No abstract
Aldo Leopold's A Sand County Almanac emphasizes values of receptivity and perceptivity that appear to be mutually reinforcing, critical to an ecological conscience, and cultivatable through concrete and embodied experience. His priorities bear striking similarities to elements of the ethics of care elaborated by feminist philosophers, especially Nel Noddings, who notably recommended receptivity, direct and personal experience, and even shared Leopold's attentiveness to joy and play as sources of moral motivation. These commonalities are so fundamental that ecofeminists can and should see Leopold as a philosophical ally. The three ecofeminist scholars who have devoted the most concerted attention to Leopold's work argue that his Land Ethic is not, and does not provide a basis for, an ecofeminist ethic. I dispute the main criticisms of these scholars, and conclude that ecofeminists should attend more often to Leopold's work, which extends possibilities for excellent praxis.
What if it doesn't get better? Against more hopeful and optimistic views that it is not just ideal but possible to put an end to what John Rawls calls “the great evils of human history,” I aver that when it comes to evils caused by human beings, the situation is hopeless. We are better off with the heavy knowledge that evils recur than we are with idealizations of progress, perfection, and completeness; an appropriate ethic for living with such heavy knowledge could include resisting evils, improving the lives of victims, and even enjoying ourselves. Better conceptions of the objects of hope, and the good life, inform a praxis‐centered, nonideal, feminist ethic, supportive of sustained moral motivation, resilience, and even cheer. I connect elements of stoic and pessimistic philosophy in order to outline some normative recommendations for living with evils. A praxis‐centered ethic would helpfully adjust our expectations from changing an uncontrollable future to developing better skills for living in a world that exceeds our control. As Aldo Leopold once said, “That the situation is hopeless should not prevent us from doing our best.”
Evidence is in that philosophy, as a profession, is male-dominated in its membership, and underrepresented groups suggest that systemic and persistent inequities endure. 1 One possible measure to rectify the gender imbalance, and perhaps therefore the climate of the profession, is to increase the number of women in philosophy. Recent research suggests that it is after taking introductory classes that undergraduate women's enrollments drop off sharply; ratios of women receiving doctorates in philosophy seem to be, comparatively, more consistent with numbers of women with undergraduate degrees in philosophy. 2 The authors add, "This suggests that there is an 'intro-major cliff' that is perpetuated through the hierarchy of academia, culminating in the gender gap that we see at the faculty level," and "also suggests that a promising means of closing the gender gap would be to focus on philosophy at the undergraduate level." 3 If future research bears out these findings, then the way we go about designing and teaching our introductory courses may directly influence the gender makeup and the culture of the profession. Solutions to the problem of the intro-major cliff are, on some levels, easily identified. One strategy that feminist philosophers have particularly recommended , to improve introductory curriculum so that courses are more attractive to and retentive of female students, is to include more works by women on syllabi. Especially in "Introduction to Philosophy," our students would benefit because, as Margaret Urban Walker says, "The presence of concerns, texts, and images that acknowledge women within undergraduate classrooms, graduate training, and professional media allow women students to feel that a discipline, literally, comprehends them, that it is a space that they are free to enter and expected to enter." 4 Yet objections to the inclusion of women's work on introductory syllabi are raised, which indicate that the solutions to the intro-major cliff are not so easily accomplished. A standard argument against the inclusiveness strategy (as I call it in this article) is that the deliberate effort to include women's work is driven by emotional and political motives that are detrimental to achieving more valuable peda-gogical goals, such as fairly and accurately representing the canon, and offering selections on the basis of their philosophical quality rather than the identities of their authors; the assumption that gender is irrelevant to philosophy is usually stated or implied in the course of the objection.
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