Deborah Heikes

In The Virtue of Feminist Rationality the author develops a specifically feminist account of rationality, an account which treats reason as a virtue concept. Contrary to some feminists claims that reason is inherently and irredeemably masculine, Heikes argues that the coherence of feminism demands a rational ground and that feminists must be willing to challenge the masculine connotations that have been historically linked to reason. While acknowledging contemporary philosophy’s vehement rejections of Enlightenment accounts of rationality, the author develops an understanding of rationality that relies on premodern roots that circumscribe the concept much less narrowly. As Heikes argues, a virtue account of rationality not only rejects many of what feminists hold to the be most objectionable aspects of philosophical accounts of reason, it is also capable of bridging the divide between several deeply ingrained philosophical dichotomies. Because philosophical dichotomies become most deeply polarized and entrenched during the modern era, the undermining of modern assumptions concerning reason and rationality also undermines the polarizing thinking that has defined rationality for the past several centuries.

The bias paradox emerges out of a tension between objectivism and relativism.If one rejects a certain the conception objectivity as absolute impartiality and value-neutrality (i.e., if all views are biased), how, then, can one hold that some epistemic perspectives are better than others? This is a problem that has been most explicitly dealt with in feminist epistemology, but it is not unique to feminist perspectives. In this paper, I wish to clearly lay out the nature of the paradox and the various attempts to avoid it. I also intend to show why it is a problem for any epistemological view that rejects absolute objectivity. Finally, I wish to briefly outline a possible solution to the paradox, a solution that requires recognizing that rationality necessarily requires both objective and subjective elements.

The history of philosophy is in many ways a history of how we understand rationality. However, philosophers have historically adopted a fairly narrow approach toward rationality, focusing almost exclusively on issues of structure and the justification of beliefs. In this essay, I argue that considerations of reflective equilibrium should lead philosophers to take into account the empirical features of rationality. After all, our philosophical understanding of rationality must ultimately reflect these features or risk failure. I consider what specific lessons philosophers might take from anthropology and psychology. Anthropology highlights cultural features of rationality which philosophers have tended to overlook, while psychology indicates that philosophers may be correct in emphasizing the importance of the self. Including such wider empirical considerations in their reflections, philosophers are forced to consider our more ordinary use of the concept of rationality, which often looks far different and requires a broader characterization than philosophical analysis allows. Shifting the focus in these ways allows us to re-focus what questions philosophy can ask about the nature of rationality.

Although feminists have spilled a great deal of ink criticizing Enlightenment conceptions of rationality, the time has come to consider constructing a positive account. Recent attempts to construct an account of rationality as a virtue concept reflect many feminist complaints concerning Enlightenment rationality, and, thus, I maintain that feminism should take seriously such a conception. Virtue rationality offers a more diverse account of rationality without sacrificing the fundamental normativity of the concept. Furthermore, the narrower concept of reasonableness, promises to provide a ground for distinguishing among better and worse epistemic perspectives, which is a task critical to the success of the feminist project.