Has Western ethics only ever asked men’s questions?

Has ethical theorising in the western tradition largely reflected ‘male’ concerns rather than ‘female’ ones? What might an ethical theory look like that reflected more ‘female’ approaches to moral dilemmas?

Western ethical theory has traditionally presented itself as universal, impartial, and grounded in reason. However, feminist philosophy has increasingly challenged this self-conception, arguing that what appears as neutrality is in fact a historically situated perspective that privileges traits culturally associated with masculinity, such as abstraction, autonomy, and detachment. Yet to characterise this simply as a contrast between “male” and “female” ethics risks oversimplification and essentialism. The more philosophically precise claim advanced here is that dominant ethical frameworks systematically exclude forms of moral experience tied to dependency, relationality, and embodied life, and that this exclusion is structurally embedded in their conceptual foundations. These domains have historically been gendered as feminine through the sexual division of labour.

This essay will argue, first, that Western ethical theory has indeed largely reflected what can be understood as “male” concerns, that is, concerns historically privileged within male-dominated social and intellectual structures, though this bias is best understood as a structural limitation rooted in the exclusion of care labour and dependency relations rather than as a purely biological or cultural trait. Second, it will examine how feminist care ethics exposes these limitations by foregrounding relationality, dependency, and context-sensitivity, drawing particularly on Hannah Arendt’s distinction between public and private spheres to deepen this critique. Third, it will demonstrate that care ethics alone cannot provide a complete ethical framework without generating new theoretical problems concerning justice and fairness. Finally, it will argue that the most adequate response is not simply to replace justice-based frameworks with care ethics, but to reconstruct ethical theory through a synthesis that integrates care, justice, and a revised conception of relational autonomy, while fundamentally rethinking the boundary between public and private moral concern.

The dominant traditions of Western ethics illustrate this privileging of abstraction and autonomy through their systematic exclusion of particularity. Kantian ethics is grounded in the idea that moral principles must be universal and derived from pure practical reason (Kant, 1785/1998). The categorical imperative requires agents to abstract from all particular features of their situation. One must act only on maxims that could be willed as universal laws, treating humanity always as an end and never merely as a means. This requirement requires abstraction from relationships, emotions, and social context insofar as they cannot serve as the basis of moral justification. Kant explicitly maintains that actions motivated by sympathy lack genuine moral worth insofar as they are grounded in inclination rather than rational principle. This yields a conception of the moral agent as an autonomous rational will, capable of legislating universal laws independently of others and of empirical circumstance.

While this framework secures consistency and impartiality, it does so by excluding the relational dimensions of moral life. The assumption that morally relevant features can be separated from lived context reflects a standpoint that presupposes independence from dependency. It assumes a subject whose capacity for abstraction depends upon forms of care that remain invisible within the theory itself. This shows that abstraction is not a neutral starting point for moral reasoning

but an achievement grounded in prior relational conditions. The appearance of universality therefore conceals the social and material conditions that make such abstraction possible.

Utilitarianism, though differing fundamentally in its foundations, reproduces a structurally similar abstraction. By evaluating actions in terms of aggregate utility or happiness, it treats individuals as interchangeable units within a general calculation (Mill, 1861/2001). The moral agent must adopt what Sidgwick called “the point of view of the universe,” giving equal weight to the pleasures and pains of all affected individuals regardless of their relationship to the agent (Sidgwick, 1907). This impartiality appears to be a moral strength, yet this appearance depends on abstraction from the relational structures that give moral reasons their force. However, this universalism comes at the cost of erasing the moral significance of personal relationships and particular responsibilities. The suffering of a stranger must be weighed equivalently to that of one’s own child, a requirement that conflicts not only with psychological inclination but with deeply held moral convictions about special obligations. Bernard Williams’ criticism that utilitarianism requires “one thought too many” when a person saves their spouse instead of a stranger captures this problem (Williams, 1981).

What unifies these otherwise distinct frameworks is therefore not their conclusions but their shared methodological commitment to abstraction, which systematically marginalises relational forms of moral experience. Both Kantian and utilitarian frameworks prioritise universality and impartiality, but in doing so they marginalise those aspects of moral life, namely the particular, the relational, and the context-dependent, that have historically been associated with women’s moral experience and devalued as private concerns.

The structural nature of this exclusion becomes clearer when we examine the concept of the public–private divide and its role in shaping ethical theory. Okin (1989) argues that traditional theories of justice have focused almost exclusively on the public sphere, where individuals interact as equal and autonomous agents, while systematically neglecting the private sphere of family life, caregiving, and dependency. This division carries normative weight because it implicitly defines what counts as morally and politically significant, thereby excluding care and dependency from the domain of justice. The separation allows liberal political philosophy to assume the moral agent as autonomous without examining the relations of dependency that constitute that autonomy. As Kittay (1999) demonstrates, this masks the reality that human autonomy is itself dependent on care relationships that are systematically excluded from theories of justice.

Hannah Arendt’s analysis of the human condition provides a crucial philosophical framework for understanding how this division operates. Arendt (1958) distinguishes between labour, work, and action as three fundamental modes of human activity. Labour corresponds to biological necessity and bodily maintenance, associated with the private sphere. Work involves the creation of durable objects, while action constitutes political life through speech and deed in the public sphere of equals. This distinction is not merely descriptive but normatively hierarchical, and it is precisely this hierarchy that feminist ethics brings into question. Activities related to sustaining life, including caregiving, reproduction, and bodily maintenance, are relegated to necessity and excluded from the sphere of moral and political significance. From a feminist perspective, this reveals that ethical theory fails to account for the very conditions that make agency possible.

Feminist ethics challenges these exclusionary assumptions by introducing alternative frameworks that foreground relationality and dependency as central to moral life. Gilligan’s (1982) empirical research identified what she termed a “care orientation” in moral reasoning, which emphasises relationships, responsibilities, and the maintenance of connections, contrasting with a “justice orientation” that frames moral dilemmas as conflicts between abstract rights. This represents not a rejection of moral reasoning but a reorientation of its starting point, from abstract principles to situated relationships. Care ethics, developed by Noddings (1984) and Held (2006), builds on this insight to construct a normative framework grounded in relational ontology. Individuals are not independent units but beings constituted through relationships. Emotions such as empathy and compassion are not obstacles to moral reasoning but essential capacities for recognising needs and responding appropriately.

Consider healthcare resource allocation in intensive care units. Traditional approaches frame these decisions in utilitarian terms or justice-based principles. However, such approaches systematically overlook dimensions that practitioners and families recognise as morally crucial, including relational roles, narrative identity, and the structure of caregiving relationships. A care- based approach would not ignore outcomes or fairness but would integrate these considerations within a broader framework attentive to the web of relationships and the particularities of individual cases. The example illustrates that what counts as morally relevant cannot be fixed independently of relational context, but is partially constituted by it.

However, care ethics faces significant philosophical challenges that prevent it from functioning as a complete replacement for traditional frameworks. The objection of essentialism can be addressed by interpreting care not as a gendered trait but as a moral perspective historically produced under conditions of gendered division of labour (Tong and Williams, 2018). More fundamentally, care ethics struggles to address issues of justice. The core difficulty is that care ethics lacks an internal criterion for distinguishing between legitimate and oppressive care relations. Without universal principles, it struggles to adjudicate between competing claims or to critique structural inequalities.

This reveals a deeper structural insight: care and justice are not competing foundations but mutually dependent conditions of moral intelligibility. Care cannot ground itself without justice, and justice presupposes capacities formed within relations of care. The problem is therefore not choosing between them, but explaining how they are internally related.

The concept of relational autonomy offers a promising way forward by reconceptualising autonomy as socially constituted and relationally developed (Mackenzie and Stoljar, 2000). Individuals are fundamentally shaped by their relationships and social contexts, and autonomy depends upon supportive conditions that enable its development. This allows for a synthesis in which justice provides the framework for addressing structural inequalities, while care accounts for the lived reality of moral relationships. Justice without care becomes abstract and detached from lived experience, while care without justice risks reproducing oppressive structures.

Arendt’s analysis further suggests that this synthesis requires reconceiving the boundary between public and private life. The activities of care and dependency cannot be relegated to a pre- political sphere but must be recognised as central to moral and political life. Questions about

who provides care, how it is valued, and how it is distributed are therefore not private matters but fundamental ethical concerns.

In conclusion, Western ethical theorising has largely reflected what can be understood as “male” concerns in its privileging of abstraction, autonomy, and impartiality. This bias is best understood as a structural limitation rooted in the exclusion of care labour and dependency relations. Feminist care ethics exposes these limitations and offers a more relational account of moral life. However, care alone cannot provide a complete ethical framework. The most adequate response is a reconstructed ethical theory that integrates care, justice, and relational autonomy while rethinking the public–private divide. What emerges is not a distinctively “female” ethics, but a more comprehensive moral framework that reflects the relational, dependent, and structurally embedded nature of human life.

Bibliography

Arendt, H. (1958) The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gilligan, C. (1982) In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Held, V. (2006) The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kant, I. (1998) Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by M. Gregor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original work published 1785).
Kittay, E.F. (1999) Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency. New York: Routledge.
Mackenzie, C. and Stoljar, N. (2000) Relational Autonomy: Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy, Agency, and the Social Self. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mill, J.S. (2001) Utilitarianism. Kitchener: Batoche Books. (Original work published 1861).
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Okin, S.M. (1989) Justice, Gender, and the Family. New York: Basic Books.
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Tong, R. and Williams, N. (2018) ‘Feminist Ethics’, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-ethics/ (Accessed: 2 April 2026).
Williams, B. (1981) Moral Luck. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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