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Fri Mar 31 17:19:13 2006 |
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======================== HES POSTING ==================
On Mon, 20 Oct 1997, Ross B. Emmett wrote:
>
> I expect the gendered aspect of the term "utility" and "utilitarianism"
> emerges from the the link that Cumberland expresses most clearly between
> utility and rational beings. The Western philosophical tradition never
> considered women rational beings, and hence they could not be expected to
> engage in the "moral arithmetic" of utility maximization.
This is extraordinarily overstated. (And the preceding sentence is a
rather extreme understatement.) One could by way of a refutation begin
with Plato's Republic in which the philosopher-king job is also open to
would-be queens and work one's way through the remainder of the tradition.
Indeed, I can't think of any noteworthy philosopher who restricted the
title "rational animal" only to males.
That isn't, of course, to maintain that the rationality of women was held
to be identical to or at the same level of activity as that of men.
Loren Lomasky
Philosophy Department
Bowling Green State University
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