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Beauvoir and the Question of Moral Agency
Unformatted Document Text:  1 Woman, Gender, Ethics: Beauvoir and the Question of Moral Agency “ Not accepting logical principles and moral imperatives, sceptical about the laws of nature, woman lacks the sense of the universal; to her the world seems a confused conglomeration of special cases.” (Beauvoir, The Second Sex: 627) Feminist Ethics and the Moral Subject I come to Beauvoir’s work with a particular agenda. I am interested in the possibility of articulating a feminist ethics that avoids the twin temptations of, to use Hegelian language, the ‘slave of law’ or the ‘beautiful soul’ as the key to understanding the possibilities of moral agency and moral judgment. 1 The ‘slave of law’ is the way in which Hegel refers to the Kantian moral subject, for whom moral authority derives from the detachment of judgment from particularity and for whom moral agency and action are forms of overcoming in which a universally rational will makes its mark over against natural particularity. The slave of law is a moral subject because of the epistemic privilege granted to him by his capacity to identify with the ‘view from nowhere’, which is the view from pure reason, the moral law accessible by any rational being, without bias or distortion. The ‘beautiful soul’ is the Romantic alternative to the slave of law, not through reason but through pure intuition or feeling, the beautiful soul knows what is right and its purity of particular will both defines moral agency and authoritatively identifies specific action as moral. The beautiful soul is a moral subject because of the epistemic privilege granted to her by her ‘view from somewhere’, but this is a ‘somewhere’ which is achieved by her specific virtue and detachment from external influence. The beautiful soul knows what is 1 These are terms which Hegel introduces in his early writings (Hegel, 1948). In his discussions of modern conceptions of morality in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the ‘slave of law’ reappears in the form of ‘Moral Self-consciousness (Hegel, 1977: 364-383), and the ‘beautiful soul’ in the discussion of conscience (Hegel, 1977: 383-409). The section of the Phenomenology in which these forms of moral subjectivity are discussed is entitled: ‘Spirit that is Certain of Itself. Morality’.

Authors: Hutchings, Kimberly.
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Woman, Gender, Ethics: Beauvoir and the Question of Moral Agency
“ Not accepting logical principles and moral imperatives, sceptical about the laws of nature,
woman lacks the sense of the universal; to her the world seems a confused conglomeration
of special cases.” (Beauvoir, The Second Sex: 627)
Feminist Ethics and the Moral Subject
I come to Beauvoir’s work with a particular agenda. I am interested in the possibility of
articulating a feminist ethics that avoids the twin temptations of, to use Hegelian language,
the ‘slave of law’ or the ‘beautiful soul’ as the key to understanding the possibilities of
moral agency and moral judgment.
1
The ‘slave of law’ is the way in which Hegel refers to
the Kantian moral subject, for whom moral authority derives from the detachment of
judgment from particularity and for whom moral agency and action are forms of
overcoming in which a universally rational will makes its mark over against natural
particularity. The slave of law is a moral subject because of the epistemic privilege granted
to him by his capacity to identify with the ‘view from nowhere’, which is the view from
pure reason, the moral law accessible by any rational being, without bias or distortion. The
‘beautiful soul’ is the Romantic alternative to the slave of law, not through reason but
through pure intuition or feeling, the beautiful soul knows what is right and its purity of
particular will both defines moral agency and authoritatively identifies specific action as
moral. The beautiful soul is a moral subject because of the epistemic privilege granted to
her by her ‘view from somewhere’, but this is a ‘somewhere’ which is achieved by her
specific virtue and detachment from external influence. The beautiful soul knows what is
1
These are terms which Hegel introduces in his early writings (Hegel, 1948). In his discussions of
modern conceptions of morality in the Phenomenology of Spirit, the ‘slave of law’ reappears in the
form of ‘Moral Self-consciousness (Hegel, 1977: 364-383), and the ‘beautiful soul’ in the discussion of
conscience (Hegel, 1977: 383-409). The section of the Phenomenology in which these forms of moral
subjectivity are discussed is entitled: ‘Spirit that is Certain of Itself. Morality’.


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