A Feminist Perspective on Virtue Ethics

by Berges, Sandrine

• ISBN13: 9781137026637
• ISBN10: 1137026634
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2015-03-10
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Summary

The writings of women philosophers have often been neglected in the discipline of virtue ethics. In this historical survey of feminist virtue ethics, Sandrine Berges redresses the balance by focusing on key writings of important women philosophers, including Perictione, Heloise, Christine de Pizan, Mary Wollstonecraft and Sophie de Grouchy. A Feminist Perspective on Virtue Ethics first applies the findings of its historical survey to questions on the ethics of care, gender and the public life, and global justice. In what follows, it is argued that the ethical theorizing of women in the past can and should be brought to bear on current philosophical debates.

Author Biography

Sandrine Berges is a feminist philosopher currently working at Bilkent University, in Ankara, Turkey. She has published a guidebook to Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, as well as various other pieces on the feminist history of philosophy and ancient virtue ethics.

Table of Contents

Introduction – A Historical Perspective on Women's Ethical Experience, Care and Virtue Ethics
1. Origins Revisited: on the Mother's Side 
2.  Stoic Virtues, Christian Caritas, and the Communal Life
3. The Paradox of the Virtuous Woman in Christine de Pizan's Fortress, and in XVth Century Public Life 
4. Revolutionary Mothers, or Virtue in the Age of Enlightenment 
5. Care as Virtue 
6. Care, Gender and the Public Life 
7. Care and Global Justice
8. Looking Back and the Way Ahead