Document Type : Research Paper

Author

• Maryam Nasr Esfahani Nasr Esfahani

Abstract

Ethics as one of the major branches of philosophy from Plato and Aristotle till recent time, theorising by male philosophers and for male audiences, In recent decades some women philosophers starting to think and write about moral issues. Some of them gave new life to virtue ethics; some of them produce ethics of care; some, like radical feminists, spoke of ethics of love and so on. Although all these thinkers do not belong to the same school of thought, but similar voices heard through their writings which are different from mainstream moral philosophy. In this article we are going to evaluate this common voices and show that these philosophers, affected by their experiences as women, demanding for recognition of emotions and human relation in ethics. By this recognition, the meaning of autonomy has been challenged and the borders of a moral agent will be changed from inside and outside. The moral agent will be responsible for mental and internal states of her/himself as well as objective acts of self. Furthermore, moral responsibility to particular others became important. Gender insights in ethics do not look for separation all the time, vice versa some women philosopher, like Annette Bayer and Virginia Held, looking for unity and improvement which we examine their idea in this article

Keywords

• Gender
• Ethics
• moral agent
• emotions
• relational autonomy
• women in ethics