ABSTRACT
A common feature of many feminist philosophers, as well as philosophers in the Continental lineage, it can be argued, is their demand for utopian thinking and practice, ‘the demand for a transformative practice of philosophy … that would be capable of addressing, criticizing, and ultimately redeeming the present’ (Critchley, 1998: 10). My concern in this chapter is not with the accuracy of this as an assessment of Continental philosophy, but rather with the underlying idea of utopian thinking and the transformative practice of philosophy. What does it mean to do feminist moral philosophy with notions of utopia and transformation as points of reference? What characteristics are necessary for moral philosophy to address, criticize and ultimately redeem the present – a present whose constitutive ingredients include massive inequalities of gender, ‘race’ and economic and cultural resources? What I am after is the idea of a moral imaginary and how it is formed.
The question of formation includes both the question of what its ingredients are and how it comes to be taken up as the imaginary of individuals and societies, at pre-reflective as well as reflective levels. I shall begin by trying to get a little clearer about what a moral imaginary is, starting with contrasts with what it is not and then showing its relationship to the practice of justice. I shall consider how the moral imaginary is formed and some of its present contours; and shall conclude by offering some suggestions for criteria for a transformative moral imaginary. Central to my article is the claim that I have argued elsewhere (Jantzen, 1998) and will sketch only in very general terms here, that the moral imaginary of the west is rooted in a preoccupation with gendered violence and death; and the suggestion that a transformative moral imaginary is grounded, rather, in flourishing and natality. What I have to say is necessarily in broad brush strokes and heavily programmatic: it is meant not as a ‘final solution’ – of which, in any case, I believe that feminists should be deeply suspicious – but as an agenda for further work.
