Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T21:14:31.560Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Feminist and Medical Ethics: Two Different Approaches to Contextual Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Susan Sherwin
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Feminist ethics and medical ethics are critical of contemporary moral theory in several similar respects. There is a shared sense of frustration with, the level of abstraction and generality that characterizes traditional philosophic work in ethics and a common commitment to including contextual details and allowing room for the personal aspects of relationships in ethical analysis. This paper explores the ways in which context is appealed to in feminist and medical ethics, the sort of details that should be included in the recommended narrative approaches to ethical problems, and the difference it makes to our ethical deliberations if we add an explicitly feminist political analysis to our discussion of context. It is claimed that an analysis of gender is needed for feminist medical ethics and that this requires a certain degree of generality, i. e. a political understanding of context.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 4 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Feminist Ethics and Medicine , Summer 1989 , pp. 57 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baier, Annette. 1985. Postures of the mind: Essays on mind and morals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Baier, Annette. 1986. Trust and antitrust. Ethics 96: 231–260.10.1086/292745CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baier, Annette. 1987. The need for more than justice. In Science, morality and feminist theory. Hanen, Marsha and Nielsen, Kai eds., Canadian journal of Philosophy (supplementary volume 13).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bayles, Michael. 1981. Professional ethics. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Co.Google Scholar
Caplan, Arthur. 1980. Ethical engineers need not apply: The state of applied ethics today. Science, Technology, and Human Values 6 (33): 24–32.10.1177/016224398000500403CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christie, Ronald J. and Barry Hoffmaster, C. 1986. Ethical issues in family medicine. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 1987. Second persons. In Science, morality and feminist the‐ory. Hanen, Marsha and Nielson, Kai eds., Canadian Journal of Philosophy (supplementary volume) 13.Google Scholar
Ehrenreich, Barbara and English, Deirdre. 1979. For her own good: 150 years of the experts' advice to women. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press, Doubleday.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Engelhardt, H. Tristram Jr. 1986. The foundations of bioethics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's development. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gorovitz, Samuel. 1982. Doctors' dilemmas: Moral conflict and medical care. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hanen, Marsha Hanen and Nielsen, Kai eds., 1987. Science, morality, and feminist theory. Canadian Journal of Philosophy (supplementary volume) 13.Google Scholar
Held, Virginia. 1987. Non‐contractual society. In Science, morality and feminist theory. Hanen, Marsha and Nielsen, Kai eds., Canadian Journal of Philosophy (supplementary volume) 13.Google Scholar
Held, Virginia. 1984. Rights and goods: Justifying social action. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Houston, Barbara. 1987. Reclaiming moral virtues: Some dangers of moral reclamation. In Science, morality, and feminist theory. Hanen, Marsha and Nielsen, Kai eds., Canadian Journal of Philosophy (supplementary volume) 13.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder and Meyers, Diana T. eds., 1987. Women and moral theory. Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Morgan, Kathryn. 1987. Women and moral madness. In Science, morality, and feminist theory. Hanen, Marsha and Nielsen, Kai eds., Canadian Journal of Philosophy (supplementary volume) 13.Google Scholar
Noddings, Nel. 1984. Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Raymond, Janice. 1986. A passion for friends: Towards a philosophy of female affection. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Ruddick, Sara. 1980. Maternal thinking. Feminist Studies 6 (2): 342–367.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scheman, Naomi. 1983. Individualism and the objects of psychology. In Discovering reality: Feminist perspectives on epistemology, metaphysics, method‐ology, and philosophy of science. Harding, Sandra and Hintikka, Merrill eds., Dordrecht, Holland: D. Reidel Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Sherwin, Susan. 1984. A feminist approach to ethics. Dalhousie Review 64 (4): 704–713.Google Scholar
Sherwin, Susan. 1987. Feminist ethics and in vitro fertilization. In Science, morality and feminist theory. Hanen, Marsha and Nielsen, Kai eds., Canadian Journal of Philosophy (supplementary volume) 13.Google Scholar
Stark, Evan, Flitcraft, Anne, and Fraxier, William. 1983. Medicine and patriarchal violence: The social construction of a “private” event. In Women and health: The politics of sex in medicine. Fee, Elizabeth ed., Farmingdale, N.Y.: Baywood Publishing Company.Google Scholar
Stocker, Michael. 1987. Duty and friendship: Towards a synthesis of Gilligan's contrastive moral concepts. In Women and moral theory. Kittay, Eva Feder and Meyers, Diana T. eds., Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Thomson, Judith Jarvis. 1971. A defense of abortion. Philosophy and Public Affairs 1 (1): 47–66.Google Scholar
Veatch, Robert M. 1972. Models for ethical medicine in a revolutionary age. Hastings Center Report 2 (3): 5–7.10.2307/3560825CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitbeck, Caroline. 1984. A different reality: Feminist ontology. In Beyond domination: New perspectives on women and phibsophy. Gould, Carol C., ed. Totowa N. J.: Rowman & Allenheld.Google Scholar
Wilson, Leslie. 1988. Is a “feminine” ethics enough? Atlantis 5 (17): 15–23.Google Scholar