Ambiguity and difference: Two feminist ethics of the present

Abstract

The chapter studies the ethical dimensions of Beauvoir’s existentialism and Irigaray’s ontology of difference. It argues that Irigaray builds on one central but largely neglected result of Beauvoir’s moral philosophical argumentation: the claim that fundamentally sexual subordination constitutes an ethical problem that cannot be adequately solved merely through social reforms, political interventions, or theoretical reflections. By comparing Beauvoir’s concept of erotic generosity to Irigaray’s discussion of wonder and love, the chapter demonstrates that both philosophers conceive of male privilege as an ethical issue that must be worked out between individual women and men in their concrete encounters. The task is to reform and cultivate not just human behaviors, actions, beliefs and cognitions, but also one’s own emotions and desires.