Care Ethics and the Feminist Personalism of Edith Stein
Abstract
:1. Introduction
2. Care Ethics
2.1. Revaluing Care as a Core Human Practice
2.2. Identifying a Different Voice in Ethics
2.3. Care as a Political Concept
3. Edith Stein’s Feminist Personalism
3.1. Stein’s Personalist Ethics
3.2. Stein’s Feminism
4. Conclusions: Overlaps and Differences
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
1 | Ruddick quotes in an affirmative tone Chodorow’s claim that “we cannot know what children would make of their bodies in a nongender or nonsexually organized social world. … It is not obvious that there would be major significance to biological sex differences, to gender difference or to different sexualities” [18] (p. 66, cited in [17] p. 364). |
2 | Robinson [19] similarly concludes that “contrary to the arguments of some critics, Ruddick’s work neither upholds gender roles nor idealizes the values and activities of mothering. On the contrary, Ruddick’s philosophy politicizes motherhood and draws our attention to the ambivalent relationship that mothers have with the societies in which they live” [19] (p. 106). |
3 | I certainly do not suggest that care ethicists in general refused to view care as an essentially feminine practice. There can be no doubt that several care theorists have proposed accounts of caring built on an essentialist account of sexual difference and defined care ethics as a distinctive “feminine approach to ethics” [14]. Yet, most of the feminist care theorists, including those of the first generation, have opposed such a view and sought to dissociate care ethics from any essentialism, cf. [21,22,23]. I think it’s plausible to argue that the latter approach has been decisive for further formation and development of feminist ethics of care. |
4 | |
5 | Soon after she had published her 1982 book, Gilligan herself made it clear that this was a very limited interpretation of her research—cf. [26]. |
6 | Virginia Held’s valuable work represents a parallel attempt to construct a full-blown feminist moral theory as an alternative to dominant moral and social theories. Held’s approach, in contrast to Tronto and Fisher [23], foregrounds mothering as the paradigm caring practice. |
7 | Personalism emphasizes the centrality of the person as the primary locus of inquiry for philosophical, theological, and humanistic investigation. Humans are considered the ultimate explanatory epistemological and ontological principle of reality. Personalism has a variety of manifestations but phenomenology is closely associated with it. |
8 | Haney speaks of Stein’s “gradual identification of her early personalism with feminism” [1] (p. 451). |
9 | In this paper, I mostly offer a thorough modification of the available English translation. For an apt comment on the inaccuracy of Oben’s translation of Die Frau, see [38] (p. 326; 335, fn. 16 and 17). |
10 | Cf. “her [woman’s] strength lies in her intuitive grasp of the concrete and the living, especially of the personal. She has the gift of adapting herself to the inner life of others, to their goal orientation and working methods. Feelings are central to her as the faculty which grasps concrete being in its unique nature and specific value; and it is through feeling that she expresses her attitude. She desires to bring humanity in its specific and individual character in herself and in others to the most perfect development possible” [33] (p. 188). |
References
- Haney, K. Edith Stein: Woman and Essence. In Feminist Phenomenology; Fisher, L., Embree, L., Eds.; Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2000; pp. 213–235. [Google Scholar]
- Brenner, R.F. Edith Stein: A Reading of Her Feminist Thought. In Contemplating Edith Stein; Berkman, J.A., Ed.; University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, IN, USA, 2006; pp. 212–225. [Google Scholar]
- Borden, S. Edith Stein; Continuum: New York, NY, USA, 2003. [Google Scholar]
- Gachenga, E. Stein’s Ethic of Care: An Alternative Perspective to Reflections on Women Lawyering. In Alternative Perspectives on Lawyers and Legal Ethics: Reimagining the Profession; Mortensen, R., Bartlett, F., Tranter, K., Eds.; Routledge: London, UK, 2010; pp. 151–168. [Google Scholar]
- Calcagno, A. The Philosophy of Edith Stein; Duquesne University Press: Pittsburgh, PA, USA, 2007. [Google Scholar]
- Rose, H. Hand, Brain, and Heart: A Feminist Epistemology for the Natural Sciences. Sings J. Women Cult. Soc. 1983, 1, 73–90. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Ungerson, C. Why Do Women Care? In A Labour of Love: Women, Work and Caring; Finch, J., Groves, D., Eds.; Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, UK, 1983; pp. 31–49. [Google Scholar]
- Graham, H. Caring: A Labour of Love. In A Labour of Love: Women, Work and Caring; Finch, J., Groves, D., Eds.; Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, UK, 1983; pp. 13–30. [Google Scholar]
- Waerness, K. Caring as Women’s Work in the Welfare State. In Patriarchy in a Welfare Society; Holter, H., Ed.; Universitetsforlaget: Oslo, Norway, 1984; pp. 67–87. [Google Scholar]
- Finch, J.; Groves, D. (Eds.) A Labour of Love: Women, Work and Caring; Routledge and Kegan Paul: London, UK, 1983. [Google Scholar]
- Finch, J. Community Care: Developing Non-sexist Alternatives. Crit. Soc. Policy 1984, 9, 6–18. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Parker, G. With Due Care and Attention: A Review of Research on Informal Care; Family Policy Studies Centre: London, UK, 1985. [Google Scholar]
- Hartsock, N. The Feminist Standpoint: Developing the Ground for a Specifically Feminist Historical Materialism. In Discovering Reality: Feminist Perspectives on Epistemology, Metaphysics, Methodology, and Philosophy of Science; Harding, S., Hintikka, M.B., Eds.; Kluwer Academic Publishers: New York, NY, USA, 1984; pp. 283–310. [Google Scholar]
- Noddings, N. Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education; University of California Press: Berkeley, CA, USA, 1984. [Google Scholar]
- Held, V. The Obligations of Mothers and Fathers. In Mothering: Essays in Feminist Theory; Treblicot, J., Ed.; Rowman and Allanheld: Totowa, NJ, USA, 1983; pp. 9–20. [Google Scholar]
- Gilligan, C. In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development, 38th ed.; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 2003. [Google Scholar]
- Ruddick, S. Maternal Thinking. Fem. Stud. 1980, 2, 342–367. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Chodorow, N. Feminism and Difference: Gender, Relation, and Difference in Psychoanalytic Perspective. Soc. Rev. 1979, 46, 42–64. [Google Scholar]
- Robinson, F. Discourses of Motherhood and Women’s Health: Maternal Thinking as Feminist Politics. J. Int. Political Theory 2014, 1, 94–108. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Bartky, S.L. Toward a Phenomenology of Feminist Consciousness. Soc. Theory Pract. 1975, 3, 425–439. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Tronto, C.J. Beyond Gender Difference to a Theory of Care. Signs J. Women Cult. Soc. 1987, 4, 644–663. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Ruddick, S. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace; Beacon Press: Boston, MA, USA, 1989. [Google Scholar]
- Fisher, B.; Tronto, C.J. Toward a Feminist Theory of Caring. In Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women’s Lives; Abel, E.K., Nelson, M.K., Eds.; SUNY Press: Albany, NY, USA, 1990; pp. 35–62. [Google Scholar]
- Gilligan, C.; Richards, D.A.J. The Deepening Darkness: Patriarchy, Resistance, and Democracy’s Future; Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK, 2009. [Google Scholar]
- McLean Taylor, J.; Gilligan, C.; Sullivan, A.M. Between Voice and Silence: Women and Girls, Race and Relationship; Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA, USA, 1995. [Google Scholar]
- Gilligan, C. Reply (to the Critics). Signs J. Women Cult. Soc. 1986, 2, 324–333. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Tronto, C.J. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care; Routledge: London, UK, 1993. [Google Scholar]
- Tronto, C.J. Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice; New York University Press: New York, NY, USA, 2013. [Google Scholar]
- Tullius, W.E. Person in Community, Repentance, and Historical Meaning: From an Individual to a Social Ethics in Stein’s Early Phenomenological Treatises. In Ethics and Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Edith Stein: Applications and Implications; Andrews, M.F., Calcagno, A., Eds.; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2022; pp. 73–87. [Google Scholar]
- Kueter Petersen, M. Love Divined: Discerning a Contemplative Ethic in the Philosophy of Edith Stein. In Ethics and Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Edith Stein: Applications and Implications; Andrews, M.F., Calcagno, A., Eds.; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2022; pp. 55–71. [Google Scholar]
- Hamington, M. Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Feminist Ethics; University of Illinois Press: Urbana, IL, USA, 2004. [Google Scholar]
- Monjaraz Fuentes, P. Ontology and Relational Ethics in Edith Stein’s Thought. In Ethics and Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Edith Stein: Applications and Implications; Andrews, M.F., Calcagno, A., Eds.; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2022; pp. 201–209. [Google Scholar]
- Stein, E. Essays on Woman, 2nd ed.; Oben, F.M., Translator; ICS Publications: Washington, DC, USA, 1996. [Google Scholar]
- Svenaeus, F. Edith Stein’s Phenomenology of Sensual and Emotional Empathy. Phenomenol. Cogn. Sci. 2018, 17, 741–760. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef] [Green Version]
- Andrews, M.F. Edith Stein’s Understanding of the Personal Attitude: Applications and Implications for a New Ethics. In Ethics and Metaphysics in the Philosophy of Edith Stein: Applications and Implications; Andrews, M.F., Calcagno, A., Eds.; Springer: Cham, Switzerland, 2022; pp. 225–239. [Google Scholar]
- Stein, E. Philosophy of Psychology and the Humanities; Baseheart, M.C., Sawicki, M., Eds.; ICS Publications: Washington, DC, USA, 2000. [Google Scholar]
- Stein, E. Selbstbildnis in Briefen I (1916–1933), 3rd ed.; Verlag Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, 2000. [Google Scholar]
- Borden, S. Review of Literature in English on Edith Stein. In Contemplating Edith Stein; Berkman, J.A., Ed.; University of Notre Dame Press: Notre Dame, IN, USA, 2006. [Google Scholar]
- Stein, E. Die Frau; Verlag Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, 2000. [Google Scholar]
- Haney, K.; Valiquette, J. Edith Stein: Woman as Ethical Type. In Phenomenological Approaches to Moral Philosophy: A Handbook; Drummond, J.J., Embree, L., Eds.; Springer: Dordrecht, The Netherlands, 2002; pp. 451–473. [Google Scholar]
- Ales Bello, A. Dual Anthropology as the Imago Dei in Edith Stein. Open Theol. 2019, 5, 95–106. [Google Scholar] [CrossRef]
- Urban, P. Edith Stein’s Phenomenology of Woman’s Personality and Value. In ‘Alles Wesentliche Lässt Sich Nicht Schreiben’: Leben und Denken Edith Steins im Spiegel Ihres Gesamtwerks; Regh, S., Speer, A., Eds.; Verlag Herder: Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, 2016; pp. 538–555. [Google Scholar]
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. |
© 2022 by the author. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Share and Cite
Urban, P. Care Ethics and the Feminist Personalism of Edith Stein. Philosophies 2022, 7, 60. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7030060
Urban P. Care Ethics and the Feminist Personalism of Edith Stein. Philosophies. 2022; 7(3):60. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7030060
Chicago/Turabian StyleUrban, Petr. 2022. "Care Ethics and the Feminist Personalism of Edith Stein" Philosophies 7, no. 3: 60. https://doi.org/10.3390/philosophies7030060