Claudia Card

Beauvoir and biology: a second look

Among the many eminently quotable lines from the corpus of Sigmund Freud are those concerning his supposition about the response of the young girl when she first sees the penis of a sibling or playmate: “She makes her judgement and her decision in a flash. She has seen it and knows that she is without it and wants to have it.” Even if a generous reader were to grant Freud his contentious supposition, a question remains: what does the girl see, and judge, on a second, or a third, or even a fourth look? According to Simone de Beauvoir, Freuds judgment about the role anatomy plays in the formation of the psychic life of women is based on “a masculine model” and envy “could not arise from a simple anatomical comparison.” “[T]his outgrowth,” Beauvoir continues, “this weak little rod of flesh can in itself inspire [young girls] only with indifference, or even disgust. The little girls covetousness, when it exists, results from a previous evaluation of virility. Freud takes this for granted, when it should be accounted for.” Taking little for granted, Beauvoir argues that whether girls will judge the penis to be enviable, “insignificant, or even laughable” ( SS 300) will depend on its importance, its symbolic and social value “within the totality of their lives.” In any event, whatever attitude a girl may adopt, “it is wrong to assert that a biological datum is concerned” ( SS 307). Unlike Freud, Beauvoir endeavors to offer a comprehensive account of girls’ and women’s desires, attitudes, and judgments as these are formed within the totality of their always situated existences.

Women, Evil, and Grey Zones

Gray zones, which develop wherever oppression is severe and lasting, are inhabited by victims of evil who become complicit in perpetrating on others the evils that threaten to engulf themselves. Women, who have inhabited many gray zones, present challenges for feminist theorists, who have long struggled with how resistance is possible under coercive institutions. Building on Primo Levis reflections on the gray zone in Nazi death camps and ghettos, this essay argues that resistance is sometimes possible, although outsiders are rarely, if ever, in a position to judge when. It also raises questions about the adequacy of ordinary moral concepts to mark the distinctions that would be helpful for thinking about how to respond in a gray zone.

The Atrocity Paradigm Revisited

This essay reflects on issues raised by commentators regarding my book, The Atrocity Paradigm: A Theory of Evil (Oxford 2002). They are (1)Robin Schotts observation of the tension between my discussion of forgiveness and of castration fantasies; (2) Bat-Ami Bar Ons questions regarding whether evil is ethical, political, or both; (3) Adam Mortons queries regarding the relative seriousness of evils and injustices; and (4) María Pía Laras concerns regarding what is valuable in Kants ethics.

Stoicism, Evil, and the Possibility of Morality

Martha Nussbaums work has been characterized by a sustained critique of Stoic ethics, insofar as that ethics denies the validity and importance of our valuing things that elude our control. This essay explores the idea that the very possibility of morality, understood as social or interpersonal ethics, presupposes that we do value such things. If my argument is right, Stoic ethics is unable to recognize the validity of morality (so understood) but can at most acknowledge duties to oneself. A further implication is that moral luck, so far from undermining morality as some have held, is presupposed by the very possibility of morality.

REMOVING VEILS OF IGNORANCE1

For more than two millennia the development of philosophy in what is called the West has been the province of men who trace their intellectual heritage to (some) men in ancient Greece. Within “the development of philosophy” I include the training of philosophers as well as publishing and preserving philosophical work in libraries. Thus I regard philosophy as a very material as well as spiritual enterprise. My focus here is on the spiritual impact, actual and potential, of recent changes in the material base of philosophy and the material impact of recent changes in the spiritual focus of philosophers. Before the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions in the development of Western philosophy were its coming under the domination of Christian religious institutions and then its becoming relatively freed from such domination. Since the advent of the Twentieth Century, the most significant transitions may come from the increasing access to academic institutions of the middle and working classes, of people of color with histories of oppression by white societies, and of women from all classes and ethnic backgrounds—people who do not always or only trace their intellectual heritages to men of ancient Greece. What differences might these changes make to, and call for in, the development of philosophy? What I have thought about most are differences made by women and differences that have drawn in women to academic philosophy in Western democracies, such as the United States. Twentieth Century women in these contexts have published substantial bodies of philosophical inquiry with feminist agendas (both philosophy of feminism and philosophy manifesting feminist perspectives in ethics, epistemology, etc.). I want to comment on two features of such inquiry that often make it attractive to women less readily engaged by the traditions defined by privileged men. These features are holism and what I call “historical particularism.” I begin with “particularism.”