ABSTRACT
Ethical systems that promote rationality as an ideal have come under considerable criticism from feminist scholars. The long-acknowledged problems regarding women, there have recently come to be other difficulties associated with working on Aristotle, Hobbes, and Kant. Much of this criticism has been influenced by Carol Gilligan's work comparing girls' and boys' ways of reasoning about ethical questions. In effect, the rational ideal suggests that the best human life and a moral life is available only to those who engage in the kind of rational reflection necessary to determine properly how to live. Aristotle recognizes different sociopolitical classes or categories of women and men. Their psychological situation is like that of menial laborers whose work is routine and monotonous. The chapter addresses a view of psychological freedom in Aristotle, according to which a complete human being is one who fully realizes his characteristically human powers in the political activity of democratic decision-making.
