Tag: liberation

Making Sense of Morality: Liberation, Feminist, & Queer Ethics

Various ethics terms
Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

In this essay, I will survey key points of three theories that have been deeply shaped by critical theory (CT). I will try to draw out their ethical implications. In the next essay, I will assess CT.

Liberation Theology

The first is liberation theology. We will explore it through the teachings of the Catholic theologian Gustavo Gutiérrez (b. 1928). His ideas have been widely influential in Latin America and the west.

For him, the purpose of liberation is achieve freedom from anything that hinders humans’ fulfillment and communion with God and one another. Economic oppression is a key, but not the only, form of domination. In general, liberation is from sin. Yet, liberation can take many forms, such as by abolishing private property, changing the access to power by the exploited, and using a social revolution to break dependencies, such as upon the United States and its capitalist system. In his mind, socialism is far more fruitful as a political organization.

Rather than stressing abstract, universal principles, Gutiérrez focuses on concrete, particular people and their embodiment of oppression and suffering. For him, he endorses the interpretive lens of liberation as normative, and he sees liberation as a dominant biblical theme. So, we should read Scripture through this lens and in light of our embodied experience.  

Feminist Ethics of Welch and Harrison

There are varieties of feminist thought, but here I will look at two exemplars, Sharon Welch and Bev Harrison. For them, feminism follows CT in some key ways. First, feminist thought assumes the dynamic of oppression by oppressors. Second, it rejects many dualisms, such as of body and soul. Third, it stresses embodied, situated particulars in a historicist epistemology. Fourth, it rejects universals and essential natures.

For Sharon Welch (b. 1952), by attending to universal, abstract theorizing, we overlook practical effects thereof. For example, if we attend to the actual history of Christianity, she thinks we can see “the denial by the church and by Western culture of full humanity to women and minorities” (Welch, 59). Welch also embraces a historicist view of truth (Welch, 10). Our concepts are contingent upon our historical conditions.

Bev Harrison (d. 2012) agrees that we are historically situated. All our concepts, including our norms, dualisms, and even what is right or wrong are the social constructs of a given people. Since all knowledge is a construct, based on the particulars in a given setting, she thinks we should focus on praxis versus abstract theory in ethics.

Our historical situatedness entails we are embodied beings. To her, mind-body dualism is mistaken for various reasons. For one, we cannot pry the body off the soul, for all knowledge is body mediated. Two, it denigrates the body. Third, dualism entails difference and therefore subjugation.

To her, male-female dualism grounds patriarchy and its oppression of women. Further, other oppressive power relations and injustices are interrelated with sexism. These include racism, economic exploitation, and cultural imperialism, from all of which we need liberation.

Gender Studies and Queer Theory

Gender studies focuses on embodied particulars and historically situated knowledge. The American Psychological Association defines gender as “the socially constructed roles, behaviors, activities, and attributes that a given society considers appropriate for boys and men or girls and women.” Gender identity is an interpretation of oneself as a particular individual, without reference to universals or essences. Yet, it is not separated from groups, and these in turn are tied to oppression.

Moreover, queer theorists reject heteronormativity and male-female “binary” thinking as static and oppressive views. Michele Foucault (d. 1984) thought there is no essence to sex. Judith Butler (b. 1956) describes gender as “the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of substance, of a natural sort of being” (Butler, 45). Thus, queer theory creates many possibilities for how to conceive of one’s sexuality, resulting in a perception of having a liberated sexuality, notwithstanding one’s anatomy.

For Further Reading

Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity

Gustavo Gutiérrez, A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation, rev. ed.

Bev Harrison, Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics

R. Scott Smith, In Search of Moral Knowledge, ch. 8

Sharon Welch, Communities of Resistance and Solidarity

“What is the Difference Between Sex and Gender?”

Making Sense of Morality: Critical Theory Overview

Various ethical terms

Image by Mary Pahlke from Pixabay

Introduction

Naturalistic ethics remains a dominant moral approach in the west. But there are at least two other contemporary kinds of ethics. They are critical theory and its particular versions, as well as postmodernism. I will start with critical theory (CT), with a focus today on social justice. 

Overview of Critical Theory

Social justice has a long and venerable history, including efforts such as abolishing British and American slavery; caring for the vulnerable, such as the poor, widows, orphans, and minorities; and caring for the sick, such as through building hospitals. Today, however, there seems to be a “new kind” of social justice that focuses on issues such as (1) economic justice through the redistribution of resources; (2) freedom from discrimination due to one’s gender identity, and to be given positive rights on that basis; (3) environmental justice; and (4) racism and reparations.

Often, these contemporary efforts seem to be grounded in CT, which has a deep influence in the humanities, whether at secular or religious institutions. CT has spawned a number of specific studies, such as critical race, ethnic, legal, gender and queer, and cultural studies. It is having much influence in part because proponents are identifying some real injustices which should be addressed, such as racism, sexism, slavery, economic oppression, mistreatment of women, etc.

Based on several key philosophical positions, and Marxist-inspired thought, CT began in the “Frankfurt school.” That school included several key thinkers, such as Max Horkheimer (d. 1973), Theodor Adorno (d. 1969), and Herbert Marcuse (d. 1979). CT also was influenced by Antonio Gramsci (d. 1937), and all four were influenced significantly by Karl Marx (d. 1883).

Three Key Positions

Some of the reasons for the influence of CT is that it taps into accepted views we have seen. First, it accepts materialism: reality is made of matter, without any essences. Second, everything is particular (nominalism). Third, in terms of knowledge, it accepts historicism.

Historicism is like the view we saw in Kant, that we cannot know reality as it is in itself (i.e., directly). CT rejects knowledge of universal truths for all people at all times and places, for that would require a universal standpoint. Instead, historicists believe all knowledge is situated: it is socially-based and embedded in a given historical location and time. Our situatedness shapes how we interpret reality, and, like a set of lenses, we always experience and interpret reality through that interpretive framework. Yet, we cannot take off our glasses and get a direct, uninterpreted gaze into reality itself. Everything is our interpretation, drawn from our particular historical location.

Nietzsche (d. 1900) helped give rise to historicism, too. As a naturalist, he denied any essences. Also, due to nominalism, there are no literal identities between any two things; we construct things by taking them to be identical. Unlike Kant, there are no truths of reason (a priori). Indeed, things like the will are just words, the way we happen to talk. Even that we are the subjects of our thoughts is just an interpretation according to our grammatical formulae. Our teaching how to use words deceives us to think such things are real. Indeed, claims to know what is real just reflect our will to power, when actually all knowledge is perspectival.

Ethics 

Now, CT posits that there are two groups, the oppressors and the oppressed. A critical theory seeks to liberate people from domination and oppression and increase freedom in all their forms. Ethically, our fundamental duty is to liberate the oppressed. That is done by leveling power and redistributing resources (i.e., material solutions, since matter is what is real). This means an equality ofoutcomes, notopportunity.

Moreover, traditional western societies’ institutions oppress and alienate people from their true selves by disrespect, disapproval, and social inequalities. Instead, people are to be free to live as they want (e.g., define their own sexuality). For secular critical theorists, this liberation is accomplished in part by the state’s coercive power.

For Further Reading

Max Horkheimer, Critical Theory

Friedrich Nietzsche, “Life, Knowledge, and Self-Consciousness,” and “Prejudices of Philosophers,” in Nineteenth-Century Philosophy, ed. Patrick Gardiner

Roger Scruton, Fools, Frauds and Firebrands: Thinkers of the New Left