Marilyn Friedman

Virginia Held, in How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence, proposes a method by which moral theories can be "tested" by moral experience. Building on her previous work, she considers here how to utilize this method in the moral assessment of terrorism. Held's method is morally pluralistic; it encompasses a variety of moral theories and principles, including care ethics. Held's evolving account of how to test moral theories in terms of real-world moral experience remains an important and welcome contribution of hers to moral theory. Anyone who thinks rational intuition is not enough to determine which moral principles are justified, or who distrusts the moral "tests" that involve bizarre hypothetical examples devised by philosophers in armchairs, should consider Held's experiential moral method. If daily lived experience really matters to moral theorizing—and how could it not?—then we need an account of how to interpret our experiences morally, how to "test" moral judgments in terms of those experiences, and how best to revise our moral convictions in light of further experiences

InThe View from Nowhere, Thomas Nagel develops a theory of practical reasoning which attempts to give the personal, or subjective, point of view its due2 while still insisting on the objectivity of ethics.On the objective side, Nagel affirms that there are truths about values and reasons for action which are independent of the ways in which reasons and values appear to us, independent of our own particular beliefs and inclinations (p. 144). The objective foundation for these truths consists in a certain distinctive process of understanding. Objective understanding is explicated in terms of an objective standpoint, a standpoint defined as impersonal, that is, as detached from the subjective point of view. The objective standpoint is structured by a conception ‘of the world as centerless—as containing ourselves and other beings with particular points of view’ (p. 140). As with scientific reasoning, ‘we begin from our position inside the world and try to transcend it by regarding what we find here as a sample of the whole’ (p. 141).

This paper explores whether philosophy or women would benefit if women participated in philosophy in equal numbers to men. After reviewing the problem of women’s underrepresentation in professional philosophy, I identify some aspects of professional philosophy that seem relevant for explaining women’s low participation in the field. This includes a look at the way philosophical activity is portrayed in some introductory philosophy textbooks and a reminder of the adversarial style that is common throughout philosophy. Then I offer some reasons why it would be good to increase women’s numbers in the field. Among other things, philosophy involves reflecting critically on fundamental concepts both of everyday life and of specialized professions, and gender diversity enriches these endeavors.

Autonomy has risen in esteem, then fallen, only to rise again in recent theorizing about women in society and culture. In this paper, I further bolster the renewed feminist interest in autonomy. I characterize feminist social aspirations in terms of three very abstract goals and then argue that women’s individual autonomy promotes at least two of them in crucial ways. Women’s autonomy will improve the quality of the close personal relationships that pervade women’s traditional moral concems (the first goal) and it will enable women the better to resist traditional, gender-based constraints on their lives (the second goal). My conclusion is tempered, however, by the view that individual autonomy interferes to a significant degree with the solidarity and collective action by women needed to effect feminist social change (the third goal). In passing, I gesture toward a conception of autonomy as a certain kind of narrative of self-development.