The Right to Responsibility

Historically, feminist philosophical arguments are rare, and those that did manifest were either published under a male surname or were laid to sleep, never to be actively incorporated into the dominant institutionalize academic discourse. The twentieth-century may be considered a historic landmark for human rights; moreover, for female rights as human beings. Seyla Benhabib is profoundly progressive in her thinking about moral theoretical groundings and their interwoven connection to our attitudes toward our relationships with others. She critically analyzes Gilligan and Kohlberg’s conceptualizations of “moral theory”, and offers a new synthesis of moral theory.

Benhabib advocates the need for an exploration and vocalization of the moral development among women. She does this by deconstructing the differences between the ethics of justice and rights and the ethics of care and responsibility. Hegel’s dialectic reasoning echoes in the background of her work, as Benhabib seeks to synthesize the two orientations, in order to form a more accurate picture of the formation and continuation of moral theories. Based on her assertion that the two moral development theories in question “are not bipolar or dichotomous”, the possibility for a merging, intermixing, or blending of the two is made apparent. While reading Benhabib’s article, my mind conjured the image of Hegel’s dialectic diagram, in which the convergence of common truths within a thesis and an antithesis form a newly proposed synthesis. Hegel’s logic operated through me while reading Benhabib to produce a question of my own: Do we have a right to responsibility? This admittedly vague and complex inquiry is how I interpreted Benhabib’s intentions for her article.

Interactive universalism is precisely the synthesis necessary for the representation of the multiple modes of being in the world and diversity among the international population. Because interactive universalism prioritizes differences among social groups before proceeding to act or judge an “other”, it is grounded in the “universalism” belief that we are all socialized beings having embodied our social environmental influences, and seeks to generate a broader, more tolerable and cohesive moral outlook as well as it seeks to alter the institutional and political structures that help shape our moral standpoints.

The implementation of this theory requires, first, the disillusioning of a sexist historicity. We must begin by acknowledging how and why male supremacy is so deeply embedded within our social discourse and cultural traditions. Second, we must actively reconceptualize the notions of autonomy, domestic politics, and social-historical situatedness, and recognize the harmful implications of our current attitudes toward each. This, I predict, will only come about with the vocalization of female-oriented voices within positions of authority and policy-making.

As Benhabib clearly states, feminist theory is not focused on toppling male dominance, nor is it another sexist ploy to gain supreme social, political, economic or religious power. It aims to reveal the horrific atrocities against women that come about in the subtlest manners that operate on a daily basis right under our noses. It wishes to dismantle the socio-political walls that entrap women within a privatized environment, hidden as well as ignored by both the general public and the elite decision-makers. And most importantly, it seeks to examine the reification of the dominant perception of autonomy and how it serves to further subordinate and silence females.