Chapter 21 Summary

Self-interest and group bias are obstacles to appreciating others’ moral interests and rights. This realization has motivated many theorists to define a “moral self” that reflects the humanity common to us all. While an important goal, Calhoun argues that without adequate knowledge of how very different human interests, temperaments, lifestyles, and commitments may be as well as a knowledge of how those interests may be malformed as a result of power inequities, the self-interest and group bias we sought to eliminate may remerge in the “moral self” we construct. She further warns that philosophical methods used in assessing moral theories may themselves have nonlogical implications that must be considered. Unless moral theory shifts its priority to knowledgeable discussions of human differences—particularly differences tied to gender, race, class, and power—lists and rank orderings of basic human interests will be distorted and incomplete. Moreover, the political deployment of those lists will also likely be sexist, racist, and classist.

Calhoun denies that we can eliminate gender bias by seeking to eliminate bias in general. For we must appreciate the fact that philosophical reasoning is shaped by extra-philosophic factors, including the social location of the philosophic reasoner and his audience as well as the contours of the larger social world in which philosophic thought takes place. Calhoun concludes that it is naïve to suppose that a reflective, rational, but gender-insensitive critique of moral theory will have the happy outcome of eliminating gender bias. So long as we avoid incorporating gender categories among the tools for philosophical analysis, we will continue running the risks of importing gender bias into our philosophical reflection and of creating an ideology of the moral life.