ABSTRACT

The task of this chapter is to make headway toward a feminist, or feminist friendly, account of moral responsibility. One might question why a feminist account would be needed or useful. After all, there are a number of accounts of responsibility currently on offer, and I will spend some time rehearsing these. However, I believe a feminist account would go deeper than current accounts in key respects. To anticipate, a feminist account would approach questions about moral responsibility, and responsibility more generally, from a vantage point that broadens the foci of responsibility beyond concerns about the free will of the actor or concerns about the psychological control condition for responsible agency, as is customarily the case. A feminist account would be more attentive to the socio-relational circumstances that shape the aretaic pro lethe character and the values-of a potential responsible party. A feminist account would be less inclined to emphasize the deployment of principles of rationality in moral reasoning. A feminist would question the effectiveness and the propriety of a perspective of impartiality at various stages: in assessing desert, attributing fault, and in demanding an account from the responsible party. All told, a feminist account of responsibility would most likely be holistic in its treatment of the responsible subject, and relational in its treatment of the conditions for accountability and answerability. These conditions rest at the heart of our concept of responsibility and at the heart of our responsibility practices.