
My question is what are we doing by continuing this whole community thing in the first place? — schopenhauer1
If I am duty-bound to help others (something I nominally agree with), then why are we keeping community going in the first place? — schopenhauer1
Thus ethics is a means to an ends. But what ends? — schopenhauer1
That would seem to be the case at least. Implicit or explicit, it's true on face value. As a population representative of what ethical conduct means or stands for, women sure do take the cake. — Posty McPostface
it's just that [women] are more caring than men are in regards to the welfare of others. — Posty McPostface
What "love and care" is, is deep deep bias. We definitely should have love and care for those close to us, but this means favoritism. This means bias. That's been well known for a long, long time. The idea that these should be a wide spread ethical system, is to propose tribalism. — Wosret
There is far too much conflict for compassion to be all that great as a general ethical model. It is of course good to be compassionate, but compassion is also the source of guilt, and retribution, is my only point. If someone that you are uninterested in falls in love with you, or the truth might hurt someone, then compassion is going to make you feel shitty about rejecting them, or telling them the truth. You can be forced into lots of situations if you're too compassionate, and be tempted to lie all the time. You have to reduce compassion in order to be able to set boundaries, and not just let people walk all over you, or to tell people things they don't want to hear. — Wosret
You can see that compassion is partial, or indeed individual, taking of sides, and feeling equal compassion for everyone leads to a stalemate, where a super-ordinate value must be the ruling principle in all cases, meaning that "compassion" itself is a nonstarter. Sounds nice and fluffy, and is a feel good word, that signals all kinds of virtue, but it isn't a great ruling principle. — Wosret
You can't value the interests of "humanity in general" except in empty abstraction, in real life you only deal with a few at a time. — Wosret
Also, in insinuating that I'm some unfeeling monster, where was my compassion, friend? When seen as the enemy of things you do have compassion for, it is denied, that's where it went. — Wosret
When do you ever actually interact with "humanity in general"? How can what I said not be true? — Wosret
Why you callin' me names, man? I gave sources, I didn't pull this out of my ass, this is what I've read, put your pyschologizing away, and give real reasons why it is otherwise, explain why I have sources, and you have intuitions... — Wosret
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