Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Kant's and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

Author(s): Lawrence A. Blum
Source: Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Jun., 1982), pp. 287-302
Published by: Canadian Journal of Philosophy
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40231257
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CANADIAN JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY
Volume XII, Number 2, June 1982

Kant's and Hegel's Moral Rationalism:

A Feminist Perspective

LAWRENCE A. BLUM, University of Massachusetts, Boston

Moral philosophy has conceived of its task in many different ways

throughout its history. One of these has been to articulate qualities of
character, or Virtues/ which the morally good or morally admirable per-
son will possess.
This paper is a first step in an attempt to work out a feminist perspec-
tive on this aspect of moral philosophy and its history. I will focus on the
moral philosophies of Kant and Hegel who exemplify different versions
of a general orientation within moral philosophy which I call 'moral ra-
tionalism/ For the moral rationalist reason and rationality are at the
center of the conception of the good or moral man (and I use the word
'man' here intentionally). The defining qualities of the morally admirable
man include most of the following: rationality, self-control, strength of

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Lawrence A. Blum

will, consistency, acting from universal principles, adherence to duty

and obligation.1
A further characteristic of rationalist moral philosophies' conception
of the good man is the absence of the following qualities of character:
sympathy, compassion, kindness, caring for others, human concern,
emotional responsiveness. These qualities are much more closely
bound up with emotions and with the emotional aspect of human
nature than are the qualities associated with rationalism. In fact, ra-
tionalism as a moral perspective characteristically excludes emotions
from playing a significant role in the moral life.
I will first discuss Kanfs and Hegel's explicit views of women, show-
ing in particular that they regard women as morally inferior to men. I
will then argue that both Kanfs and Hegel's moral philosophies em-
phasize virtues which, in a sense I explain, can be called 'male/ and de-
emphasize or denigrate virtues which can be called 'female.' Finally I
argue that this favoritism toward male virtues expresses an acceptance,
explicit in Hegel's philosophy and implicit in Kanfs, of a male-centered
view of social reality.
Kanfs moral philosophy is perhaps the most explicit, most powerful,
and most influential example of a philosophy which founds morality on
reason. For Kant being moral is being really or 'purel/ rational; and this
in turn is identified with obedience to duty or the moral law.
Kant regards emotions in general, including ones such as sympathy,
compassion, and concern, as having little moral significance. In fact he
tends to regard emotions as hindrances to being a morally good person.
He sees them as getting in the way of thinking clearly, of knowing what
is right and wrong, and of acting consistently and in a principled man-
ner.

Hegel has a more integrated view of the human personality than

1 Recent interpreters of Kant (drawing partly on some portions of Kanfs Doctrine

of Virtue) have modified the traditional 'rationalisf picture of Kant. In their view,
while reason remains the ultimate source of moral principles, some emotional
elements are found in the content or particulars of what it is to lead a moral life.
On this see Mary Gregor, Laws of Freedom (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1963), Keith
Ward, The Development of Kant's View of Ethics (Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1972),
and John Rawls, A Theory of justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 1971).
Moreover, some contemporary philosophers in the Kantian tradition, such as
Rawls, do try to leave room for emotional elements in their moral philosophies.
Still, in all these views and interpretations emotions and in particular sympathy
and compassion play a decidedly secondary role to reason. (This perspective on
Kanfs philosophy is elaborated in my Friendship, Altruism, and Morality [Lon-
don: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1980]). Whether moral rationalism could be in-
terpreted in such a way as to give these emotional qualities a central and
substantial place is a question I can not consider here.

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 Kanfs and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

does Kant, and a greatly enriched notion of reason, not sundered from
passion and inclination. Nevertheless, in Hegel's philosophy reason,
understood universalistically, still predominates. For Hegel human
history involves the progress of human spirit, mind, or reason through
ever-increasing levels of self-consciousness, as embodied in human in-
stitutions, societies, and civilizations. This progress is understood in
ethical or moral terms, as the increasing realization of autonomy, ra-
tionality, and universality in human life.
Hegel criticizes Kant for the abstractness, formalism, and in-
dividualism of his moral theory. Still, his own philosophy can be
understood as an attempt to work out the concrete social forms which
would embody Kanfs centrally-placed values of universality and reason.
For Hegel, to live an ethical life is to live within - to adhere to and to
identify oneself with - certain social structures which actualize 'the
universal' (which, as in Kant, is meant also to be the highest expression
of individual autonomy).
In Hegel's schema the compassionate and sympathetic qualities of
character do not play a significant role in the conception of the morally
good man or the ethical life. At best they are stages on the way to, and
partial realizations of, the highest ethical stage.
These philosophers' exclusion of the qualities of sympathy, compas-
sion, and the like from the highest moral ideals is not merely an over-
sight. At least in Kanfs philosophy powerful arguments are put forth to
justify this exclusion: that emotions are capricious and unreliable as
moral motives; that emotions are not grounded in rational principles;
that emotions cannot reflect on us morally because they lie outside the
scope of our will; that emotionally-based action can never involve the
universality necessary for morality; that emotions are a form of inclina-
tion and as such are essentially egoistic.
A full critique of Kanfs version of moral rationalism must come to
terms with these arguments. I have attempted this critique in my Friend-
ship, Altruism, and Morality (see footnote 1). There I argue that, contrary
to Kant, sympathy and compassion are not essentially capricious and
unreliable emotions; that our actions and the considerations on which
they are based need not be universalizable in order to be morally good;
and that not only our actions but our emotional reactions have moral
significance. I argue that the sympathetic qualities of character normally
involve a direct, active, and self-transcending concern for others' well-
being, and that this is the source of their virtue and value.
In the present paper I assume this critique of moral rationalism (in its
Kantian form) and build on it to show how a feminist perspective
deepens one's sense of moral rationalism's shortcomings.

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 Lawrence A. Blum

Let us begin with a brief account of the views of moral rationalist

philosophers regarding the nature of women. Neither Kant nor Hegel
(in contrast for example to Aristotle) explicitly asserts the moral and
human inferiority of women to men. Both find positive qualities in
women's nature. For Kant such qualities include charm, docility, a feel-
ing for beauty, concern with a pleasing appearance.2 For Hegel female
virtues are those connected with women's role in the family, such as
love and family piety; such virtues are grounded in feeling.3
But Kant and Hegel clearly regard women as inferior to men, in ways
especially relevant to morality. Kant regards women as generally in-
capable of deep thought and of sustained mental activity against
obstacles, qualities connected with reason and self-discipline such as are
(in Kanfs view) essential to morality. Women are essentially incapable
of acting otherwise than in accordance with their immediate inclina-
tions and feelings. They are unable to adhere to moral principles of ac-
tion and cannot acknowledge any moral constraint on doing what
pleases them.
For Hegel the ethically highest mode of life is one embodied in in-
stitutions which express the fullest actualization of reason (in particular
the state or polity). The woman's nature, for Hegel, is to express the
ethical stage of the family and marriage, which does involve rationality
and universality but at a lesser or incomplete level. The woman's ethical
consciousness is limited to that particular stage and level of universality.
For Hegel, the woman-as-wife-and-mother's form of consciousness in-
volves a kind of immediacy and feeling, and immersion in (and confine-
ment to) the love and sense of unity with loved ones characterizing the
family. Man, on the other hand, though he participates in the sphere of
the family, also transcends it. It is not his whole nature, as it is the
woman's. Man partakes of a higher form of self-realization, universality,

2 Kant, Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime (tr.
Goldthwait) (Berkeley: University of California Press 1965), esp. sec. 3: 'On the
Distinction of the Beautiful and the Sublime in the Interrelations of the Two
Sexes/ For my exposition of Kanfs view of women I will draw primarily on this
work, whith some supplementary material from his Anthropology From a
Pragmatic Point of View.

3 For Hegel's views I draw generally on Philosophy of Right (trans. Knox) (Oxford
University Press 1952) and Phenomenology of Mind (trans. Miller) (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press 1977).

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 Kants and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

and rationality than does woman by his participation in labor, civil

society, and (the highest level) the public life of the state.
Thus both Kant and Hegel characterize women in ways which, given
their own moral philosophies, mean that women are incapable of fully
realizing the moral capacities inherent in humanity. So women are seen
as the moral inferiors of men. Moreover, despite great differences in
their conceptions of what the fully moral or ethical life consists in, Kant
and Hegel share certain characteristics especially pertinent to their
views of women. Both connect women with feeling, understood in such
a way that feeling prevents full moral realization. For both Kant and
Hegel women are incapable of fully taking account of the 'demands of
universality/

II

Both Kant and Hegel adhere to notions, common in eighteenth and

nineteenth century thought generally, of complementary virtues par-
ticular to each sex. I will argue, not only that what they regard as the
'female' virtues are regarded, within the terms of their own philosophies,
as inferior to male virtues - such is implied in my previous argument -
but also that these qualities are at best insignificant virtues. That is they
are not qualities for which a person is or ought to be normally accorded
substantial esteem, admiration, respect. Moreover, the qualities in ques-
tion can be seen as having positive value only within a context in which
it is taken for granted that women are dominated by and subordinate to
men, that they are valued primarily through their connection with men,
and that the scope of their own life's activities is severely restricted.
Finally, some of these qualities inhibit women's full development as
human beings.4
What is of value in such qualities (emphasized by Kant) as charm,
docility, and obedience, seems to derive primarily from the benefit to
men of women possessing them. Obedience is clearly of value to those
to whom one is obedient, and for most women in Kant's time this would
largely be particular men or the rules of a male-defined social structure.

4 Views analogous to Kanfs and Hegel's were prevalent in England in the eigh-
teenth and nineteenth centuries and were attacked by two important feminist
writers - Mary Wollstonecratt, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), and
J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women (1869). My arguments draw on theirs.

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Lawrence A. Blum

It can be seen as having value only within a hierarchical structure of

authority and subordination.5
Docility, though not implying strict obedience, does imply a ready
willingness to submit to whoever is demanding or requesting something
of one. Such a quality seems to have little intrinsic moral worth or merit.
Along with charm and obedience it does not seem a quality for which a
person is generally accorded substantial moral admiration.6
Calling these qualities virtues masks the power relationship between
the man and the women; helps to reconcile women to it by holding out
as something positive that which supports their subordination; and
helps to absolve men from thinking that there might be something un-
just in the arrangement.
'Charm' is also a quality whose value seems to be defined almost en-
tirely from a male point of view, in particular in terms of male pleasure
of a sexual/aesthetic nature. Kant is explicit on this point when he con-
nects women's charms with the sexual attraction which men have
towards them.7 What makes a woman charming is simply her playing up
to men's attraction to her (whether consciously or not), though only in
the refined manner of the polite society for whom Kant was writing. This
is hardly a genuine intrinsic value, an object of moral admiration. It is
connected with a woman's being regarded primarily as an object of
adornment.
Kant also mentions 'complaisance' as a female virtue.8 This means an
ability to please others. But it does not imply an active giving of pleasure
to others, which could be seen as a virtue (if not a supremely significant
one). Rather, it seems to imply a passive quality of being accom-
modating to or compliant with the wishes of others. Regarding this as a
virtue also reconciles women to a position of subordination to men.
Let us look now at 'modesty.' Modesty can be seen as a genuine vir-
tue if it means an absence of calling attention to oneself, especially to
one's accomplishments, achievements, and other positive attributes,
while nevertheless having a secure sense of one's own worth, or the
value of one's accomplishments, etc. (A person is not actually 'modesf if

5 Kant, whose moral philosophy is firmly grounded in a view of human beings as

equal in moral status and capacity, nevertheless, in the Anthropology, says that if
a relationship between a man and a woman is to be 'harmonious and indissolu-
ble' the woman must be subject to the man (p. 167).

6 See Wollstonecraft, Vindication (Baltimore: Penguin 1972), 118.

7 Kant, Observations, 85ff

8 Ibid., 59

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 Kant's and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

she has a sense of inferiority about herself or her achievements, and if it

is for this reason that she does not call attention to herself.) But such a
virtue depends on having genuine accomplishments and achievements;
in the society which provided the context for Kant s views, such was not
generally possible for women. Modesty was rather understood as an
absence of unseemly display of one's sexual attributes or attractions.
Such a quality lacks the positive force of the former notion of modesty,
and, moreover, it is connected with a general suppression of female sex-
uality. Men wanted women to be sexually attractive to them, but not to
assert their own sexuality.
Hegel regards 'family piety7 as a virtue appropriate to women. If
understood as a genuine concern for the welfare of one's family it is cer-
tainly a virtue, and Hegel does intend this, at least in part, But even as a
virtue it is still dependent on a view of women as confined to the home,
and thus as constricted in their own scope for self-development and self-
expression. This is connected to another aspect of what Hegel means by
family piety, namely a primary loyalty to one's family (and to the institu-
tion of the family in general) in contrast to and opposition to the wider
interests of society. It then becomes a kind of parochialism, and Hegel
sees this, regarding it as the central limitation in the scope of the
wife/mother's ethical consciousness.9
Even if modesty, gentleness, and family piety are given the most
favorable interpretations as virtues, they are still not virtues of great
significance - compared for example to honesty, courage, compassion,
justice, kindness. They do not involve the moral fortitude implied in
honesty or courage; or the active concern for and engagement with the
good of others involved in compassion or kindness. (In the case of fami-
ly piety the concern is present but its scope is very restricted.) They do
not involve the sense of focus on substantial interests of others or the ac-
tive giving of oneself implied in kindness, compassion, and when ap-
propriate, in justice.
To summarize: The qualities attributed to women in the 'com-
plementary virtues' view (of which Kant and Hegel are exemplars) are
either not genuine moral virtues at all, or are ones of minor significance.
In addition these qualities, regarded as virtues, reflect a social reality in
which women are subordinate to men. Regarding them as virtues may
help to reconcile both men and women to that unjust situation, and
would in this way be detrimental to women's development.
I have not yet shown anything sexist or objectionable in Kant's and
Hegel's moral philosophies themselves but only in their views of women

9 Hegel, Philosophy of Right, section on The Family*

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Lawrence A. Blum

and women's nature. In the following section I will argue that their
philosophies of morals are in important ways themselves male-identified
or male-dominated.

Ill

Moral rationalism is male-dominated in two ways: First, it places at the

center of its scheme of virtues qualities of character - rationality, strength
of will, adherence to universal principle and duty - which can be seen,
in a way which I will explain, as 'male/ Correctively it fails to provide a
framework for expressing the significance of an important range of
human virtues, which can be seen as 'female/ Such virtues are sym-
pathy, compassion, human concern, kindness, and emotional suppor-
tiveness. Second, it is a philosophy which reflects a male-dominated
society, and implicitly sanctions male superiority.
In my original description of moral rationalism I brought out its
failure to give substantial moral significance to emotionally grounded
virtues such as compassion, concern for others, sympathy, a disposition
to give emotional support, etc. I now want to claim that women in our
society are generally more expected to possess such qualities than are
men; this is what I mean by calling such virtues 'female/ Conversely,
men are generally more expected to possess the qualities I have called
'male'. (This is what I will henceforth mean by 'male' and 'female' virtues,
and so I will drop the quotation marks.)
In calling these qualities male and female, I do not imply their in-
herence in a biologically grounded 'nature' of the two sexes. In fact, it is
central to my argument of the last part of this paper that this not be so;
for I want to deny that such virtues are inherently sex specific. My use of
'male' and 'female' is meant to reflect a certain social reality - that in our
society women are in general more likely (than men) to possess the
qualities I call 'female' and men those I call 'male'.
The validity of this claim can, of course, only be established em-
pirically. I will not attempt to rehearse the actual empirical evidence for
it, but will rather explain briefly the general outlook (within sociology
and psychology) which such evidence supports and which has come to
be widely (though not universally) accepted.
Regarding oneself as - and being regarded by others as - a man (or
as male) or a woman (or as female) involves more than having certain
biological characteristics. 'Gender-role identity' involves, more impor-
tantly, certain characteristic responses, behavior patterns, expectations,

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 Kant's and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

feelings, qualities of personality, etc.10 A gender identity must be learned;

it does not spring full-blown from one's biology. Nor is any given
form of gender identity necessitated by biology.11 Finally, the gender
identities of men and women differ from each other in crucial respects
in our society (as they have, though not in the same ways nor to the
same degrees, in virtually all societies). This means that men and
women will differ from each other in regard to the likelihoods of their
possessing certain qualities or dispositions.
Part of the acquisition of gender identity involves a process of ex-
plicit and implicit socialization, by which the institutions of society at-
tempt to inculcate the qualities and dispositions definitive of gender
identity in that society.12 That a certain quality is regarded and conveyed
as female (as part of a female gender identity) means that women will be
more likely than men to be expected to possess it. (In my view women
are also more likely actually to have these qualities; but my argument
does not require this.)
Taking the general framework of gender-role identity and socializa-
tion as given for the purposes of this paper, it seems to me plausible to
see the moral qualities which I have labeled 'male' and 'female' as con-
nected with male and female gender identity. For women are generally
expected to be (and seen as) more emotional, emotionally expressive,
and emotionally responsive than are men. Women are seen as more

1 0 There are two not entirely separable levels of gender-role identity involved here:
(1) Regarding oneself and being regarded as a man or woman (male or female).
(2) Living up to the normative expectations of one's gender role. (This is like the
distinction between being an X and being a good X.) The second goes beyond
the first since one could be quite certain about one's identity as a woman and yet
fail to live up to all of society's expectations of what constitutes behaving as a
woman does. Yet even the first level is not entirely biological. On this see Ann
Oakley, Sex, Gender, and Society (London: Temple Smith 1972), ch. 6.

11 Ibid.

12 In 'Family Structure and Feminine Personality (inM.Z. RosaldoandS. Lamphere,

eds., Women, Culture, and Society (Stanford, Cal.: Stanford University Press
1974), Chodorow argues that deliberate socialization cannot by itself account
for these personal and characterological differences between men and women.
She sees the additional explanation not in innate biological differences but in a
deeper psychoanalytically-based social/psychological account, namely one in
terms of upbringing within a family, in which women normally do the child-
raising. I can not explain her important argument here, but it is meant to show
why it is that women both have a less sharply developed sense of their own
separateness from others and also why they are more emotionally attached to
and emotionally responsive to others. Chodorov/s argument is elaborated in
The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley: University of California Press 1978).

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Lawrence A. Blum

empathetic, emotionally supportive and nurturant. Men are taught to be

more cool-headed, emotionally distant and uninvolved (in personal,
emotional matters). Men are taught to conform to general role expecta-
tions, women to respond more to particular persons in particular situa-
tions.13 Men are taught to be 'rational/ where this carries the connota-
tion of an orientation toward ordered thought cut off from emotion.14 In
Talcott Parsons' terminology men have a more Instrumental' and
women a more 'expressive' orientation.15
In line with these differences, men are more expected to attain the
moral virtues of rationality, adherence to principle and duty, strength of
will and self-control. Women are more expected to possess compas-
sion, sympathy, concern for and sensitivity to the feelings of others.
But the former, male, qualities are precisely the ones which ra-
tionalism places at the center of its philosophy of morals; and emotions,
particularly the female ones of compassion, human care, concern, and
sympathy, are precisely what are omitted from the rationalist view as
having inferior or only secondary moral significance. Thus the qualities
seen as comprising the morally good person are intimately related to
those which society allots to men, and those excluded are those which
society allots to women. In this way the rationalist's moral ideals are a
kind of morally idealized projection of the typical gender characteristics
of males in a male-dominated society.
So moral rationalism reflects the male-dominated societies in which
it has arisen. In a male-dominated society men are considered more im-
portant, in a fundamental sense, than are women, the qualities of
character which women have will thus naturally be seen as less signifi-
cant than those of men. Thus when the moral philosopher puts forth his
view of the highest human qualities he naturally builds on the 'male'
qualities as they are found in his society - reason, rationality, self-
control, etc. As a moral philosopher the rationalist looks to the highest
and most morally worthy expressions of these qualities for his models of
the morally admirable person. He does not merely accept the qualities
as they are actually found. Nevertheless it is the male qualities whose

13 M.Z. Rosa Id o, 'A Theoretical Overview*, in Women, Culture, and Society

14 This does not mean that men are necessarily more rational than women in the
sense of possessing greater understanding. For the man's non-emotional ordered
thought can be quite out of touch with reality. Simone De Beauvoir describes
how this quality of male 'rationality' can be used simply as a tool for asserting
dominance over a woman {The Second Sex [New York: Vintage Books 1974]).

15 Talcott Parsons, Social Structure and Personality, cited in Rosa Id o, Theoretical

Overview/ Rosaldo and Lamphere, 30.

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 Kants and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

highest expression he naturally takes as his model. In the same way it is

natural for him to ignore or underplay the female qualities as they are
found in his society - sympathy, compassion, emotional respon-
siveness. He fails to give these qualities adequate expression within his
moral philosophy. The moral rationalist philosopher thus both reflects
the sexual value hierarchy of his society and indirectly gives it a
philosophic grounding and legitimation.

IV

The perspective of gender identity takes as given the forms of socializa-

tion accorded to men and to women. But socialization itself needs to
be, and can be, explained in terms of the actual institutional structures
in which men and women live. A given social structure requires persons
who function within it to possess certain traits and characteristics and so
society must in some way see to it that people acquire those traits. In
this way social structure is more fundamental than socialization. That
such an explanation provides a deeper account of the male-centered
nature of moral rationalism can be seen by considering Hegel's views in
more detail.

Recall that, for Hegel, to live an ethical life is to participate in a social

existence which concretely embodies universal, rational principles.
Within this social existence Hegel regards men and women as having
quite different roles and spheres of activity. The male sphere of the state
embodies universal and rational principles in a way in which the family
does not. In the society which Hegel envisions as conforming to the
fullest realization of freedom and reason the role of public citizen in-
volves acknowledgment of universal principles which serve the interests
of society as a whole. As a family member one focuses only on the in-
terests of one's loved ones, but as a citizen one looks beyond one's mere
self-interest or the interests of one's family to the interests of society as a
whole. Women, weak in body and mind and immersed in immediacy
and feeling in the family, are unsuited to the public world beyond the
home.

It would be a mistake to attribute to Hegel a view of gender-role

socialization, such as is sketched in the previous section, implying a
directed activity on society's part to steer the two sexes in particular
directions. Hegel sees the suitability of the two sexes to their different

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Lawrence A. Blum

spheres of social existence as wholly natural, grounded in biological dif-

ferences.16
Nevertheless, Hegel's view provides a framework for understanding
why what we see as gender-differentiated socialization takes place as it
does. And this framework provides a clue to the nature of moral ra-
tionalism as a whole.
Hegel's portrayal of social organization has become even more
descriptive of Western society since his time. Concepts of universal law
have been more widely accepted and applied. Public life has become
increasingly organized by large-scale bureaucracies (both economic
and governmental) which operate according to certain principles of 'ra-
tionalit/ in line with Hegel's view of reason - impartial rules which ex-
clude particularistic interests and attachments and which operate in the
name of supposedly universal values of efficiency, social welfare, etc.
Choice for position in these bureaucracies is not based on personal at-
tachment or patronage but rather (supposedly) on impersonally defined
criteria of merit and qualification. Reducing the scope of assertion of
private interests against the interests of the whole, these bureaucracies
simultaneously restrict the scope for the individual's emotional expres-
sion and concern for particular other persons.
Hegel would regard these developments positively, no doubt. But
others, such as Marx and Weber, have seen this increased rationality as
incresed depersonalization, dehumanization, and alienation. The
defects in the Hegelian perspective are connected with his bifurcation
of male from female spheres.
As public and corporate bureaucracies extend their reach - taking
over even certain functions of education, health, welfare, and home
work which once belonged to the family - the family itself becomes
ever more purely the realm of private and personal emotion, interest,
love, and support which Hegel saw as its ethical essence. The public
world and the world of the family become increasingly polarized into
realms of a neutral, universalistic 'reason' (devoid of emotion), and a
realm of 'feeling.'
A society so structured does require certain attributes in those who
function within it. The male world of work in corporate and governmen-
tal bureaucracies requires a certain kind of 'uni versa lisf outlook (though
this outlook is ultimately compatible with serving private or parochial
interests), a suppression of personal emotion, an adherence to pro-

1 6 However, for Hegel the biological differences between men and women are not
merely given but are themselves expressions of reason or mind and are material
for the stages through which human spirit progresses in its development toward
full self-realization: Hegel, Philosophy of Right, sec. 165.

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 Kant's and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

cedures which abstract from personal attachment, inclination, concern

for particular others. Similarly love, personal attachment, emotional
support and nurturance are appropriate to the distinctive tasks of the
family. To the extent that men are allotted to the former realm and
women to the latter, different sorts of attributes and characteristics will
be required of the different sexes. And society will have to provide a
form of sex-differentiated socialization which prepares men and women
for these societal roles.
As portrayed by Hegel, and in fact, this social structure is a male-
identified one. Woman's sphere, though necessary for the continuing
life and ethical development of the community, is not regarded as in-
volving a high level of ethical significance. The real work of the com-
munity, that which gives it its higher moral nature, is seen by Hegel as
going on in the male public world outside the home. Women and their
characteristic qualities and virtues are thus seen as less important than
men's qualities and virtues.
So Hegel's moral philosophy is male-dominated, in that its central
moral concepts and vision of the ethical ideal are a reflection of a male-
dominated social reality. I want to claim that this is true of Kanf s version
of moral rationalism and not merely of Hegel's. This claim may seem un-
warranted simply on the basis of an argument concerning Hegel, since
what is distinctive about Hegel's moral philosophy is that it makes essen-
tial reference to particular social structures as necesary for leading an
ethical life. By contrast Kanfs moral philosophy puts forth a conception
of the moral individual apparently independent of any social structure.

What is explicit in Hegel's theory is, however, implicit in Kanfs. The cen-
tral concepts of the latter theory - reason, rationality, universal princi-
ple, duty, obligation, absence of emotion, strength of will - are much
more descriptive of and suited to characteristic (middle-class) male ac-
tivities in the public world than they are to women's characteristic ac-
tivities in the home and family (or even to many characteristic forms of
women's work outside the home, such as service occupations,
volunteer work, etc.). We have already seen that notions of reason and
rationality - if understood as entirely separate from emotion - are
more applicable to the male than to the female sphere.
Second, the notions of duty and obligation, as understood in Kanfs
philosophy, apply much less appropriately to the tasks and respon-
sibilities of the wife and mother than to those of the middle-class male

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Lawrence A. Blum

bureaucrat, manager, or professional. This is so in two ways. First, fun-

damental tasks and responsibilities of the wife/mother involve emotion
as part of their very nature. The 'care' of children is understood not only
as the performance of certain acts (e.g., feeding) but as emotionally-
grounded activities of nurturance, love, etc. Moreover, the wife/mother
has responsibilities only towards persons toward whom she has an emo-
tional relationship. And, as J.S. Mill pointed out, 'Men do not want sole-
ly the obedience of women, they want their sentiments/17
In the Kantian philosophy the concepts of duty and obligation are
understood to exclude emotion, and certainly not to be essentially con-
nected with it. What I have duty or obligation to do I must do indepen-
dent of my feelings about it or toward the other person.18 Such a con-
ception of duties and obligations does apply to the role-responsibilities
of male work. The bureaucrat, manager, or professional has certain
duties and obligations -to provide services, to adhere to certain pro-
cedures, etc. It is not part of his job to have any emotions towards per-
sons with whom he comes in contact, and in fact, emotion is discour-
aged as being likely either to distort the application of impartial pro-
cedures, to cloud thought regarding the situation at hand, or even to in-
terfere with the providing of the service in question.
A second, related difference between female and male respon-
sibilities is the open-ended nature of the mother's responsibilities to her
husband and children, in comparison to the more delimited and clearly
defined responsibilities of the male worker. What counts as having
fulfilled responsibility to one's children or husband cannot be (or
anyway is not generally) defined in the way that the responsibilities of
the civil servant, manager, or professional are. This seems to me
grounds for saying that the notions of 'duty7 or 'obligation' are more ap-
propriate to the man's sphere than the woman's; in any case the con-
cepts would have somewhat different meanings in the two cases.19
This point is connected with the fact that responsibilities attached to
male work roles are mediated through a wage bargain, whereas

1 7 J.S. Mill, The Subjection of Women/ in J.S. and H.T. Mill, Essays in Sex Equality
(ed. Rossi) Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1970), 141.

1 8 This is why one usage of 'conjugal dut/ is in fact a particularly appropriate one:
The woman is not expected to desire sex herself but she is to provide it to her
husband because it is her duty to do so.

19 In Rights and Persons (Berkeley: University of California Press 1977), ch. Ill, A.I.
Melden argues that family responsibilities, while involving the moral force of
obligations, should not be pictured on the model of institutional' obligations
defined by rules and regulations.

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 Kant's and Hegel's Moral Rationalism: A Feminist Perspective

women's work in the family is not. The model is that of a contract, in

which the man, in exchange for the salary, provides the use of his labor,
skills, or trained abilities; and his responsibilities extend to the bargain he
makes regarding the scope of this. The absence of the wage bargain or
contract in the case of 'family work' removes an important source of
delimitation and definition of the scope and extent of women's work.
A moral philosophy which can give expression to the moral value of
the sorts of emotionally-grounded tasks and responsibilities which
women engage in, especially in relationship to their primary role in the
family, cannot readily draw on the traditional Kantian notions of duty
and obligation, universal principle and rationality.
I am not arguing here that rationalist moral philosophers have had
men's usual work roles in mind as models on which their general moral
theories have been built, but only that in fact the central rationalist con-
cepts are much more applicable to men's than to women's roles. The
distinctive moral values of human care, concern, compassion, sym-
pathy, which are embodied in women's characteristic spheres of activity
and expressed in women's typical social character formation are not
given expression within rationalist philosophies of morals.20 In these
ways moral rationalism involves male-identified concepts of virtue and
morality.

VI

I have looked at Kant's and Hegel's moral philosophies from a feminist

viewpoint. This viewpoint has yielded a critique of those philosophies -
namely, seeing them as having left no room for a range of virtues which
can be called female and which are specially connected with women's
lives; and, secondly, as reflecting and legitimating a male-dominated
social reality (though not always in an explicit way). And I have con-

20 Though these 'female' qualities are virtues, the particular form which they take in
women's lives can detract from their value, in being expressive of and even con-
tributing to women's lack of autonomy. On this see Blum, Homiak, Housman,
and Scheman, 'Altruism and Women's Oppression/ in C. Gould and M. Wartof-
sky, eds., Women and Philosophy (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons 1976). This ar-
ticle argues, in addition, that an altruism not grounded in autonomy is deficient
as altruism. A feminist theory of virtue must be able both to express the value of
women's traditional virtues and qualities, and yet to point to their more ade-
quate expression in a context in which both men and women are equal and
autonomous beings.

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Lawrence A. Blum

nected this critique with the philosophers' views of women, thus trying
to show that the views on women are not mere accidental sexist quirks
on Kant's and Hegel's part, unrelated to their philosophical views, but
rather that they have intrinsic (though not, of course, logically
necessary) connections with their moral philosophy as a whole.21

August 1980

21 I wish to thank Marlene Gerber Fried, Carolyn Korsmeyer, and Janet Farrell
Smith for invaluable assistance and discussions regarding this paper.

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