Feminist Epistemology Essay

Abstract In this paper I crumble the electric emf of Allison Jaggars suggestion that senses in general, and criminalise emotions in accompani custodyt, be incorporated into libber epistemology. Jaggar advocates a standstill theory of emotions, and suggests that the emotions of the oppressed in item atomic number 18 solelyeviateful rather than inimical to acquiring association. I entreat that although thither be slightly potential enigmas with Jaggars approach, these problems argon common to standpoint theories and send away be addressed by applying the solutions reargond by other feminist theorists.One common criticism do by feminist epistemologistsi is the critique of handed-d give birth epistemologys nonions of objectivity and neutrality. As Naomi Sche serviceman puts it, in traditional epistemology those who ar taken to be in the best point to know be those who be believed to be nonsubjective, distanced, sedate, independent, and non excitedly rational (3-4).ii According to Allison Jaggar, the expiration of this theoryion of the knower in modern epistemology is a sharp character amidst reason and emotion where reason is privileged because emotions argon viewed as impulsive retorts that distort our rational observations of the world, which in turn distort the association we burn gain from these observations (1992). She further argues that this none contri exclusivelyes to the denial of womens epistemological authority since women argon associated with emotions and men with reason, and so men became the standard by which epistemological authority is judged.This is just wiz of m each c at a timerns feminist epistemologists sh be. However, in that respect argon many dis interchangeableities between feminists as to how to deal with the problems in traditional epistemology. iii One approach that I go forth focus on in this paper is feminist standpoint theory, specially the standpoint theory offered by Jaggar in Love and Knowledge Emotions in womens rightist Epistemology. What Jaggar aims to accomplish in her paper is to go close bridging the gap between emotion and fellowship through the suggestion that emotions whitethorn be helpful and even necessary rather than inimical to the device of knowledge (1992, 146). The bridge she wants to build includes a methodology for bring outing diagonales of the dominant convention that leads to wrong assessments of the world. This methodology relies on the nonion that built in bed abide be altered by the way one is situated in the world, particularly how ones situatedness can affect ones excited perspective and answer.I will explain the concept of stimulated perspective and resolution in a moment, but I want to jump none that the type of emotions she withdraws ar classic to feminist epistemologists ar reveallaw emotionswhich are wound up responses that do not follow or conduct the set and norms we have been taught to accept. Becaus e outlaw emotions are usually a proscribe response to norms and value, they can help us identify which biases are make errors in our methods of seeking knowledge.The point that Jaggar wants to make clear up is that impartiality in our epistemic methods is impossible, thitherfore, we should exceed up on the notion of impartiality and head for the hills towards identifying biases that will better snuff it our epistemic enterprisingnesss. There is much logical phone line between feminists over the potential of feminist standpoint epistemologies, yet, I find that Jaggars methodology warrants some consideration. iv However, because she offers just a sketch of how emotions faculty be incorporated into epistemology, there are some fits of her theory that are problematic.The first problem is that standpoint theories come along to neglect the differing experiences of particular individuals at detectt crowds by trying to speak rough the experiences of these groups in general. The second problem is that Jaggar compulsions to address how to distinguish which outlaw emotions could potentially further feminist interests from the other emotions, outlaw or otherwise. The general aim of this paper, whencece, is to initiate an investigation into whether Jaggars proposal will be a red-fruited endeavor for feminist epistemologists.The more specific aim of this paper is to point out some of the potential problems that arise from her theory, as a feminist theory, and to offer some potential solutions for these problems, some of which are solutions that feminists have previously utilise to answer similar problems in other feminist theories. 1. Jaggars peck Jaggar argues that theories that make the distinction between reason and emotion as it pertains to knowledge are dislocaten in that they falsely assume emotions are involuntary responses that can be separated from reason.Jaggar contends that most emotions are societally constructed, intentional, and can in fluence our perceptions of the world. For example, when someone feels offense at a slight from a takeoff booster, this anger arises not as an involuntary response, but rather there is a judgment fundament made about the way friends ought to abide and the response of anger is the appropriate emotion that corresponds with ones expectations creation disappointed.We form beliefs about what constitutes a slight by a friend at the said(prenominal) time as we learn what our society values as appropriate friendship behavior and appropriate responses to unlike experiences consecrate affection as a response to respect from ones friends and anger to disrespect. The idea that emotions are constructed suggests that socialization influences our appraisals of the world and the judgments we make are a lot emotional responses to observations that reflect the norms and values of our society.For example, when someone tells a jocularity the expected response is for a person to be amused. Howe ver, my being amused by a joke conjectures a number of social conditions. For instance, when we see to it some intimacy like a priest, a rabbi, and a duck walk into a bar we immediately feel an anticipatory amusement, since we recognize this as a joke formula. v If I do not recognize this formula then my lack of understanding could cause me to not cope the same social experience as the other people who are hearing the same joke.Second, in tramp to find the joke amusing I must(prenominal) not only understand the language in which the joke is told, but also the content of the joke. I must share the same appraisal of the world in order to actually be amused by the perforate line. Third, emotional responses are neither automatic nor passive in the sense that we have no control over them. I may be amused and laugh at a joke of this type. However, I may not laugh if I find the joke to be in bad taste even though not express feelings when amusement is anticipated often creates mome nts of social tension and discomfort.The important thing to note here is that in both cases whether or not I am amused can be a deliberate sensible decision. From this example, we can see why Jaggar suggests that, every emotion presupposes an evaluation of some aspect of the environment while, and conversely, every evaluation or appraisal of the situation implies that those who share the evaluation will share, ceteris paribus, a predict adapted emotional response to the situation (1992, 153).Just as I would have to share a similar appraisal of the world in order to understand the punch line of a joke, I am also influenced by those preconceived notions to think the joke is funny. At the very least, I am lettered to some extent to recognize a joke when I hear one and laugh when I think laughter is the expected response.Jaggar thinks it is important to recognize that emotions play a role in how we seek knowledge, given up that if we maintain the distinction between emotion and reas on in epistemology, then this distinction will influence whom we think are considerably epistemic agents namely, dis choleric investigators who can keep their emotions from interfering with their observations. Ironically, because the notion of a dispassionate investigator is considered the ideal, we are biased in our assessment of who is a good investigator and who is not.Note that Jaggar is not saying we are not being impartial enough in our assessment of investigators rather she is saying our bias in favour of the dispassionate is inhibiting because emotion is an essential part of knowledge. Moreover, the distinction between emotion and reason is problematic, as Jaggar points out, because reason has been associated with members of dominant political, social, and cultural groups and emotion with members of subordinate groups, like people of colorand women (1992, 157).The result of the false distinction between emotion and reason is that it produces a myth about investigators that functions in a circular build where the myth reinforces the oppression of those who are perceived as emotional, while the oppression reinforces the myth that it is bad to be emotional. In order to give a full method of accounting of what it authority to be a good investigator, then, we should realize how emotions function to produce passionate investigators who are time-tested observers.The first point Jaggar thinks a full account should include is that in many ways emotions are socially constructed in a way that reflects the norms and values of our society, and that this emotional construction influences our evaluations and observations of the world. The second aspect of the social construction of our emotional constitution she wants to point out is that our emotional construction is not complete in the sense that there are people who do not always respond to or evaluate particular situations in a manner that reflects social norms and values.Jaggar calls these unconventional emotional responses and evaluations outlaw emotions, and states that they are usually experienced by subordinated individuals who pay a disproportionately high price for maintaining the status quo (1992, 160). However, when the distinction between emotion and reason is maintained biases against emotional responses in general and unconventional emotional responses in particular, are disregarded.For example, a woman may feel anger or fear when a sexist joke is made, but when she tries to juncture her opinion she is told either that she did not understand the joke or that she has no sense of humour. Thus, when the distinction is maintained it makes it difficult, if not impossible, to realize that the joke is not funny because it is based on a negative stereotype. That is to say, it is not acknowledge that the stereotype and the expected emotional response is dictated by the true norms and values.Furthermore, because a woman, who may already be identified as a bad observer, is pointi ng out that there may be a mistake in our way of thinking, her response is disregarded as emotional and unreli sufficient, and the autocratic norms and values go unquestioned. 2. Jaggars Methodology and Potential Problems The benefit of ridding ourselves of epistemologies that do not acknowledge the role of emotions, both conventional and unconventional, is that we can begin to recognize which norms and values are causing harmful biases and negative stereotypes.Furthermore, Jaggar claims that feminist outlaw emotionswhich are outlaw emotions that incorporate feminist perceptions and valuesare particularly useful in feminist epistemology because they can help in developing alternatives to prevailing reality by motivating innovative investigationswomens liberationist emotions provide a political motivation for investigation and so help determine the selection of problems as well as the method by which they are investigated (1992, 161).Although Jaggar meant to offer a rough sketch of some of the wobbles that need to be made to our epistemic theories and practices, I think there are some potential problems that need to be addressed. For one, I think she necessarily to say more about how we should determine which emotions will lead to fruitful norms and values, and which emotions we should reject. To her credit, it seems that Jaggar recognizes this is a question that demand to be addressed given that she tries to give reasons for why certain alternative perceptions of the world, perceptions informed by outlaw emotions, are to be preferred to perceptions informed by conventional norms (1992, 161).She claims the reason womens outlaw emotions should be given consideration is because women are not members of the group that conventional beliefs about emotions privilege. Given that women experience the consequences of not being privileged, they are not as likely to adhere to these norms without question. Hence, they are better able to articulate the negative asp ects of their experiences because they do not fear that this questioning of norms will threaten their privileged status.The problem with this response is that it does not seem to to the full answer the question, because some outlaw emotions will not provide reliable guides to identifying biases, and so the difficulty will be distinguishing which emotions are reliable from those that are not. In order to give a more robust argument for why we should give special consideration to the emotions of oppressed people she needs to first address the fact that the oppressed do not share one perspective.As pointed out by Marilyn Frye, one problem with making claims about the standpoint of womens emotional perspectives is that such claims seem to presuppose there are universal types of emotionsoutlaw or otherwisethat are consistent throughout the emotions experienced by women. Frye notes that this is a mistake often made by feminists given that it is common for epistemological theories to espo use that all knowers are essentially alike, that is, are essentially like oneself one thinks that one speaks not just as oneself, but as a merciful being (35).What happens in feminist theorizing as a response to this attitude is feminists be hap convinced they need to speak as Women in order to be taken seriously. As Frye points out, feminists often face the difficult delegate of trying to articulate the circumstances, experience and perception of those who are historically, materially, culturally constructed by or through the concept women. But the differences among women across cultures, locales and generations make it clear that although all female military man may live lives shaped by the concepts of Woman, they are not all shaped by the same concept of Woman (36).vi The point I want to stress from this passage is that not all women will experience the same emotions in the same contexts because we are formed by distinct concepts of Woman even though women in general face op pression in one form or some other. In response to the problem of womens differing experiences, Frye suggests feminists approach epistemology with a dissimilar methodology. That is, a methodology that will allow women to give meaning to their own experiences even though they are not experiences that are shared by all women.Part of this project entails that feminists give up the notion of a universal womens experience. Another part is that they listen to many different womens experiences and look for patterns of similarity. Frye suggests this methodology will result in the sideline The experiences of each woman and of the women collectively generate a new meshwork of meaning. Our process has been one of discovering, recognizing, and creating patternspatterns at bottom which experience made a new kind of sense, or in instances, for the first time made any sense at all.Instead of bringing a phase of dubiousness to closure by summing up what is known, as other ways of generalizing do, pattern recognition/constructions opens fields of meaning and generates new interpretive possibilities. Instead of gulp conclusions from observations, it generates observations. (39) I think this methodology will be helpful in pointing out the outlaw emotions that can offer guidance as to which of our norms and values are questionable, and opens a dialogue over potential ways to change them.The methodology Frye advocates can be further developed if we consider potential ways in which women can express their experiences such that patterns can be recognized. One approach that I find particularly convincing is offered by Morwenna Griffiths. Griffiths suggests that feminist epistemologists can employ autobiographical accounts of womens experiences as a means of articulating the differences between womens experiences. Like Frye, Griffiths also notes that there is no one experience common to all women.However, Griffiths further claims that, individuals are not entirely of one group or another. On the contrary, individuals are fragments of an uncertain number of groups (62). The conclusion she draws from this point is that it is an oversimplification to limit the types of knowledge military mans can attain into categories like womens knowledge. One person can experience oppression from the perspective of more than one position. To name a few, one may experience oppressions from the perspectives of a particular race, class, gender, or versed orientation, and intersections of these.For example, the oppression experienced by a native woman is not the same as that experienced by a native man or that experienced by a white woman. Hence, Griffiths suggests that ones positions in the world at different times can open to her understanding of the world, which in turn will influence the knowledge she can acquire about the world. Noting the different positions from which an individual can have experiences and acquire knowledge is important because it suggests that th ere can be similarities between the positions we subscribe and the individual experiences we have.This potential to have similar experiences of the world further suggests that similarities in experience make it the case that we are not completely denied admission charge to other peoples understanding of the world. The reason Griffiths thinks autobiographical accounts are a crucial feature of feminist epistemology is because the way in which individuals come to find similarities in experiences is through language. To further clarify her point, she argues that, language has a considerable power to determine what we see and do, but this power is not absolute. We also create new language, by working on the languages in which we live.Individual experience can be used in creation knowledge in combinations with the experiences of others. Groups can develop languages of their own if they share particular psychosocial, social and linguistic experiences. Thus women in society, for instance, who share particular positions within it can develop a way of talking about this. (66) In short, Griffiths suggests that language is key to feminist epistemology because it points out how women with different experiences can in time come to some consensuses on the oppressions they experience and the knowledge developed from these experiences. 3. completionI think that if we incorporate Griffiths and Fryes approach on Jaggars theory what we will find is a more tenable response to questions about which outlaw emotions can be regarded as being particular to women namely, patterns of outlaw emotions that feminists have recognized through the expression of different womens autobiographical accounts. And once we can start pointing out the commonalities between the different perspectives that arise from the standpoint of different women, we can begin show that there is something about womens reality that makes it the case that they are experiencing the world other than than men.I have n ot even scratched the surface with respect to bounteous a detailed explanation of exactly how Jaggar thinks a fully working(a) theory of outlaw emotions might look. However, I am assuming that once theorists start admitting that emotion is an integral part of epistemology the intricate details of how to identify fruitful outlaw emotions will be worked out. For instance, we might be able to start identifying patterns of emotions that could be considered outlaw emotions and which norms and values that they are a response to.And this recognition will further our abilities to start questioning the norms and values that guide our epistemic practices. I think this is the sort of thing Jaggar had in heed when she states that the benefit of bridging the gap between emotion and knowledge is that our emotions, when properly accessed, may render to the development of knowledge, so the growth of knowledge may contribute to the development of appropriate emotions (1992,163).The development o f this project may be soggy and arduous, but given the problems that exist in traditional epistemology I think Jaggars project seems worthy of consideration as a potential contributor to a solution. NOTES i For the purposes of this paper I will equate feminist epistemologists with feminists philosophers of science given that there are many overlapping interests between the two. ii For similar arguments, particularly with respect to how positivism had contributed to the notion of the ideal objective knower, see Jaggar (1992) and (1983), especially pp.355-358 Code (1993). iii As noted by Louise Antony, For discussions of epistemological frameworks available to feminists, see Sandra Harding, The Science Question in Feminism, (Ithaca, N. Y. Cornell University Press, 1986), especially pp. 24-29 bloody shame Hawkesworth, Feminist Epistemology A Survey of the Field, Women and Politics 7 (1987) 112-124 and Hilary Rose, Hand, Brain, and Heart A feminist Epistemology for the Natural Scienc es, Signs 9, 11 (1983) 73-90. (Antony 2002, Note 3).iv For discussion of Feminist vantage point Theory, see end On (1993) Harding (1993) Longino (1993). For a more general epitome of essentialism in feminist theorizing, see Spelman (1988). v Thanks to Elizabeth Brake for clarifying the distinction between the emotion of amusement and the behavior of laughter, as well as supplying me with an example of amusement anticipation. vi Jaggar does mention that she is speaking very for the most part of people and their emotions, as though everyone experienced similar emotions and dealt with them in similar ways (Jaggar 1992, 157).And she further notes that it is an axiom of feminist theorythat all generalizations about people are suspect (Jaggar 1992, 157). So she does, at the very least, seem to recognize that she may fall prey to Fryes criticism. However, she goes on to argue that making generalizations about the emotionality of women is part of how the epistemic authority of men is p erpetuated, and she does not address the issue of how she should deal with the problem as it applies to standpoint theory.I find this particularly odd given that in another work she claims that part of the project of feminist ethics entails that feminists be smooth to the fact that all women are not similarly situated in such a way that universal claims can be made about them even though there are commonalities between womens situatedness at times. (Jaggar 1991). So, although I am uncertain as to why she does not deal with problems that might arise from this issue as it applies to standpoint theory, I gather that she would welcome rather than reject feminist theories that could aid her in avoiding this problem as it would apply to feminist epistemology.BIBLIOGRAPHY Alcoff, Linda, and Elizabeth Potter. 1993. 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