Deborah K. Heikes

The author wants to define a feminist theory of rationality that will allow her to justify the claim that:
1) Historically, women have been and still are oppressed, and
2) This oppression is wrong.
She surveys the theories of rationality proposed by Descartes, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, Nozick and Audi emphasizing their strengths and weaknesses with respect to her stated goal. She has the most sympathy for Audi’s virtue rationality. Virtue rationality is a theory of rationality defined by people who practice rationality. Of course, this is circular which she recognizes but points out its strengths and weaknesses. One glaring weakness with it is of course it’s proneness to relativity.

I didn’t find it a strong book and felt at times that finding a feminist theory of rationality amenable to her aims is as easy as picking all the strong parts of the theories and ignoring the weaker parts. She also wants to overcome theories that hold that reason is instrumental and not substantive. She is ultimately unsuccessful in this. I am not sure how you can look to reason to found any values. Values are posited by valuing humans and no amount of logic is going to save us from this. I am not sure how feminists are going to philosophize themselves into political relevance. It is only by getting people (mainly men) to value women’s contributions will things change. This is done through rhetoric…rhetorical persuasion. Moreover, it takes time. At best, a theory of rationality will be one more tool in feminism’s rhetorical toolkit. I doubt that a theory of rationality that apodictically founds feminism’s goals is going to convince anyone. Philosophers can't even agree.… (more)