Peggy DesAutels

As the initial book in the Feminist Constructions series, Feminists Doing Ethics broaches the ideas of critiquing social practice and developing an ethics of universal justness. The essays collected within explore the intricacies and impact of reasoned moral action, the virtues of character, and the empowering responsibility that comes with morality. These and other essays were taken from Feminist Ethics Revisited: An International Conference on Feminist Ethics held in October of 1999. Waugh and DesAutels bring to light in these pages work discussed at this conference that extends our understanding of morality and ourselves. Visit our website for sample chapters!

Kinds of minds, Daniel Dennett. New York: Basic Books, 1996. ISBN 0–465–07350–6Darwin's dangerous idea: evolution and the meanings of life, Daniel C. Dennett. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. ISBN 0–684–80290–2The cognitive neurosciences, Michael S. Gazzaniga (Ed.) Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0–262–07157–6Lessons from an optical illusion: on nature and nurture, knowledge and values, Edward M. Hundert. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1995. ISBN 0–674–52540‐XWittgenstein on mind and language, David G. Stern, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. ISBN 0–19–508000–9Ten problems of consciousness: a representational theory of the phenomenal mind, Michael Tye. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN: 0–262–20103–8Android epistemology, K.M. Ford, C. Glymour & P.J. Hayes (Eds). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995. ISBN 0–262–06184–8Autonomous agents, Alfred R. Mele. Oxford University Press, 1995.

In this paper I argue that because Churchland does not adequately address the distinction between high-level cognitive theories and low-level embodied theories, Churchland's claims for theory-laden perception lose their epistemological significance. I propose that Churchland and others debating the theory-ladenness of perception should distinguish carefully between two main ways in which perception is plastic: through modifying our high-level theories directly and through modifying our low-level theories using training experiences. This will require them to attend to two very different types of constraints on the modification of our perceptions.

In this dissertation, I draw on recent attempts by philosophers of mind, psychologists, neurologists, and computer scientists to better understand the mind. I argue that the findings from this interdisciplinary discussion of the mind should inform discussions in ethics. More specifically, I argue that evidence for the pervasiveness of perception-like mental processes in determining moral saliencies of particular situations should be used as a basis for reshaping ethical theory. ;As I use the term, moral perceiving encompasses determining if a particular situation does or does not call for a moral response, and determining the moral saliencies of those situations which do call for a moral response. I describe moral perception as a determination arrived at using sensory data and our theories--either our high-level articulable theories or our low-level embodied theories or a complex combination of both. ;A main thesis is that much of our day-to-day moral mental life incorporates perception-like mental processes. I argue that the perceiving of moral saliencies in particular situations incorporates the deployment of holistic context-dependent mental structures and that gestalt-like shifts in our moral perceptions occur when we deploy distinctly different holistic structures. I maintain that whenever we experience gestalt shifts, we can also be viewed as shifting from the deployment of one embodied theory to the deployment of a different embodied theory. I further stress that in certain highly time-constrained moral perceptions we exclusively deploy embodied theories--theories that are not directly penetrable by articulable moral rules or principles

Discussions in neuroethics to date have ignored an ever-increasing neuroscientific lilterature on sex differences in brains. If, indeed, there are significant differences in the brains of men versus women and in the brains of boys versus girls, the ethical and social implications loom very large. I argue that recent neuroscientific findings on sex-based brain differences have significant implications for theories of morality and for our understandings of the neuroscience of moral cognition and behavior

This transdisciplinary study will examine how the narration of self, motivation, and eudaimonic virtues like wisdom and compassion develop within a social ecology of family master narratives and social institutions that either foster or constrain the development of such virtues. Drawing from a larger, longitudinal study of character development and life stories in adulthood, we will interview individuals and their families about virtue-relevant events in life, such as conflicts of belief, virtue-focused projects and activities, and self- and family-defining memories. Narratives will be analyzed qualitatively and critically as well as quantitatively and in relation to other measures of eudaimonic and personal development. We expect that specific virtues will serve as motivational themes in personal and family stories and that these narrative themes will predict specific paths of virtuous self-development. We further expect that specific inequalities in family and social-institutional contexts will correspond to specific conflicts in the development of eudaimonic qualities in individuals’ lives.

Normative ethical theory should provide us with guidance for how to live moral lives in a world filled with inequity and abuse of power. In this essay, I address ways that features of resisting organizational power do and do not overlap with features of resisting oppression more generally. I examine the potential for moral damage to individuals who resist organizational power, and argue that the traits necessary for successful whistleblowing are similar to what Lisa Tessman refers to as ‘burdened virtues’—they are necessary to successfully resisting organizational power, but ‘costly to the selves who bear them.’ I conclude by offering a preliminary sketch of the traits of a virtuous resister.