Ron Yezzi
Philosophy Department
Minnesota State U., Mankato
©2001 by Ron Yezzi
(May be downloaded for per-
sonal, non-commercial use)
There is no one standard presentation of feminism. But the accounts that follow cover work in three areas: Noddings - the ethical; MacKinnon - the socio-political; Harding - the scientific.
I. Nel Noddings’ Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics & Moral Education 1. Relying on Principles
a. This tends to be the approach of the father.
b. Reliance on principles in ethics involves
reason, detachment, inflexible rules, moral judgments, and universalizability.
c. Principles may produce a dangerous
self-righteousness and violence.
2. Relying on Caring
a. This tends to be the approach of the mother.
b. Human caring and the memory of caring and
being cared for form the foundation for ethics (p. 1).
c. Receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness
are basic to caring.
d. In giving reasons for actions, women tend to
focus upon "feelings, needs, personal impressions, and a sense of personal
ideal" (p. 3) rather than upon principles.
e. Ethical caring arises out of natural caring,
a relation by which we respond through love or natural inclination (p.5).
1. One-Caring
a. There is a receptive mode of "feeling
with" someone that is different from empathy, which is a detached projection into
someone else’s state—e.g. the way mothers naturally feel with their infants.
b. The one-caring is engrossed in the
well-being and welfare of the one cared-for.
c. Any objective reasoning in the one-caring
must be constantly refocused on the concrete and the personal.
d. In Kierkegaard’s story of Abraham
considering the sacrifice of Isaac in the Old Testament, a woman as one-caring would never
even consider sacrificing a son—not for God, not for some greater good, not for the
greater benefit of others. Any attempt to take seriously killing one’s own child for
the sake of some principle or abstraction violates the one-caring’s relationship with
the cared-for.
2. Limits for the One-Caring
a. The one-caring is most concerned with an
inner circle of cared-fors and is not responsible for everyone. In addition, there are
circles of personal regard of lesser significance and circles of strangers who may or may
not take on caring significance.
b. The one-caring cannot extend this caring to
a general humanitarian altruism.
c. The ethical ideal for each of us must be
realistic and attainable, both in keeping with my past and open enough to accommodate
future change.
d. I cannot care for everyone and, at times, I
have to care for myself without overwhelming myself with burdens toward others. Indeed,
there is the danger that I cease to care when others become too much of a burden.
3. The Cared-For
a. The one-caring should avoid excessive
permissiveness as well as manipulation in dealing with the cared-for. There is a complete
focus on the cared-for ("being crazy about this kid"), but not in a way that
ignores the interests that reflect the one cared for or ignores dangerous (potentially
harmful) acts on the part of cared for.
b. The cared-for must exhibit a certain amount
of receptivity and recognition to the one-caring for the caring relationship to be
completed.
c. There must be reciprocity on the part of the
one cared for—not in the sense of the cared-for becoming the one-caring but in the
sense of sharing aspirations and accomplishments with the one caring.
d. While there may be a likelihood of
inequality in caring relationships—e.g. parent-child, teacher-student,
therapist-client—a relationship more akin to friendship than superior-inferior is the
consequence of caring.
e. The cared-for must be free to pursue
one’s own interests but also be responsive to the caring-relationship with the
one-caring.
1. Natural caring gives us a basic sense of "the good." Ethical caring is a combination of natural caring with our best memories of past instances of caring and being cared-for. Ethical caring gives rise to an ethical ideal, the vision of our best self possible in ethical caring.
2. We become ethical selves as we care for others and are cared for so as approach a sense of fulfillment of what we are.
3. In caring for others, there is an imperative "must" that becomes part of our being. This "must" arises as an obligation through the recognition of the value of relatedness. (It does not follow though that the recognition is a rational, analytic conclusion.)
4. An ethic of caring does not rest on rules but rather rests on faithfulness in caring as a genuine response in individual situations. Examples: lying about a child not attending school, child wanting a sundae, research project, choosing between a child and husband, abortion, killing a husband.
5. "I am not obliged to care for starving children in Africa, because there is no way for this caring to be completed in the other unless I abandon the caring to which I am obligated" (p. 86). Of course, one could establish a personal relationship of caring for these children if one went to Africa. And it is possible to exhibit some degree of caring without granting an obligation to care.
6. An ethic of caring is not based on justification of moral judgments (and hence rational assessment). Instead it stresses fulfillment within caring relationships, both for the one-caring and the cared-for.
7. An ethic of caring is skeptical about institutions and institutionally-directed actions—whether they be religious, political, or welfare-oriented. They diminish the ethical ideal because they cannot be ethical (that is, caring) as institutions and they demand loyalty in a way inimical to true caring.
8. There are actions that diminish the ethical ideal although they may not be wrong—e.g. killing an abusive husband.
1. Men tend to view ethics in detached terms, relying upon principles and rational analysis; women tend to view ethics in terms of concrete situations, the details of what is happening in those individual situations, and a need for caring.
2. While Noddings strongly advocates a basically feminine approach to ethics, she does not claim that men are incapable of embracing a caring ethic; and she does advocate a dialogue regarding masculine and feminine approaches (p. 6).
3. While women seem to have a greater innate tendency toward natural caring, men are not closed off from becoming more caring persons (p. 130).
1. The danger of institutionalized "caring": There is a tendency to turn persons into clients in a detached way so that they become a problem to be analyzed and solved rather than persons to be cared for.
2. "Caring about" (e.g. donating money to a cause) is a much weaker form of caring than "caring for."
3. An ethic of caring is an alternative to Kohlberg’s theory of moral development.
4. Although there can be a natural caring for nonhuman animals, an ethic of caring is directed more toward human relationships and animals cannot participate in caring relationships in the full way that humans can. In particular, they cannot engage fully in reciprocity as cared for.
1. This is a fascinating work that reveals so much about the way women approach moral issues and Noddings elaborates the position with great insight and detail—although I will focus here on problems I see with the position.
2. I would want to avoid the sharp dichotomy between masculine and
feminine approaches to ethics that appears in the book. Although she makes qualifications
accepting some use of reason within a caring approach and calling for an ethical dialogue
to arrive at a transcendence of specifically masculine and feminine tendencies, much of
this is lost in the book as a whole.
a. For myself, I would begin with sensitivity,
knowledge, character, and cooperativeness as the characteristics of a moral
person—where sensitivity and cooperativeness reflect what she might describe as
female moral virtues and knowledge and character describe more male moral virtues. The
objective is a proper balance among all four characteristics.
b. I do not see laying out these
characteristics as the laying out of a virtue ethic to contrast with an ethic of
principles; rather ethics is sufficiently rich to accommodate both virtue and principle
approaches. Thus I argue for the PSR Principle as the basic principle of morality: You
ought to act so as to maximize the totality of power, satisfaction, and reality. Doing
this accomplishes two goals: (1) It allows establishment of a relationship between facts
and values that introduces the legitimacy of objective claims to truth in ethics; and (2)
It provides a powerful method for understanding and critiquing persons’ ethical
judgments and actions. But in granting the significance of the importance of the PSR
Principle, I do not want to demean the importance or effectiveness of approaching ethical
situations with a need to balance sensitivity, knowledge, character, and cooperativeness.
3. There are numerous feminist approaches to issues; and I suspect, over time, that there will be an increasing need to apply traditional rational methods of analysis to assess the adequacy of different feminist approaches. For example, caring as developed by Noddings leads to different interpretations about how to act. At some point, the differences in interpretation will lead to a need for even feminists themselves to make assessment distinctions on the basis of reasoned analysis. While one can begin optimistically with an openness to the correctness of all points of view and can revel in the insights of what everyone brings to the discussion, eventually, there will need to be a way of resolving disagreements. And I suspect that traditional rational methods will prove to be the most adequate technique.
4. Although Noddings wants to reject an ethics based upon moral judgments, where there is a need for rational justification, I think that her book includes a multitudinous variety of what I consider to be moral judgments based upon rational justification. I am not convinced that the evidence and explanations she provides for an ethic of caring are really different from more traditional explications of moral judgment. I would grant that the emphasis on caring itself offers a special perspective that, for example, a Kantian analysis ethics might exclude. But I do not think that reasoned moral judgments thereby disappear. What I find especially admirable in the book is her willingness to establish an ethic of caring within a context that takes into account so many details, rationally considered, relating to consistency, limits, and consequences of caring.
1. Collective consciousness-raising is the tool by which women are able to reconstruct their social reality.
2. Consciousness-raising consists in group discussions of everyday life experiences of women, occurring in an environment of openness and honesty such that participants become aware of their social being.
3. There is no abstract attempt to arrive at objectivity
by conforming to some external standard. Instead the internal dynamics of the
consciousness-raising process, working through critical examination of actual life
experiences of women, even ones often trivialized and degraded, brings women to a
realization of their shared social reality.
a. Knowledge is not a copy of reality as a
scientific model suggests; instead it a social consciousness that arises by attending to
the experience of living.
b. The scientific model mistakenly devalues
consciousness-raising.
c. Consciousness-raising leads to awareness of
women’s social condition internally through their experiences as actually lived.
4. The absence of men in these sessions is helpful because it makes more open speech possible with no need "to compete for male attention and approval, to be passive or get intimidated, or to support men’s version of reality" (p. 86).
5. Women’s self-concept emerges through extensive attention to the day-to-day survival of women in their households, work, friendships, sexuality, and encounters with strangers.
6. Consciousness-raising is a way of socializing women’s knowing so that they become conscious of themselves as having a shared reality.
1. Women’s reality is defined by social structure rather than
by biology or nature.
a. Qualities usually associated with being
feminine—such as nurturing, orientation toward children, frailty, intuition—are
socially developed roles usually required of women.
2. The present structure of society is based upon male dominance
whereby men directly benefit from the deprivation, inferior status, and degradation of
women.
a. Male dominance is a power by which men
define themselves; so they view any challenge to their power as a threat to their
self-identity (p. 92).
b. Male dominance is achieved through physical
intimidation; but it also is achieved through the social processes by which women develop
their concept of self. Male power becomes self-enforcing: "Women become
‘thingified in the head.’"(p. 99) For example, women’s style of dress
and low status jobs become ways of structuring their personal feelings and concepts of
self.
c. As women become aware of their condition,
they realize that they are "damaged."
3. Women’s feelings and self-concept come to be recognized as appropriate, given their social conditions; but they also realize that there are opportunities for change.
4. Since the problems of women develop through a social structure of male dominance, solutions require the restructuring of society as a whole through concerted action of women as a whole.
1. What is called "femininity" really "means attractiveness to men, which means sexual attractiveness, which means sexual availability on male terms" (p. 110). In this sense, women desiring and exhibiting femininity just shows the degree to which male power has been socially incorporated in their concept of themselves.
2. Liberal feminism, liberalism applied to women whereby there is the attempt to correct the surface inequalities of sexism, is not true feminism.
3. Radical feminism is feminism. Without a radical reordering of society, the degrading inequalities of male dominance remain.
1. Sexuality is the primary domain of male dominance: Male power sustains the existence of rape, incest, pornography, prostitution, and sexual harassment; but it also constructs the social consciousness of sexuality to maintain gender inequalities that make women subservient to men. So a woman’s sexuality comes to exist for the benefit of men.
2. "Men see rape as intercourse; feminism observes that men make much intercourse rape. Men say women desire to be degraded; feminism sees female masochism as the ultimate success of male supremacy and puzzle (and marvel) over its failures" (P. 125).
3. Unfortunately, sexual liberation for women can mean "pleasure and how to get it"—when it should mean an end to male dominance.
4. Pornography is the ultimate expression of the truth about sex for
men: They are able to get "whatever they want sexually" (p. 138)—sexually
easy and accessible women in soft-core pornography and women degraded, defiled, and
humiliated in hard-core pornography.
a. Pornography sexually objectifies women as
existing for the sexual pleasure of men.
b. Men find the subservience itself of women in
pornography to be erotic and to be a source of empowerment for male dominance.
c. Studies of men viewing sexual material show
that, while they initially may be repulsed by rape, they rather quickly come to enjoy it
and even find viewing violent sexual behavior more arousing than viewing non-violent
sexual behavior (p. 144).
d. What is sex in pornography is much like what
victims report to be rape. "In this light, the major distinction between intercourse
(normal) and rape (abnormal) is that the normal happens so often that one cannot get
anyone to see anything wrong with it" (p. 146).
5. What is especially devastating about sexuality as socially constructed in a male dominated society is that a women’s body experiences sexual abuse as pleasurable.
1. The Liberal State
a. The liberal state, with its constitutional
guarantees of equal rights and protection of freedom of individual choice, is a political
structure that sustains and enhances male power.
b. As long as gender inequality exists as the
underlying social structure, supposedly "liberal" institutions do nothing to
liberate women.
c. Liberal attempts to make women more equal
with respect to work opportunities, sexual harassment, and political power are merely ways
to allow women to act more like men. And in the process, they just make women more
sexually available to men.
d. The institutional structure of the liberal
state establishes objectivity and neutrality as a norm, particularly in the area of
jurisprudence. So rights become abstractions to be argued over and proved according to
standards set by male dominance.
e. In the liberal state, the burden of proof is
always on the woman to prove that she did not consent in cases of rape, sexual harassment,
incest, sexual abuse, and pornography. There is no recognition that, under conditions of
gender inequality where male force is dominant, it is questionable whether
"consent" is a meaningful concept.
f. In the male dominated liberal state, consent
is so construed that men do not take "no" to their sexual advances as a true
absence of consent.
g. For men, the effect of abortion rights is
the greater sexual availability of women.
h. Pornography protected under freedom of
speech and of the press ignores the degrading sexual subordination of women involved.
2. Toward a Feminist Theory of the State
a. At present, there is no fully developed
feminist theory of the state.
b. But women need to be able to be different
rather than possessing an equality that allows them to be the same as men—which in
turn just enhances male power.
c. Whereas gender neutrality is the male
standard in the liberal state, special protection is the feminist standard that is
necessary to overcome male dominance.
d. In a feminist jurisprudence, the burden of
proof would shift toward recognition of the present gender inequalities—taking into
account the particular details of sexual inequalities, statistical disparities, and the
degree to which statutes work toward an end to male supremacy.
1. Clearly, nearly all men will find it difficult to be sympathetic toward MacKinnon’s position. And those men (like myself) who consider themselves supporters of equal rights for women may take special offense at her dismissal of "the liberal state." Yet there can be no doubt that MacKinnon presents a powerful critique of male dominance in society.
2. Collective Consciousness-Raising
a. Collective consciousness-raising can be
effective in bringing about a better understanding of a person's existence as a being in
society. I can appreciate the enthusiasm and hope that arises from consciousness-raising
sessions. Participants can gain important insights about their situation. It is the
presumption that all the insights from different groups will concur, or at least will be
compatible, that bothers me.
b. Unfortunately however (from a male, rational
point of view that MacKinnon would reject), this methos lacks any error-correction
procedures beyond what the discussion happens to bring out. Any limitations in the
openness of the discussion, in the discussants' ability to communicate effectively, or in
their range of experiences will show up in whatever awareness of a shared social reality
they reach—without any procedure to expose these limitations.
c. For example, having an open discussion
requires that participants feel comfortable enough to express what they think; but this
requirement will lead to excluding some people (and their life experiences, too) from the
discussion. Once these people are excluded however, the prized cooperation that results
may be due to the remaining participants being very much alike. Moreover, those with the
best communication skills and the clearest notions of what they think are likely to be
more effective than some others in the discussion. (Although advocates of collective
consciousness-raising may deny that any participants would use these factors to skew the
discussion their way, my experience with discussions and my reports on others' discussions
does not square with this denial.)
d. I suspect that, over time, opposed positions
will come forth from different discussions and there will be no way of resolving the
oppositions without appealing to some traditional standards of objectivity to correct
errors.
3. Pornography
a. I prefer to treat pornography as a
vice—in the ways that alcohol is a vice. Just as alcohol can be dangerous and can
degrade human relationships, the same can be said of pornography. And just as I would not
advocate total prohibition of alcohol, I would not advocate total prohibition of
pornography. Likewise, I would say that, while alcohol and pornography in moderation do
not represent our highest ideals for pleasure with respect to conscious awareness or
sexuality, they also do not cause such great harm that they should be fully prohibited.
b. The essential function of pornography, in my
judgment, is sexual stimulation. This claim about essential function opposes feminist
interpretations of pornography by which it becomes an ideology asserting male power and
sexual dominance to the detriment of women. I grant that there can be an ideology
associated with pornography's essential function. I think though that we have to recognize
that the essential function is separable from the ideology in an important way.
c. Let me try this analogy. The essential
function of driving a car is to move more quickly from point A to point B. (You may have
to make some exceptions here--for example, a car moving more slowly than a person can walk
or just showing off. The exceptions are sufficiently unusual as not to create a problem
though.) It may well happen that we can associate driving a car also with an ideology of
domination over nature and even male domination. It does not follow, however, that every
person driving a car is doing it for the purpose of male domination or of domination over
nature. Some (probably most) people (women included) drive to get more quickly from point
A to point B.
In the same way, not everyone reading or
viewing pornography does so for the sake of the ideological purposes that may be
associated with it. Many people are much closer to its essential function.
4. The Liberal State
a. How one views the liberal state depends
significantly upon how one views the results of consciousness-raising and pornography. If
MacKinnon is correct in her account, then the liberal state probably does sustain male
dominance to the detriment of women.
b. I would argue however that the liberal state
significantly improves the conditions of women and that women have gained much in terms of
equality. There still is a long way to go for a fully equal society; but that also is true
for most ethical goals in life.
c. Generally (and, admittedly, I am a male), I
believe that progress has occurred in socio-political areas because more rational
consideration, more objectively moral judgments, greater search for and attention to facts
lead to improvements. It is not so much that these are techniques of male domination as
much as they are proven tools of progress. And without them, progress will not occur as
well. It does not follow however that all other approaches to progress are a waste of time
or that women’s special experiences with life have nothing to contribute to progress.
1. An adequate science requires a scientific study of the
social beliefs and practices of scientists themselves. But natural scientists—with
their fixation upon physical sciences as the foundational model for all sciences—have
created the myth of a value-free, neutral science where social beliefs and practices are
irrelevant.
a. The myth is best captured in the separation
of the context of discovery from the context of justification and then the relegation of
the context of discovery to an insignificant side issue. As a result of the myth,
scientists do not understand the "real causes and meanings" of their own work.
2. The social sciences—such as history, sociology, and
anthropology—provide a sounder foundation for science than the physical sciences.
They present a more "naturalistic" approach to science.
a. The social sciences can deconstruct, or
strip away, the veneer of scientific rationality that misleads physical scientists and
philosophers of science into presuming the objective nature of their accounts.
b. For example, whereas physical scientists may
believe that the methods developed during the rise of modern science in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries represent a triumph of purely objective, intellectual advancement
and were the cause of subsequent social progress, the social sciences can show that
"changes underway in late feudal and early modern European social life were primarily
responsible for the popular acceptance of science’s new ways of conceptualizing
nature and inquiry" (p. 209).
c. On a deeper level, the social sciences can
reveal how race, class, and gender have skewed science in particular directions: "But
our contemporary social theory, influenced by psychoanalytic concerns, also reveals the
distinctively (Western) masculine desires that are satisfied by the preoccupation with
method, rule, and law-governed behavior and activity. Here, too, modern science projects
onto nature distinctively (Western) masculine projects and destinies" (p. 229).
3. Harding sees the attempt to set up physics as the foundational science to be misguided. She says,
"Why, then should we take as the model for all knowledge-seeking a science that
has no conceptual space for considering irrational behavior and belief? Moreover, possible
explanations even in physics would be more reliable, more fruitful, if physicists were
trained to examine critically the social origins and often irrational social implications
of their conceptual systems. For instance, would not physicists benefit from asking why a
scientific world view with physics as its paradigm excludes the history of physics from
its recommendation that we seek causal explanations of everything in the world around
us?" (p. 47)
1. The Androcentric Bias - Harding cites feminist studies in the social sciences that show a male-centered (androcentric) bias, both conceptual and political, in traditional science.
2. Conceptually, masculine identity favors rational
thinking over feeling, the abstract and general over the concrete and particular, the
separation of knowledge itself from its social uses, the separation of the subject from
what is observed, the domination of the subject over the object, and objectivity over
subjectivity. So male scientists framed the conceptual structure of science to fit the
needs of masculine identity. Accordingly, there is nothing surprising in the reliance on
physics as a paradigm for all science, in the exclusive concern with the context of
justification rather than with the context of discovery, in the assumption of neutral or
value-free scientific objectivity. Rather than being a reflection of reality, the
traditional conceptual structure of science (that is, Standard Scientific Explanation)
reflects the male ego.
a. Androcentric science demeans the status of
women by ignoring their interests and excluding feminist-oriented methodology. It devalues
the special advantages women bring to scientific study–such as the value of
experiential relations with others, the appreciation of feelings in social life, an
understanding of practical life activities, and direct experience of the social harm
resulting through the separation of abstract knowledge from its oppressive social uses.
3. Politically, androcentric science focuses upon
domination—whether the object of domination happens to be nature, races, classes, or
sexes—with little sensitivity to the consequences. Environmental or ecological
problems can occur. But another result is social oppression with respect to race, class,
and gender.
a. The entry of more women into science in
contemporary times meets political resistance from male scientists because it threatens
their sense of masculine identity. So as a defense mechanism, they require that women
assume a masculine identity in the form of scientific rationality as a prerequisite for
doing scientific work. In other words, women are forced to surrender their feminine
identity in order to become scientists.
b. The development of scientific rationality
during the fifteenth to seventh centuries was accompanied by the desire of men to achieve
dominance over women. Harding finds it significant that modern science arose at a time
following the social breakdown in feudal society, when women were emerging to participate
more fully in public life. Science was a way of meeting the threat that the emerging
activity of women posed.
1. Gender metaphors are key indicators of the androcentric bias in science.
2. A prime example is the use of a rape and torture metaphor by Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626), usually hailed as one of the great founders of modern scientific method. In explaining the new method and referring to nature in feminine terms (as was usually done), he wrote about the need to "hound nature in her wanderings," to "lead and drive her," and to have no scruples about "entering and penetrating into those holes and corners"—all in the interest of pursuing truth.
3. Even in the 1960s, the Nobel Prize winning physicist Richard Feynman felt no qualms in likening acceptance of a scientific theory to falling in love with a woman having faults not immediately obvious (p. 120). And, in time, the theory’s "become an old lady, who has very little that’s attractive left in her, and the young today will not have their hearts pound when they look at her anymore."
1. To eliminate the androcentric bias in science, according to Harding, we need much more than more women scientists. If more women become scientists but adopt Standard Scientific Explanation, then nothing changes. We need a feminist successor science.
2. At this point, Harding does not think that the boundaries of this successor science are clearly discernible. Yet there are key features that emerge.
3. The social sciences, not the physical sciences, will provide the foundational paradigm. Accordingly, science must focus upon the context of discovery.
4. How sciences are used, that is, their social and political effects, will become more important than abstract conceptions of knowledge for its own sake.
5. The special methodological interests of women—such as the value of experiential relations with others, the appreciation of feelings in social life, and an understanding of practical life activities—will take the place of excessively quantitative studies and separations that isolate the scientific investigator from the subjects of study.
6. Value concerns will replace value neutrality.
7. Science will benefit from the unique experiences and understandings that women bring to the presentation of problems as well as to the collection and evaluation of data. As both victims and acknowledgers of androcentric bias in science, feminists have an advantage over men in correcting "bad" science.
1. The Context of Discovery and the Context of Justification - What the social sciences can establish about the context of discovery need not be as threatening to Standard Scientific Explanation as Sandra Harding suggests for several reasons.
2. Reason 1: Standard Scientific Explanation—with
its context of justification including logical methods, observation and experiment, common
agreement, the error-correcting effects of the external, and the criteria of
adequacy—provides a rich foundation by which the social sciences can examine the
context of discovery. The social and behavioral sciences have proceeded on this foundation
for about a century now. So a great deal of useful scientific knowledge about social and
political relationships as well as personal predispositions and
inclinations—including most of what feminists can establish as reliable
claims—can stand the tests of Standard Scientific Explanation. Moreover, whatever
knowledge is acquired this way can be the basis for social policy changes in the conduct
of science as much as in any other area of human behavior.
Before recommending policy changes that
radically alter the role and content of the context of justification, as traditionally
conceived, we need to recognize this established capacity of Standard Scientific
Explanation to solve problems.
3. Reason 2: The objectivity established within the context of
justification can override the significance of many social or cultural considerations
uncovered in studies of the context of discovery.
a. Consider, for an example, Neil
Armstrong’s walking on the moon in 1969.
b. Let us suppose that studies in
the social sciences uncover the following: (a) The selecting of the problem of putting an
astronaut on the moon reflected the domination of males in society; (b) The space race and
its broader accompaniment, the cold war, were exhibitions of male aggressiveness and
competitiveness; (c) The science and engineering problems involved in landing an astronaut
on the moon provided the sort of abstract, quantitative problem that appeals to the male
ego; (d) The government resources used to land an astronaut on the moon could
alternatively have funded numerous social programs relating to health, poverty, education,
racism, and sexism; (e) The astronaut being Neil Armstrong rather than a woman shows the
sexist class structure of our society; (f) Landing a man on the moon was a way of
creating one more male hero and was thereby a way of preserving male dominance in society;
(g) Armstrong’s memorable words upon first stepping on the moon’s surface,
"That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," was a sexist
statement that reflected the proprietary claim of males to constitute the essence of being
human; (h) The moon mission astronauts had sexual fantasies about the way women would
respond to their triumphant return to earth; (i) Data gathered through the landing on the
moon, such as the study of moon rocks, furthered the male preference for solving problems
in the physical sciences.
c. Supposing, as we are, that these claims are
reliable, we might have good reasons for changing society and redirecting scientific
projects–which, in turn, would alter the content of scientific knowledge in the
future and might also introduce new methodological techniques into scientific
investigation.
Yet something
fundamental is missing from the account so far.
d. The average distance from the earth to the
moon is about 240,000 miles and it has no atmosphere. So getting there and returning to
earth is not the same as going down the block to a vending machine for a soda and then
returning home. Centuries of accumulating scientific knowledge were the prerequisite for
our landing an astronaut on the moon: Logical methods, abstract theoretical developments,
quantitative precision, instrumentation, observations and experiments were all necessary.
e. Regardless of any motivations and social or
political conditions affecting human beings (as enumerated in our supposition), there is a
reality (the external) to be dealt with in landing an astronaut on the moon. Moreover, the
methodology of Standard Scientific Explanation within the context of justification
provided the intellectual and practical tools needed to deal with the external
successfully in this instance. So those claims from the social sciences do not negate the
objective fact that an astronaut landed on the moon; nor do they negate the objective
reliability of the context of justification within Standard Scientific Explanation.
f. Once we overcome our initial naivete, we
should expect that there are psychological, social, and political conditions affecting
whatever human beings do. So why would we expect scientists to transcend these conditions
in every respect? Does it not make more sense for us to hope that they can transcend these
conditions in some respects by finding more effective ways of relating to the
external? And is it not the case that the methodology of Standard Scientific Explanation
has provided effective means of achieving this partial transcendence?
g. There is a problem with feminist studies
that they state very little to challenge the success of the traditional methodology within
the context of justification. There is a difference between adding to that methodology and
negating it. Furthermore, the negation cannot be achieved by all these feminist studies
directed toward the context of discovery.
h. I doubt that the feminist critique will
achieve much in the way of eliminating current methodology within the context of
justification—which brings us to a third and final reason for rejecting
Harding’s critique of Standard Scientific Explanation.
4. Reason 3: It is likely that the context of justification, largely
as it exists now, is necessary to establish reliable knowledge in science. You can have
successful science without probing the context of discovery; but you cannot have
successful science without using the context of justification. There are enough past
scientific accomplishments to justify this assertion adequately.
a. Moreover, the more we learn about the
richness and variety of interests and inclinations that affect the assertion of claims
within the context of discovery, the more we should recognize the need for checks on these
claims.
b. History, sociology, anthropology, and
psychology can tell us a great deal about how scientists (or people generally) come up
with their claims and why they hold them. But these social or behavioral sciences by
themselves often cannot establish scientifically the legitimacy or illegitimacy of the
claims. Without the context of justification, if anything, these social sciences tend to
establish the legitimacy of all claims. That is, without ways of relating claims to
the external in some objective way, we are left with a collection of practically
equivalent beliefs. If beliefs can be nothing more than personal, social, or political
expressions, then there is no way to assert the greater adequacy of one belief over
another. Feminist beliefs are no better, or worse, than the androcentric beliefs they want
to criticize. The same holds true for other beliefs—for example, democracy vs.
dictatorship, the secular vs. the theocratic state, capitalism vs. socialism, creationism
vs. evolution, flat earth vs. curved earth theories, gremlin vs. physical theories of
motion, the truth or falsity of the second law of thermodynamics, the creationist vs. the
evolutionist interpretation of this second law, etc. Whether creationism or evolution is
the dominant position in science should not be simply a matter of of explaining who has
gained enough political power to impose their beliefs.
c. The methodology of justification in science
that has been developed over the centuries is an effective way of overcoming many of our
personal and social limitations.
F. The Feminist Contribution to Science
1. I think that we can agree that the recent feminist interest in science has contributed significantly to the advancement of science. By raising issues related to the direction of scientific projects and introducing more cooperative techniques of scientific investigation, feminists expand the scope of scientific inquiry and lay a foundation for change in the accumulation of future scientific knowledge. By laying out some of the personal, social, or political baggage that scientists carry with them in their work, feminists make us all aware of limitations in ways that increase the likelihood of greater success in our overcoming them. Perhaps feminists even point toward ways of using our limitations to advantage in some areas of scientific inquiry.
2. When the more radical feminist approaches however advocate development of a "successor science" that turns the tables on the traditional context of justification, we need to be wary. Even the feminists themselves are not sure what a successor science entails. The outline of its key features also runs into some problems in this response to the feminist critique of science. Perhaps the successor science should be called "schmience" rather than "science"—at least until we have more time to understand and evaluate its claims. Standard Scientific Explanation, with all its admitted limitations, remains such a powerfully effective tool in the acquisition of knowledge that we do not want to set it aside too soon.
E-mail Messages:? ronald.yezzi@mnsu.edu
Last updated 10/11/01