Feminists Critique on Aristotle’s Gender Perspective
Chapter One
PURPOSE OF THE STUDY
The courage for this topic came from two sources, the first is the personal experience of how people ignore women and regard them as inferior to men and a belief that it is important to seriously what people have said about women. Women are still in many places treated as non persons, inferior, second class citizens and weak gender. The second source was an increasing awareness of and interest in what seemed to be some central tensions in feminist thinking and in the relationship between these tension and philosophical theories.
I am to explore some of these tensions and in particular to look at these which centre on the idea of a specifically female philosophical perspective. Women have wanted autonomy and have appealed to philosophical theories to express this, but some women have also argued that many conceptions of autonomy are male defined. They have wanted equality with men and have fought against their exclusion from theories put forward by men and my journey in this topic is to make necessary effort to identify and discuss what seem to me to be central tension in feminist thinking and the way in which these have involved both a use and a critique of philosophical theories against gender equality.
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
THE TREATMENT OF FEMININE IN KANTIAN ETHICAL THEORY
KANT’S ETHICAL THEORY: AN APPRAISAL
The first point worth noting is that Kant’s Ethical theory has as it’s focus on the distinction of a moral action from a non-moral one. Kant’s approach to this issue is to distinguish between act done from duty and those done from inclination. For Kant, action done from duty are those from which the influence of inclination is completely absent. he says:
“Now an action done from duty must wholly exclude the influence of inclination and with it every object of the will as that nothing remains which can determine the will except objectively the law and subjectively pure respect for this practical law and consequently the maximum that is should follow this law even to the thwarting of all my inclination”3
Kant can be understood here as saying that the moral worth of an action depends on the motive of such action and doing one’s duty is doing something one is not willing to do but what one ought to do out of respect for the law. In stressing the important of duty. Peter Singer explains that duty is a practical unconditional necessity of action; it must therefore be applicable to all rational beings and only for that reason can it be a law for all human wills. On this score and concerning his extended view on desire, feelings and inclinations, feminists are generally strongly oppose to Kantian Ethics.
THE PLACE OF REASON IN KANTIAN ETHICAL THEORY
As translated by Abbott, Kant explains that the origin of all moral conception can be found in a priori reason and not in any empirical knowledge. Moral conceptions are worthy to serve as the supreme practical principle due to their purity in origin and any attempt to derive their origin from any factual source, will devalue the absolute value of action.
Kant went on to explain that a mixed ethics consisting of motives drawn from feelings and inclination and partly also of conceptions of reason often yields evil results and never yield good result except by accident. Reason as viewed by Kant determines the will independently of any subjective conditions which according to him, are obstacles to the fulfillment of duty. Reading Kant from a feminist perspective, one would see that he implicitly admits that emotion has no role to play in his moral theory.
KANT NEGLECT OF FEMALE
Lawrence, A. Blum whose work represents a major challenge to Kant’s ethical theory explains that Kant de-emphasizes virtues which can be called female while at the same time emphasizes these which can be called male. According to Blum, a morally admirable person in the Kantian sense must possess the following qualities.
CHAPTER THREE
ARISTOTLE ON GENDER PERSPECTIVE
ARISTOTLE ON BODY AND SOUL
In treating Aristotle body and soul, I will restrict myself to the living creature “man” which in the first place consists of the two concepts. Also it is according to nature that is to say, it is constant with the function or special mark of humanness that the body should be ruled by the soul. Greanshaw quoting Aristotle says.
“the living creature consists in the first place of mind and body and of these the former is ruler by nature the latter ruled…it is clear that it is both natural ad expedient for the body to be ruled by the soul, and for the emotional part of our nature to be ruled by the mind the part which possesses reason”12
For Aristotle, these two, the one is by nature the ruler and the other is the subject. Since he regards the soul as rational and the body as irrational, rational part being the superior should rule the irrational part which is the body. This comes out very clearly in his biology. In his biology he takes the body as matter and soul as form. Thus Aristotle believed that the female as pointed out by Greanshaw in his work supplied the ‘matter’ in conception, and he thought this to consist of the menstrual fluid. The male on the other hand supplied the ‘form’ or ‘soul’ through the emission of semen. He believed the male to be superior in possessing more ‘vital heat’ than female, semen, he thought was a ‘concoction’ of the blood which superior in all aspects though analogous to the menstrual fluid. Females were inferior because of their inability to concoct semen. Female embryos were inferior to male ones; for instance if a girl child is born, it was an indication of the inferiority of the state of the uterus.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE IDEOLOGY AND PHILOSOPHY OF FEMINISM
Historically, ideology was derived from the French word ‘ideologie. This was coined by the French liberal philosopher, Destutt de Tracy at the end of the 18th century. Casting it in the light of feminist perception of patriarchy, ideology can be seen as functional if it is the case that it seeks to legitimate an unjust social order.
CHAPTER FIVE
EVALUATION AND CONCLUSION
CRITICAL EVALUATION
Philosophers are generally known as great thinkers and wise persons, intellectuals who are highly perceptive of subtle matters. One, therefore, wonders why a good number of them are prejudiced, illogical in matters concerning women. In the words of the English critic and essayist, William Hazlitt, “prejudice is the child of ignorance” and for Voltaire “prejudice is the reason of fools”. Fallacies regarding the true nature of women are nothing short of the abuse of reason.
Meanwhile, there is a difference between the two sexes. This does not entail equality, to be equal does not signify identity, it is an ethical notion, it is a moral demand which is borne of the fact of the existence of difference. It is on this fact of differences that the notion of equality is found. Ben Jaloum says thus; “God created difference, man makes equality out of it”. Besides, equality cannot be any means by the basis of the global superiority and inferiority of one sex. Human gender does not exist outside the double form of masculine and feminine.
In this issue of supremacy of men over women cannot be taking as an authentic notion, because, if I may ask, what is the universally accepted parameter for measuring the superiority and inferiority of gender? Throughout my research and investigations, I could not find any. Some claim in line with Emmanuel Kant that women are irrational and emotional, while men are rational. But how can a male child nurtured by a woman be rational and the woman herself irrational, this is quite illogical, because no one gives what he does not have, therefore women are rational. Following this assertion, grading women to irrational is quite enough to degrade human dignity to the level of lower animals. Again, that all women are emotional is committing fallacy of overgeneralization because, looking at some men critically, you can find out that some men are by nature emotional more than women. Then, can those men be called women? Therefore, you cannot use emotional feelings to argue the superiority and inferiority of gender because they are emotionally equal.
Furthermore, from the earliest time, men have used intellectual justification to perpetuate the male supremacy over women. But presently, a lot of women have attained to that level of intellectual pursuit like men, working as lecturers, Vice-Chancellors, Medical Doctors, Lawyers, Philosophers and other professions. Therefore, men cannot claim superiority by intellectual capacity because the extent a man reaches in education, women can reach there equally.
Nevertheless, men constitute themselves into the centre and measure of all things, by this executive ‘fiat’; he becomes self imposed superiority over every being including women. But women are not good enough when they are not intellectually and physically tough-like man, but on the other hand, men are not considered inferior when he lacks the potentiality to get pregnant or even when they are not patient, caring and compassionate enough like women, what an inconsistency. Also, looking this gender supremacy from the point of view of procreation, you can observe that women take upperhand in procreation because, she is the one that carry the pregnancy and bear the child even take upperhand in child rearing, one can conclude that women are superior to men, but the main point here is that both gender are complementary because “men exhibits semen to fertilize the egg released by a women. Therefore, no gender should claim to the other superior.
Meanwhile, the central problem in feminist thinking to fight for inclusion of women in the affairs of men or equality with men is the contradictions and different historical forms those have taken, these is due to the background of differences in female experience. Because, the western feminists cannot have the same theory with the African feminist because, women in Africa participate freely in the public spheres of life than western women. That not withstanding the main aim of this work is to destroy the universal notion that men are superior and women are inferior.
CONCLUSION
The central task of philosophers is to conscientize layman, supplant prejudice and coercion, replacing them with genuine knowledge and logical arguments. From evaluation, women are equal with biological difference, and it is this biological differences that philosophers like Aristotle and prejudiced men misinterpreted as inequality. In actual sense, both gender are dependent of each other. Men are completion of women and women are completion of men. Also if their different qualities are combined there will be peaceful co-existence in the society, as they are dependent of each other, so also their respective qualities are also dependent on one another.
Finally, equality of genders entails each performing their duties at the same levels be it in public spheres like in politics or state, economy and in place like family without prejudiced minds or marginalization.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
- ARISTOTLE, The complete works of Aristotle, Chicago: The Great Book of the Western, William Benton publication, 1982.
- DAWTEINS, R. The Selfish Gene, London: The Women Press, 1975.
- DWORKIN, A. Pornography, Men Possessing Women, New York: The Women’s press London, Perigree Books, 1981.
- ECA-WIDNET, Violence, Against women, Trainers manual, Nairobi Kenya: Pauline publication, 1997.
- ECA-WIDNET, Women and Justice; Resource Book, Nairobi: Pauline Publication, 2002.
- FABUSI, L. Sexuality and Women in African Culture, Ghana: Orbis Book, 1992.
- GRIMSHAW, J. Feminist Philosopher; Women Perspectives on Philosophical Tradition, Britain: Wheat Sheat Book Ltd, 1986.