Virginia Held | on Feminist Ethics

Virginia Held | On Feminist Ethics
Held lays out the consequences of centuries of creating ethical theory purely from a male point of view. The most important is that a feminist ethics cannot simply add to a structure built of concepts that are themselves based on a patriarchal view of the masculine and feminine but rather must transform ethics completely. She focuses on three main issues: (i) that of equating reason with males and emotion with females; (ii) associating the public arena with men and the private, household arena with women; and (iii) creating a caricature of the moral self that is exclusive to males.
-While feminist philosophers agree on the need for ethical theories that do not devalue the lives and experiences of women, not all agree on whether

A) women are moral agents.
B) men are moral agents.
C) professionals are moral agents.
D) a distinct set of "feminine virtues" exists.