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A Feminist Ethic and the New Romanticism Mothering as a Model of Moral Relations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Paul Lauritzen
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Abstract

This paper claims that recent attempts to draw on the maternal experiences of women in order to articulate an ethic of care and compassion is a new romanticism. Like earlier romantic views, it is both attractive and potentially dangerous. The paper examines the basic claims of this new romanticism in order to identify both its strengths and weaknesses. I conclude that there are at least two versions of this new romanticism, one that relies primarily on the experiences of child-bearing in grounding an ethic of care and compassion, and a second that relies primarily on child-rearing. I suggest that the former version of the new romanticism is deeply flawed because such a view ought to be unacceptable to women and will be inaccessible to men.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 4 , Issue 2: Special Issue: Feminist Ethics and Medicine , Summer 1989 , pp. 29 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by Hypatia, Inc.

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