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Second Persons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

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Affiliation:
York University, North York, ON, CanadaM3J 1P3
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Extract

Assumptions about what it is to be human are implicit in most philosophical reflections upon ethical and epistemological issues. Although such assumptions are not usually elaborated into a comprehensive theory of human nature, they are nonetheless influential in beliefs about what kinds of problem are worthy of consideration, and in judgments about the adequacy of proposed solutions. Claims to the effect that one should not be swayed by feelings and loyalties in the making of moral decisions, for example, presuppose that human beings are creatures whose nature is amenable to guidance by reason rather than emotion and are creatures capable of living well when they act as impartially as possible. Analogously, claims to the effect that knowledge, to merit that title, should be acquired out of independent cognitive endeavour uncluttered by opinion and hearsay, suggest that human beings are creatures who can come to know their environment through their own unaided efforts. And claims to the effect that knowledge, once acquired, is timelessly and universally true depend upon assumptions about the constancy and uniformity of human nature across historical and cultural boundaries.

Type
IV—Selves and Integration
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy Supplementary Volume , Volume 13: Science, Morality & Feminist Theory , 1987 , pp. 357 - 382
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1987

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References

1 Benson, John ‘Who is the Autonomous Man?’, Philosophy 58 (1983), 5.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Callahan, Daniel ‘Autonomy: A Moral Good, Not a Moral Obession,’ The Hastings Center Report 14, 5 (1984), 41.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3 Hartsock, NancyMoney, Sex and Power (Boston: Northeastern University Press 1986), 38.Google Scholar

4 ‘Cartesian Persons,’ in Baier, AnnettePostures of the Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1985),Google Scholar 84. I raise some of the issues I discuss here in my review of Baier’s book in Dialogue, forthcoming.

5 Ibid., 231.

6 Ibid., 218.

7 Ibid., 89.

8 Ibid., 32.

9 See chapters 3 and 7 of my Epistemic Responsibility (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England/Brown University Press 1987).

10 Baier, 85.

11 Ibid., 86.

12 The work of Emile Durkheim, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Jean Piaget is typical in this respect.

13 Frye, MarilynThe Politics of Reality (Trumansburg, NY: The Crossing Press 1983), 80.Google Scholar

14 Benjamin, Jessica ‘The Bonds of Love: Rational Violence and Erotic Domination,’ in Eisenstein, H. and Jardine, A. eds., The Future of Difference (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press 1985), 64.Google Scholar

15 Whitbeck, Caroline ‘Feminist Ontology: A Different Reality,’ in Could, Carol ed., Beyond Domination (Totowa, NJ: Rowman & Allenheld 1983), 66.Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 75.

17 Ibid.

18 Ibid. The suggestion that autonomous individuals are engaged in struggles to annihilate one another may perhaps seem excessive. Yet the (figurative) annihilation of another individual as a competitor in a contest, sporting event, or business deal, and the (literal) annihilation of an enemy are significantly continuous concepts, as the common language used to describe such various phenomena also indicates. Clearly the same kind of ‘personhood’ is assumed in each area of discourse.

19 The reference is to Sara Ruddick’s paper ‘Maternal Thinking’ in Feminist Studies (Summer 1980).

20 Cf. Whitbeck, 75.

21 See, for example, Dinnerstein, DorothyThe Mermaid and the Minotaur (New York: Harper & Row 1976);Google ScholarChodorow, NancyThe Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley: University of California Press 1979);Google Scholar and Balbus, IsaacMarxism and Domination (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press 1982),Google Scholar for discussions of the contributing influence of ‘mother-dominated’ child-raising in the creation of ‘autonomous man.’

22 Whitbeck, 75.

23 Ibid., 79.

24 Ibid., 65.

25 Held, VirginiaRights and Goods (New York: Macmillan/The Free Press 1984), 84Google Scholar

26 The allusion is to the title of Bernard Williams’ book, Descartes: The Project of Pure Enquiry.

27 Plato, Republic, 511b.Google Scholar

28 The best known example of this revived interest in pragmatism is to be found in the work of Richard Rorty, both in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press 1979), and, especially, in his Consequences of Pragmatism (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 1982).

29 This phrase is from Sandra Harding’s article, ‘Why Has the Sex/Gender System Become Visible Only Now?’, in Harding, S. and Hintikka, M. eds., Discovering Reality (Dordrecht: Reidel 1983).Google Scholar

30 Baier, 80.

31 Ibid., 83.

32 Ibid., 86.

33 See my ‘Responsibility and the Epistemic Community: Woman’s Place/ in Social Research (October 1983); and chapter 7 of my Epistemic Responsibility.

34 This function of an epistemic community is elaborated in Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press 1970); and it is a central theme in the work of Michel Foucault.

35 See chapter 7 of my Epistemic Responsibility.

36 See Moulton, Janice ‘A Paradigm of Philosophy: The Adversary Method,’ in Harding, & Hintikka, Discovering Reality.Google Scholar

37 Ibid., 157.

38 Keller, Evelyn FoxGender and Science (New Haven: Yale University Press 1985), 124Google Scholar

39 Keller, 135.

40 Ibid., 164.

41 Nor is it entirely fanciful to see McClintock’s relationship with her specimens as one of friendship. Keller observes: ‘From reading the text of nature, McClin-tock reaps the kind of understanding and fulfillment that others acquire from personal intimacy’ (Keller, Evelyn FoxA Feeling for the Organism: The Life and Work of Barbara McClintock [New York: W.H. Freeman 1983], 205).Google Scholar

42 Work on this paper was made possible by a Strategic Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which I held in the Department of Philosophy at the Universtiy of Waterloo; and by a Visiting Fellowship at the Humanities Research Centre of the Australian National University in Canberra. Earlier versions were read at the Women and Philosophy Conference at Monash University in Melbourne, and at the Canadian Society for Women in Philosophy Conference in Halifax.