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Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy

Symposium: Intra-Feminist Criticism and the "Rules of Engagement"

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Intra-Feminist Criticism and Intellectual Virtue

Naomi Zack
State University of New York, Albany

I don't think that the rules for intra-feminist criticism ought to differ from the rules for philosophical criticism generally or the rules for interdisciplinary criticism, either within philosophy or between philosophy and other fields, or criticism between any discipline and ordinary life, or even within ordinary life.

I have an auteur view of both philosophy and critique, which in crude terms is also a free-speech and free-choice view. I think that philosophy and critique are unruly and a-paradigmatic enterprises and that individuals ought to be allowed to pursue topics of interest to them that they think are of merit, in whatever way they can, which employers, students, audiences and other professionals will (more or less freely) accept. No one should be coerced into following a particular school or a specified line of connection to other endeavors, and no one should be prevented from following what she chooses, or blazing out on her own. This entails freedom from relevance, and I will say more about that soon.

My anarchic ideal of autonomy for humanistic intellectual work is not a state of chaos because I am assuming the formation of interlocking and ad hoc communities for communication and understanding. It is within those virtual communities, which have stated goals of arriving at the truth in a progressive way, or in expressing particular perspectives, or achieving a common practical goal, that ground rules for criticism are necessary.

A primary ground rule is that criticism be contextualized. One ought to criticize the work of others with respect for the context in which they have chosen to do their work, and expect the same treatment for one's own choices. Different contexts create divisions of labor, such as theory, ideology, rhetoric or activism.

I don't think that all academic feminists, or any other philosophical group, necessarily have the obligation to change the world, although they may choose to do so. I am skeptical of broad charges to change the world, because the world can be changed on many levels and it is impossible to precisely time the change that one thinks ought to take place, on any level, especially on a level different from the context in which one works. The world in this sense is like the stock market. You may believe, on the soundest fundamentals that it is bound to crash, as I do (although more on general economic principles than specific corporate fundamentals), but what we do not know is when this will happen. And even though I believe the market will eventually crash, eradicating untold billions of dollars in wealth, I also must allow for the possibility that the contemporary multinational global economy is a new financial order, capable of perpetually creating the type of wealth that will keep the market buoyant. Similarly, I may know that a system of beliefs is right or wrong and likely therefore, to come into history or pass out of it. But this does not mean that it is possible to predict exactly when or how it will happen. I must also allow for the possibility that the system of beliefs in question will have weaker or stronger grounds for adherence in the future, as well as for the possibility that the context in which the beliefs are relevant will radically change.

Such principles of contextualization apply to intra-feminist critique and, more specifically, to issues of race within feminism. It is not clear from current discussions about essentialism that there is or can be one feminism to represent the ideas, goals and interests of all women. Neither is it clear that all feminisms have something in common. Still, the label is convenient because it signals hopes for liberation and awareness of a history of oppression. Such hopes and awareness would be expected to motivate feminist work, and form a background context for it. It is also the case that as feminists choose their subjects, individually or in groups, acceptable contexts sub-divide and multiply.

How does race enter into these principles of contextualization? I recently edited an anthology, Women of Color and Philosophy. The contributors fall into all nonwhite categories and all are women. Out of 15,000 philosophers, I estimate that there are, at most, 30 women of color. I ended up working with 12 for the collection, including myself. I was uncomfortable with the project because its existence may seem to be a claim for special status for women of color who are philosophers. On the other hand, I was personally and anecdotally aware that women of color in philosophy are likely to experience varied kinds of intersectional discrimination and exclusion, on the basis of gender, race and the subjects in which they specialize. I thought that women, as white women, have received attention in philosophy, as have nonwhite men, and that even though the categories of race and gender are fraught with problems as unified categories, it is fair-just, that women of color in philosophy take their place in the liberatory panoply of identity categories. So, that is a context and I think as such it should be accepted so that criticism of individual work is specific to its content. Some of the work currently engaged by women of color in philosophy is irrelevant in terms of social issues. But I don't think that social relevance is a good basis on which to construct criticism in this case because social relevance has not been a requirement for acceptable philosophical work among those who are not-female and not "of-color." It isn't fair to select some people for criticism on the grounds of relevance when others are excused. And it isn't clear, given my auteur theory, that relevance is an unqualified good. If someone is committed to her work, I find that enough to satisfy the kinds of things that are supposed to be satisfied by demands for relevance, namely, concern for something of wider benefit than personal advantage. There are harms in imposing relevance on scholarship by minorities. The requirement for relevance may be too finely calibrated with assumptions about short-term political goals. If the broader political context changes, those goals may no longer be desirable. Also, a predetermined standard of relevance makes it too easy for those who do not belong to the disadvantaged group to appropriate the concerns of that group while its members continue to be excluded from the domain of discourse.

Finally, I want to emphasize the general importance of not making individuals the objects of criticism in a way that is irrelevant to the work they do. This is another kind of relevance that is close to contextualization. Hume said be a philosopher but remember to be a man. I would like to say be a critic, that is, a philosopher, but forget that the auteurs of the work you are criticizing are women, or men, or white, or nonwhite, because the context of the work itself should be more narrow than the context of the person. So, as another important ground rule for criticism, I suggest we invert Hume: address the philosopher and forget that she is a woman, or a nonwhite woman-unless she has made that a subject of her work.

Since content is the proper object of criticism, it is very important that criticism be based on a good-faith understanding of that content. When critics willfully misunderstand the work they criticize or present simplified and distorted interpretations of it in order to get their own work going, they are not furthering communication in the virtual communities I mentioned earlier. Distortion and willed misunderstanding are clumsy displays of the fact that all criticism ultimately reflects on the critic. Good work will weather bad criticism and bad criticism not only rents the fabric of a community of communication, but disables the virtues of the critic. At issue are the intellectual virtues.

Aristotle, in the Nichomachean Ethics, distinguishes between intellectual virtue, which is the result of teaching, and moral virtue, which is the result of habit.1 However, there are intellectual virtues that have a moral dimension, because they reflect on one's character and their practice or neglect helps or harms others. In what follows, I will indicate how intellectual virtues, in this moral sense, are relevant to criticism.

A virtue in the Aristotelian sense is a form of excellence, which is a disposition to act in ways that "have" the virtue. The apparent circularity of this definition results from an equivocation in the meaning of virtue. When an action "has" a virtue or is virtuous, this refers to an ideal in the mind which we see the action as instantiating, or use to label the action. We do the same thing when we say that a person is virtuous in a specific way, for example, courageous. But, Aristotle's point was that there is no substance or quality in actions or people, which are virtues. Rather, our ideals in the mind are correctly applied when people have a disposition to behave in ways that we can judge to be in conformity with the ideals. Courage is a virtue that we can all imagine as though it were some kind of thing, that is, an existent substance or quality. But in reality, someone who is courageous is courageous because she performs courageous actions, and any one of her courageous actions is courageous because it is performed by a courageous person. A courageous person must regularly behave courageously when courage is called for, and each time she does something courageous, she must know that she is doing something courageous, choose to do it for the right reasons, and do the right thing. Indeed, she has become courageous by performing courageous actions in this way, in the past. Thus, one courageous act, no matter how heroic, would not be sufficient to establish the virtue of courage.

Criticism requires virtues in this sense, because quite often there are feelings of anger about views one believes to be wrong, or temperamental dispositions to respond in certain ways to views or actions to which one objects in others. Thus, what Aristotle says about anger as a practical virtue, also applies to anger as an intellectual virtue:

Any one can get angry-that is easy…but to do this to the right person, to the right extent, at the right time, with the right motive, and in the right way, that is not for every one, nor is it easy; wherefore goodness is both rare and laudable and noble.2

Criticism, especially intra-feminist criticism (because critics are often most harsh on those most like themselves), is an opportunity to develop many intellectual virtues. These virtues can be developed as settled traits of one's character, in intellectual contexts, just as in practical ones: honesty, integrity, diligence, fairness, generosity, loyalty, tolerance, consideration, and so forth. Such virtues may build on talents that seem to be "given" in unequal amounts, but generally, a disposition to behave in a certain way that is the result of choices made over a period of time, distinguishes virtues from talents in the required sense. That is, we are responsible for our virtues and for what we do with our talents. (I am trying to make the best of both Aristotle and Kant here.)
Intellectual virtues are especially important for philosophers because disagreement and criticism is an inherent part of the discipline. Because philosophical criticism is public, the virtuous (or vicious) dispositions of the critic become part of her professional reputation as a colleague. It thus benefits a critic to be virtuous. Habitual honesty, consideration, fairness, and so forth, also benefit the critic's colleagues and students. Virtuous criticism could thereby be justified by utilitarian or consequentialist calculations, but the development of virtue is undertaken to fulfill one's own potential for excellence.

Aristotle is not the only moral philosopher relevant to intra-feminist criticism in this sense. Adrian Piper has recently examined the philosophical virtue of rational discourse, in her work in progress on Socratic metaethics. Piper supports Kant's view that theoretical reason can effectively motivate action, and she employs it to explicate the ideal of rational discourse, as propounded by G. E. Moore. According to Piper, the tight job market in philosophy at the close of the twentieth century has contributed to a lack of civility and a "culture of genuflection," where it is often judged perilous to challenge the views of those in power. In this climate, independent and creative thought does not flourish and philosophical discourse is stifled by bullying, bulldozing, a refusal to listen, and evasion of challenges.3 Genuflection to authority, simply because it is authority, can be a form of cowardice if one ought not to agree with that authority, on the basis of its merits. The requirement by some that others genuflect to them is in itself a form of incivility (at best).

To conclude, the vexing problems with intra-feminist criticism are general moral problems. Despite my anarchic view of the critic as auteur, I have taken a philosophical approach to these problems. More generally, the important point is that what one does in speech and writing affects others and ourselves in ways that bring rich and serious aspects of our lives into play.

Notes

1. Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics, in The Basic Works of Aristotle, ed. Richard McKeon (New York: Random House, 1941), Book II, Ch.1, p. 952.
2. Ibid., Ch. 9, p. 963.
3. Adrian M. S. Piper, "General Introduction to the Project: The Enterprise of Socratic Metaethics," in Women of Color and Philosophy: A Critical Reader, ed. Naomi Zack (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), pp. 91-132.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2