Showing papers in "Journal of Value Inquiry in 1989"

Critical individualism: Whitehead's metaphysics and critique of liberalism

Abstract: Whitehead's metaphysics contains an accurate portrayal of concrete human existence - one which can serve as a ground for criticizing the abstractions into which liberalism has fallen. His critical individualism, his insistence both on the individual as the seat of all value and on our essential connectedness to one another in modern society, is a call for liberalism to restore concrete meaning to its fundamental notions of individuality and freedom. However, his suggestions that the core values of liberalism can be actualized if we but reaffirm Plato's ancient equation of knowledge with virtue rests on an optimism that is difficult to sustain apart from a compensatory metaphysical dogma. We can appropriate Whitehead's criticism of liberalism, but if we can no longer convince ourselves of a metaphysical vision that supports faith in Plato's equation, we must look elsewhere for suggestions as to how liberalism can be revitalized.

Existential Ethics and Why it's Immoral to be a Housewife

Abstract: For most feminists, it is acceptable to criticize the institution of marriage, but it is quite another to go on and claim that it is immoral for women to choose to be housewives and mothers. Nonetheless, this position is implied in Simone de Beauvoir's early work, The Second Sex, and is repeated in her 1975 interview with Betty Friedan. She says, "No woman should be authorized to stay at home and raise children... Women should not have that choice ,,1 More than any other, this position sets Beauvoir apart from liberal feminists who believe that women's liberation means simply giving women a choice as to what sort of life they want to lead. Naturally, Beauvoir's position is unappealing to housewives who, at the same time, claim to be 'feminists.' For reasonable persons, however, whether the position is a popular one, or not, should not be the question. Rather, the concern should be whether Beauvoir's reasoning in support of her conclusion is sound or not. If it is, those who call themselves 'feminists' should no longer endorse those immoral women who choose to be housewives and mothers. Unfortunately while Beauvoir's position is clear, it is not without apparent philosophical difficulties. First, it might appear that as a thinker who draws heavily on Sartrean existentialism with its emphasis on the value of human freedom, her position to limit women's choices is contradictory? l believe, however, that if one accepts her analysis of marriage, housework, and motherhood as given in The Second Sex, her conclusion that on moral grounds women should be criticized for choosing to be housewives/mothers is quite defensible. In other words, it is indeed immoral for women to choose to be housewives. Let us examine her arguments.

The logic of arithmetic

Abstract: The arithmetic developed along the lines indicated by Cantor has up until now found no application in the real, as opposed to the mathematical, world. It is to be hoped that the changes suggested in this paper bring mathematics closer to human thought and allow it to be of increasing benefit in its service to mankind.