Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics [Paperback]

Margaret Urban Walker (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 1997 | ISBN-10: 0415914213 | ISBN-13: 978-0415914215

This work perceives morality as practices of responsibility that express our identities, values and connections to others. Margaret Urban Walker argues for an informed and politically critical ethics that reveals, rather than ignores or conceals, the moral significance of social differences. This book challenges the sometimes uncritical assumptions about what we are in a position to know and whom we are in a position to speak for.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Walker's book challenges all of us to reflect on how ethics are inextricably connected to psychology, sociology, history adn anthropology. Her book would... be especially appropriate for upper-level moral or feminist philosophy classes where nontraditional approaches to ethics are emphasized.
–Marcia L. Homiak, Signs, Spring 2001

Walker provides a devastating critique of the gender, race, class, and other biases endemic to the theoretical-juridical model assumed in most nonfeminist ethics. Her own expressive-collaborative ethics of responsibility offers a persuasive alternative not only to the theoretical-juridical model but also to the ethics of care as that has been construed in many feminist discussions. Presenting feminist ethics in a somewhat unexpected light, this profound and original book reaches new levels of theoretical insight and moral understanding..
–Alison M. Jaggar, University of Colorado, Boulder --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Margaret Urban Walker is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. She has written numerous articles for journals, including Ethics, Hypatia and The Journal of Value Inquiry.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Routledge (October 31, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0415914213
• ISBN-13: 978-0415914215
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,654,671 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extending ethical horizons, June 7, 2001

By 

TREVOR JORDAN (Brisbane, QLD Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (Paperback)

In Moral Understandings, Margaret Urban Walker not only powerfully argues the case for a feminist ethics of responsibility, but in so doing extends the implications beyond feminism. Viewing moral responsibility from various socially and culturally situated contexts seems common sense enough to all, accept those who imagine themselves to be in some transcendent position, epistemologically speaking.

What I get from reading Walker is not the idea that we should be reading off ethics from these various positions in the sense of doing the usual (traditional) ethics from many vantage points. That would be relativism. Rather, it seems to me that Walker is arguing that we should be responding from these positions. For Walker, moral responsibility is more an expressive and collaborative exercise than the traditional theoretical activity which focuses only on decision-making. It is this practice of responsibility that maintains the other-directedness of ethics embedded in social and cultural context.

For me, the most surprising aspect of Walker's book has been that so many of my applied ethics research students have found it useful in grounding their work in fields as diverse as disability, vulnerable identities, nursing ethics, GM foods, biotechnology, welfare ethics, and community development.

2 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Soggy relativism, February 25, 2000

By 

george todd (denver,colorado) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics (Paperback)

The book rehashes ethical relativism. It tries to bring in some trendy takes on power, feminism, and Foucauld, but it just commits the relativistic fallacy over and over. Author seems unaware of logical contradictions.