ABSTRACT
This chapter begins by making a few observations about the history of ethics, and about the place of women in the main traditions of moral philosophy. Immanuel Kant’s general model seems to be quite impartial, and it is therefore somewhat surprising to note that he drew a clear distinction between the rights of women and the rights of men in the political arena. The chapter aims to sketch the most important doctrines of social and political philosophy, and describes their connections with the earlier European lines of thought. The women philosophers who place their trust in communitarian thinking probably want governments to choose the third possibility and to enforce values which are important to women and increase their influence in both private and public matters. Communitarians seem to believe that everybody who prefers freedom of thought and action to communities bound by tradition claim, in fact, that individuals make all their choices atomistically, in complete isolation from other people.
