Feminist justice ethics

Overview

Feminist justice ethics is part of a range of feminist ethical perspectives. Other popular feminist approaches to ethics include feminist ethics of care, and feminist postmodern ethics. The implementation of a feminist ethic of care often draws critique from feminist justice ethics. Feminist ethics of care is premised by the idea that morality is shaped by relational versions of our self. Our moral relations take precedence. Feminist justice ethics differs itself from feminist ethics of care by chastising such a perspective for its abandonment of universal values. In feminist justice ethics, legitimate ethical critique cannot be made without utilizing a universal set of ethics. Meanwhile, feminist postmodern ethics puts forth an entirely different view. A feminist postmodern perspective will perceive androcentricity in many aspects of life, including epistemology. At the same time feminist postmodernism will deny the existence of objectivity within our world. This claim is based on the notion that knowledge is subjectively constructed. One feminist postmodern scholar has implicated the ethical outcomes of modern business norms as a result of this masculine-dominated society. Friction between feminist justice ethics and feminist postmodern ethics exists on the principle of universality. The former supports the idea of universal values, while the latter denies such values exist because it denies objectivity. Since a universal view on morality is typical in feminist justice ethics, the question arises: what specific values are actually universal? Nussbaum's capabilities approach attempts to tackle this question, and lists several traits she believes to be universal:

1. Life – ability to live out a natural lifespan;
2. Bodily Health – ability to have good health including reproductive health, adequate nourishment, shelter;
3. Bodily Integrity – freedom of movement, security from physical violation, sexual and reproductive autonomy;
4. Senses, Imagination and Thought – ability to use all of these fully in an educated way;
5. Emotions – ability to be able to be attached to others, to have a capacity for love and affection;
6. Practical Reason – to be able to reflect rationally, identify one's own conception of the good life and plan for it;
7. Affiliation – ability to live with others in personal relationships and social communities;
8. Other Species – ability to live in relation to nature;
9. Play – ability to enjoy recreation;
10. Control over one's material and political environment – ability to participate in political choices, ability to hold property, to work on equal terms with others.