Being Yourself: Essays on Identity, Action, and Social Life (Feminist Constructions)

Being Yourself Essays on Identity, Action, and Social Life

Diana Tietjens Meyers

ROW MAN & LITTLEFIELD P1JBLISHERS, INC.

Lanham • Boulder • New York • Toronto • Oxford

ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. A wholly owned subsidiary of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowmanlittlefield.com PO Box 317 Oxford OX29RU, UK Copyright © 2004 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

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Meyers, Diana T. Being yourself: essays on identity, action, and social life / Diana Tie~ens Meyers. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7425-1477-3 (cloth: alk. paper) - ISBN 0-7425-1478-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Sex discrimination against women. 2. Women-Social conditions. 3. Women-Socialization. 4. Women-Identity. 5. Sex role. 6. Feminist theory. I. Title HQ1237 .M49 2004 305.42-dc22 2003022410 Printed in the United States of America QTM

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Preface

Self and Agency

[H]aving the opportunity to talk about one's life, to give an account of it, to interpret it, is integral to leading that life rather than being led through it ... and we can be sure that being silenced in one's own account of one's life is a kind of amputation that signals oppression. Maria C. Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman (1983) In order to develop an effective politics of everyday life, we need to understand better than we do now not only the processes of personality development, but the "micropolitics" of our most ordinary transactions, the ways in which we inscribe and reinscribe our subjection in the fabric of the ordinary. Sandra Lee Bartky (1990)

orldwide, women confront invidious, hazard packed, social structures. Some theorists call these hostile systems patriarchy; some call them male dominance; some call them sexism. For my purposes, the label is not important. What matters is the fact that, in one way or another, gender-biased cultures, institutions, and practices subject women to grievous harms, just because they are women. Women do not all suffer the sante harms, for their predicament is conditioned by diverse histories and current socioeconomic configurations of power. Moreover, the kind and degree of adversity women face depends on additional markers of social status, such as race, ethnicity, and class. What is clear,

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however, is that, whatever their particular form, gender relations are constituted by unjustifiable, self-reproducing patterns of inequality that work to women's detriment. These systems mold women's potentialities and channel their energies into preordained and underappreciated endeavors. They divide women from each other and quell resistance by directing women's affections and loyalties to il1.en. They target women for abhorrent abuse and crushing shame. In effect, existing gender systems disdain women's individuality, differentially constrain their self-determination, and whitewash the wrongs they inflict. As a result, most people-women and men alikebelieve that gender hierarchies express the natural order of human life. Fortunately for me, the particulars and peculiarities of my upbringing were far from conducive to faith in the gender system that regulated my childhood and adolescence. On the contrary, my frustrations with that regime together with my awareness of its coercive power heightened the value I place on individuality and kindled my interest in the topics of self and agency. Eventually, my formal education in the extent, variety, and intractability of misogynist gender systems and the intersections between gender inequity and other forms of injustice exposed tensions between the value of individuality and the disvalue of systematic social and economic sLLbordination. The former presupposes a type of freedom that the latter aims to suppress. Obvious as this conflict is in the abstract, philosophizing about it at the same level of abstraction contributes little to understanding and overcoming it. To grasp the import of this conflict, in my view, is to grasp the need for nonideal ethical theory and realistic action theory. In contrast to ideal ethical theory and action theory, my work does not envision a perfectly just society, people it witl1. transparent, clairvoyant individuals, and draw out the implications of these hypotheticals. Because ideal theories furnish no principles to mediate the transition from our world to theirs, and because we are fallible thinkers and choosers who inhabit egregiously flawed societies, adhering to ideal principles leads to pockets and swathes of undetected oppression, if not to wholesale tyranny. To minimize the discrepancy between theory and the real world, the papers in this volume start from the down-to-earth, yet vertiginously complex problems that confront individuals and societies in the here and now. They undertake 1) to explicate individual uniqueness and individual agency within a context of unjust structural stratification and differential constraint; 2) to articulate approaches to moral reflection and judgment that are sel1.sitive to the social positioning of moral subjects as well as to the distortions of culturally prevalent stereotypes and prejudices; and 3) to propose remedies for some of the social wrongs that interfere with individual agency and flourishing. Pursuing these aims is my way of bringing my commitment to feminism to bear on my scholarly writing.

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To integrate feminism and philosophy, however, it is not enough to take up topics of concern to women. It is also necessary to import the lessons of feminist activism and the findings of interdisciplinary feminist scholarship into the activity of philosophizing. Freeing and attending to women's voices through consciousness-raising was methodologically central to second wave femiIlist practice and theory. Conscious11ess-raising sessions sparked campaigns for abortion rights and equal pay for equal work as well as campaigns against sexual harassment and don1estic violence. Many feminist social scientists-developmental psychologist Carol Gilligan prominent among them-adopted a research methodology that converges with the model of consciousness-raising. It features extended interviews and close analysis of interview transcripts as the basis for theorizing. 111 her investigations of moral development, Gilligan discerned an ethic of care and responsibility in the statements of a sizable proportion of her female subjects. Although many women are not exponents of care ethics, many feminist philosophers recognized a feminine voice that had been silenced in canonical moral philosophy. Thus, Gilligan's book, In a Different Voice, gave a surge of momentum to the then nascent philosophical field of feminist ethics. In fact, I wrote one of the earliest papers reprinted in this volume (chapter 5) after attending a conference that Eva Kittay and I convened to explore the philosophical potential of Gilligan's insights into moral subjectivity and moral relations. In the spirit of taking women's viewpoints seriously, much of my subsequent work takes personal testimony or social scientific studies as a point of departure. All feminist philosophy is rooted in the conviction that paying attention to gender-understanding why the category of gender has been sidelined throughout the history of philosophy and giving it a central place in one's own scholarship-transforms the philosophical enterprise in salutary ways. Philosophical problems that had seemed peripheral become salient, and familiar constructions of philosophical problems often seem misleading or irrelevant. Moreover, because gender together with its intersections with other forms of social domination al1d subordination is a historically variable, culturally specific phenomenon, introducing gender as a key philosophical category makes it imperative to integrate pertinent findings from various disciplines, including psychology, anthropology, history, and cultural studies, into philosophical methodology. This gender-sensitive, quasi-empirical approach to philosophy differentiates my views about the self and agency from ideal theory in two respects. First, I reject conceiving of justice as a set of universal principles, and I reject inferring solutions for social problems by applying ostensibly universal principles to a morally problematic configuration of facts. I believe that it is crucial to address social problems from the standpoint of

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those who suffer systemic harm and to propose remedies that respect these individuals by preserving and augmenting their agency. Second, I reject framing the topic of agency as a metaphysical debate about free will. I regard agency as phenomenologically accessible and widely valued, and I seek to account for people's everyday experience of agency and also for their experience of obstructed agency. Likewise, I believe that action theory must bear in mind the psycho-corporeal dynamics that can give rise to self-deception and self-destruction as well as to insight and fulfilln'lent. My n'lain objective is to reclaim the concept of a person who judges for herself, who enacts her values and commitments, and who thereby leads a life that is distinctively her own. In the context of action theory, the terms agency, autonomy, and self-determination are roughly synonyn'lous, for all of them refer to the singularly human capacity to act. Still, because these terms are couched in competing philosophical discourses, they carry differel'lt connotations. Self-determination, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was originally linked to th.e concept of free will-the capacity of one's mind or will to direct itself-and many contemporary philosophical discussions of selfdetermination are primarily concerned with free will and responsibility. Such treatments of self-determination conceptualize the problem as a contest between compatibilism and incompatibilism (are free will and causal determinism compatible?) and an inquiry into the legitimizing conditions for holding persons morally and/ or legally responsible for their conduct (are practices of praising and blaming justified?). But once experiences of self-detern'lination and thwarted or lapsed self-determination are placed in the context of unjust social institutions and hierarchical cultures, it is evident that this interpretation of the topic is unduly narrow. Whether free will and causal determinism can coexist or not, individual identities are inseparable from the manifestations of internalized oppression (and internalized privilege) that pervasive injustice portends. Whether punishment is justifiable or not, internalized, oppressive norms can interfere with self-determination. If so, explaining how people can generate social critique and Llndertake emancipatory action is of paramount importance. Likewise, a tenable theory of self-determination must differel'ltiate between mere conformity to or accidental divagation from social norms, on the one hand, and genuine endorsement or opposition, on the other. It is by no means clear that an account of free will, at least, as this topic is standardly construed, is germane to these questions. Nevertheless, because the term self-determination has the virtues of being descriptively straightforward and refreshingly unpretentious, I propose to uncouple it from worries about free will and to use it in a nontechnical sense.

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In contrast to the tern1 self-determination, the term autonomy was first used to refer to sovereign states-autonomous polities have the right to govern themselves. Self-determination did not acquire this political usage until the twentieth century. The early uses of autonomy to characterize persons paralleled its political meaning. It ascribed personal freedom ,vithin the bounds of socially authorized liberty to act. But Immanuel Kant stipulated a more restrictive and arcane conception of autonomy. For Kant, an autonomous person calls upon reason to discover the universal moral law and fulfills the duties it dictates. Today, in the context of medicine's commitment to patient autonomy and informed consent, to be autonomous is to be a decision maker who is not subject to coercion or deception and who possesses the faculties needed to understand medical options, weigh the pros and cons, and decide. The language of autonomy presents compound problems. It is difficult to extricate from liberal individualism, Kant's vision of socially transcendent reason, and contemporary rational choice theory. Yet, autonomy's etymological and philosophical history spotlights capacities that no action theory should disregard, including the capacities for moral insight, social critique, and intentional action. Also, because the vocabulary of autonomy underscores the role of the individual in shaping a distinctive life, discarding it would be inadvisable. Although a central aim of feminist politics is expanding women's opportunities and their control over their lives, many feminists eschew the term autonomy because of its al1drocentric ancestry. Insofar as liberalism's homo economicus-the independent, rational, wheeler-dealer in the marketplaceis taken to be paradigmatically autonomous, valuing autonomy seems to devalue th.e relational self-understanding that is cornmon among women who care for depelLdents or for whom maintaining intimate, emotionally charged, uLterdependent relationships is a highly valued good. Consequently, ma11Y femuust writers favor agency discourse. Like the term autonomy, the term agency has historically been central to economic discourse. Nevertheless, as feminists now perceive it, agency is a more gender neutral term than autonomy or self-determination. For different reasons, poststructuralists are also loathe to adopt the vocabulary of autonomy. In their view, holding that people have an inner self that is the source of their choices and actions perpetuates an ontological illusion. Individuals are fluid nodes in the cross-currents of established discourses, and their conduct is a byproduct of discursive flux and flow. Consequently, individuals cannot be self-governing, although they do act and their actions have social consequences. Seeking a metaphysically innocuous language ilL which to theorize human action and interaction, poststructuralists join many feminists in adopting the term

agency.

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Poststructuralism provides a helpful deflationary corrective to overblown assllmptions about how stable and unified individual subjects are and how much control individuals can attain. Moreover, agency theory's accent on resistance to social norms offsets the emphasis on selfinterest and personal satisfaction found in some treatments of autonomy. Because the vocabulary of agency underscores social dissent and the social impact of oppositional action, I wish to retain it. However, from the standpoint of working out a feminist action theory, the trouble with the language of agency is that it is integral to postructuralist theories that gut the agent and sever deeds from doers-in other words, theories that depersonalize htlman action. None of these terminological alternatives is altogether satisfactory. Each of these vocabularies can be traced to perennial, but, to my mind, misbegotten argun1ents defending free will against the supposedly deterministic universe. Each of these vocabularies comes burdened with n1isguided modernist or poststructuralist views of the self. Yet, each of these vocabularies is invoked to articulate disparate, but important insights into the potentialities for and limits of individual deliberation, choice, and action. Because none of the theories associated with these vocabularies fully captures the phenomenon I seek to understand, and because each of these theories makes a substantial contribution to understanding it, I prefer not to choose among these theories and their coordinate vocabularies. In the chapters that follow, I appropriate and occasionally adapt whiclLever language seems most apt in light of my immediate concerns an.d arguments. The ·uniqueness of persons cannot be understood or properly valued without taking account of the impact of generalized enculturation and social positioning, as well as the distinctive constellation of interpersonal bonds each individual forms. People are both social and relational bein.gs. Nevertheless, appreciating the uniqueness of persons also requires taking account of tILe various ways in which embodied subjects respond to these inputs-defending against them, modifying them, selectively assimilating them, and splicing them into an evolving psycho-corporeal economy. Early in life, this sieving and amalgamating takes place unconsciously. As individuals' cognitive, emotion.al, and motor capacities mature, conscious valuation and judgn1ent reduce the influence of unconscious processes. Gradually, the process of vetting inputs and consolidating an identity is brought-to a significant extent, but by no means completely-under conscious control. With this gain in self-oversight come opportunities for gains in self-determination. Although people do not usually use the terms self-determination, autonomy, nonautonomy, and agency in casual conversation, they do take notice of experiences that philosophers use these terms to reference. "This job/neighborhood is n1e!/1 attests to autonomy, for users of this expression

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are affirming that they've found, perhaps after an arduous search, the job/neighborhood that really suits them-the place where they belong, as we sometimes say. Similarly, "She's always been true to herself" lauds someone who lives autonomously-who has her own values and who acts accordingly. People say "How could I have given in?" to reproach themselves for self-betrayal and to lament t11e loss of agency that it betokens. Although any speaker's characterization may prove to be mistaken, these declarations and exclamations (and others like them) either advance a claim to autonomy or assert a lapse of autonomy. To clarify what selfdetermination is like, it is helpful to think of times when you've used these locutions (or when acquaintances have) and when you have been convinced of the perspicaciousness of the characterization. If you can think of examples that fit this description, you know what I am talkin_g about. As my autonomy expressions in1ply (and as I expect your examples bear out), there are satisfactions associated with making one's own judgments and charting one's own course and dissatisfactions associated with being under someone else's control or failing to stand up for oneself. Autonomous individuals know who they are-what really matters to them, whom they deeply care about, what their capacities and limitations actually are, and so forth_-and they are able to translate this self-understanding into action in their day-to-day lives. There is a good fit, then, betweel1 their individual identity, their conduct, and their reflexive feelings. Autonomous choices and actions occasion a deeply satisfying sense of wholeness. In contrast, both prolonged nonautonomy and episodes of nonautonomy make individuals vulnerable to a variety of disturbing feelings. Ranging from bewilderment and ineffectuality to chronic anxiety, alienation from self, and agentic paralysis, symptoms of nonautonomy cannot only make people miserable, they can also impede the nonautonomous individual's struggle to attain or regain autonon1Y. Self-discovery, self-definitiol1, and self-direction skills are needed to experience autonomy and avoid nonautonomy. I call the repertoire of agentic skills that empower people in these ways autonomy competency. The agentic subject has a well-developed}' well-coordinated repertoire of skills and uses it in everyday life as well as in vexing or crisis situations. Byexercising autonomy competency, agentic subjects become aware of their actual affects, desires, traits, capabilities, values, and aims, conceive realistic personal ideals, and endeavor to bring the former into alignment with the latter. Autonomy competency sets in motion a piecemeal, trial-and-error process of self-understanding and self-reconstruction that underwrites a provisional authentic identity. Autonomous actions are those that enact attributes constitutive of one's authentic identity and actions that prompt development of one's authentic identity. In my view, then, the concept of

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autonomy competency provides a philosophical psychology and an epistemology of authentic identity and self-determination.. The chapters in part 1 have two main aims. First, they defend the view of autonomous action I sketched above and consider its bearing on gender, women's subordination, and women's resistance to demeaning cultural norms and sexist institutional strictures. Second, they explore the multi-dimensionality of the autonomous agent stressing the ways in which social location, interpersonal relations, an.d embodiment shape individual identity and the ways in which such multiplex identities give rise to agency. A principal advantage of the view of the self and agency I present is that it acknowledges the insidious impact of institutionalized domination and subordination without altogether disempowering individual agents. Because autonomous agency is an ongoing process of bringing agentic skills to bear on the circumstances life presents and because autonomous agency is a matter of degree, adverse social conditions do not foreclose it. Part 2 considers the self and agency in specifically moral contexts. Here the key issue is how individual subjects and the collectivities they form can identify and critique injustice in contexts of culturally normative prejudicersocially permissible disrespect or indifference; tolerated aggression, exclusion, and subordination; and systematic silencing, miscommunication, and dysinterpretation. In other words, how it is possible for individuals and/or collectivities to penetrate the fog of immoral, atavistic concepts, values, and norms and to envisage social relations organized on the basis of more felicitous and reciprocal understandings. In place of the critical strategies associated with neo-Kantianism, social contract theory, and utilitarianism, these chapters focus on emotional, empathic, and counterdiscursive capacities. Like the chapters in part I, these chapters defend a skill-based, processual account of social analysis and catalyzing social change. This approach to agency is particularly appropriate to the task of rectifying numerous, intersecting social wrongs, for it is clear that these refractory injustices cannot be overcome in one fell swoop. Part 3 introduces several topical issues as a basis for examining how rights guarantee the liberty characteristic of social environments that are conducive to exercising autonomy competency and also how rights can interfere with autonomy. These chapters consider how the value of cultllral perpetuation can conflict with individual liberty and how such conflicts can be addressed. They consider how stereotyping and malign cultural norms can interfere with self-determination and how discursive and institutional practices need to change in order to ensure everyone's equal right to autonomy. In my view, a just society serves individuals by supplying their needs and establishing a context for individual flo·urishing as individuals themselves define flourishing. Although institutionalized

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rights and liberties are indispensable to justice, they do not suffice to achieve this goal. Until discourses and practices of respect for and enjoyment of diversity supplant existing discourses of paired derogatory and honorific categories and structurally enforced stratification, most people will have to struggle to find language in which to articulate their worthiness and the legitimacy of their interests and aspirations, and many people will enjoy far less autonomous agency than they are entitled to. Diana Tie~ens Meyers New York City, 2003

I

THE AUTONOMOUS AGENT

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Personal Autonomy and the Paradox of Feminine Socialization

eople are personally autonomous when their conduct is morally permissible and is not dictated by any technical rule, and when they are doing what they, as individuals, want to do. On this account, autonomous personal decisions might seem reducible to straightforward questions of maximizing desire satisfaction, but Freud and Marx have shown how opaque the divide between perceived desire and actual desire commonly is. Their insight exposes the inadequacy of understanding personal autonomy as nothing more than doing what one wants without undue interference from others, and it highlights the need for an account of the difference between doing what one wants and doh'lg what one really wants. The autonomous self is not identical with the apparent self; it is an authentic or "true" self. Autonomous conduct expresses the true self. Since modem social science numbers socialization among the prime threats to personal autonomy, a good way to get one's bearings in regard to this topic is to examine the effects of a socialization process that is widely believed antithetical to autonomy. Traditional feminine socialization-the set of practices which instills in girls the gentle virtues of femininity along with homespun feminine goals-is one such process. 1 According to many feminist scholars, feminine socialization is crucial to the persistence of women's subjection. Yet, against the claim that feminine socialization suppresses personal autonomy, some feminist thinkers have celebrated what they regard as distinctively feminine styles of agency. I shall begin by focusing on the issues these diametric views of feminine socialization raise,

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Chapter 1

and I propose to ask what sort of account of personal auton.omy would be adequate to both of these views. Though I am takin.g feminist theory as my point of departure, I believe that the conception of personal autonomy implicit in this literature has general application, and that it is a more satisfactory one than we have heretofore had.

THE PROBLEM OF PERSONAL AUTONOMY IN FEMINIST THEORY

Much recent feminist theory has adopted the attractive, but somewhat paradoxical position that women have traditionally occupied oppressive, subordinate social positions, but that traditional women and their work should be respected as such. Feminists have not always subscribed to the latter thesis, however. In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir2 repeatedly declares that, as a result of their exclusion from public life and their socialization for domesticity, women in their present condition are "mutilated./I Their work consists of deadly maintenance routines, and their creative potential is stunted. Whereas men are capable of transcendence, women are trapped in immanence-a state of passivity and objectification. Thus, de Beauvoir concentrates on explaining how women, who are capable of being men's equals, are systematically rendered inferior to men. Though few feminists today would concur with de Beauvoir's virulent condemnation of women as mutilated beings, the basic line of argument which de Beauvoir developed remains in currency as an explanation of why women's status remains subordinate to men's despite the fact that women have had full political and economic rights for over two decades. It could be argued, of course, that prejudice against women lingers and that this era of legal equality is brief in comparison with the time needed to prepare for and establish careers. There is evidence, however, that women pursuing careers outside the home often suffer from conflicts regarding their sexual identity which never afflict men. 3 Discrimination cannot explain such ambivalence. To account for this phenomenon, some feminists have argued that differential childhood socialization continues to funnel girls into the psychology of dependency and altruistic devotion to others which is traditionally associated with femininity. If this is true, it is no surprise that women would resist acting aggressively and selfinterestedly and would therefore be less successful in public vocations than their male peers. On this view, women have been crippled by a mindset instilled in them when they were children. Still, the conclusion that women have been made inferior to men. is by no means a palatable one. Not only does it strip countless homemakers of any dignity whatsoever, but also it fails to take account of the sensitivity

Personal Autonomy and the Paradox of Feminine Socialization

5

and imagination that childcare requires. To redress this unbalanced view of women., many contemporary feminists have valorized the traditional feminine role. Hence, a second argument now in circulation points out that their domestic role has uniquely situated women to develop practices which focus on the particular needs of individuals and which maintain lasting relationships all10ng people. Whereas men's capacities for calculated ll1aneuvering and for achieving their goals are highly developed, wOll1en's capacities for intimate interaction and for resolving differences among people are highly developed. Since both types of capability are vital to social life, the ways in which women and men approach decision making must be regarded as equal, albeit different. Although t11e argument deprecating women's autonomy is in tension with the argument celebrating it, they both ring true. Thus, it seems to me advisable to embrace both lines of argument. There is ample socialpsychological evidence to the effect that womel1 are less able to exert control over their lives than men, but the claim that femin.ine socialization altogether excludes most women from the class of autol10mous agents is both morally repugnant and factually unsubstantiated. What is needed is an account of personal autonoll1y which comprehel1ds the experiences of traditional women but which also acknowledges the liabilities that curtail these individuals' autonomy.

PERSONAL AUTONOMY AND THE TRADITIONAL WOMAN'S LIFE

Together, the two arguments I have sketched yield a composite portrait of traditional women as attentive to others' welfare, adept at orchestrating harmony within groups, and dependent on others for approval and direction. This is not particularly promising material on which to base an account of personal autonomy. Since autonoll10US people are self-governing, the self must be a pivotal element in. any conception of personal autonomy. But, in this portrait of the traditional woman, the self is conspicuously absent. Furthermore, no account of person.al aLltonomy could be complete without an explanation of how autonomous individuals govern their lives. But this portrait of the traditional woman depicts an individual more deferential to others than assertive of l1er own concerns. To salvage whatever personal autonomy the traditional woman may have, an account of personal autonomy must accommodate three features of the traditional womal1's position: (1) strongly directive prior socialization; (2) deep emotional ties to other people; and (3) a home-centered, rather than a work-centered, orientation. Now, the initial response to this list might be to object that these are the very conditions that prevent traditional women

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Chapter 1

from attaining personal autonomy. To forestall this objection, I shall sketch some reasons for countenancing these constraints on personal autonomy. My contention will be that our normal attribution of some degree of personal autonomy to most men obliges us to allow that these features of the traditional woman's life do not necessarily rule out personal autonomy. Taking the third point first, it is puzzling why, from the standpoint of personal autonomy, life in the public sphere should be privileged over life in the private sphere. To be autonomous, people must conduct their lives in accordance with the dispositions of their authentic selves. Since individuals differ, it is unlikely that one sort of environment would give every self maximal opportunity to flourish. Indeed, the public sphere is itself a highly variegated setting that compasses diverse occupations befitting different individuals. TI1.us, it seems appropriate to view the home as yet another arena in which the true self might find expression. Still, it might be countered tl1.at, since homemaking is unsalaried labor, the homemaker is economically dependent on her husband, and this dependency prevents the traditional woman from acting on her views when this would antagonize her husband. However desirable economic self-sufficiency may be from the standpoint of personal autonomy, all employees are dependent 011. their bosses. Since they are sometimes forced to choose between their convictions and their jobs, working for pay does not guarantee independence. Moreover, some benefactors intrude so little in their dependents' lives that these bel1.eficiaries' autonomy is in no way compromised. Although the homemaker's reliance on her husband's income could undermine her autonomy, she may be no more constrainedindeed, she may be less constrained-than many paid employees. Since economic dependency usually leaves considerable latitude for personal choice, requiring freedom from economic encumbrances as a precondition of personal autonomy would be too restrictive. Still, in assessing any given individual's autonomy, it is important to ascertain the impact of economic necessity on that person's choices. At this point, it migl1.t be urged tl1.at the second of the conditions I mentioned-that is, deep emotional ties to other people-compounds the traditional woman's dependency on her husband in a way that beleaguers few wage-earning employees. Not only does economic selfinterest militate against the traditional woman's opposing her husband, but also her love for him keeps her subservient. Although it may be an added disadvantage to love the person upon whom one's livelihood depends, it is a mistake to think that the commitments involved in profound affection are peculiar to the traditional woman's attachments. Excluding love from the autonomous life would imply the exclusion of a whole range of life plans which an autonomous person could reasonably take up. Success in many of the more stimulat-

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ing, prestigious, and well-paid careers involves identification with a set of standards and objectives ordained by the profession, not by each of its individual practitioners. Similarly, political advocacy or dedication to other sorts of causes is often passionate and often involves relinquishing some of one's prerogatives in the service of one's convictions. Certainly, people can become so absorbed in their careers or in social movements that they cease to be capable of discernitlg a mismatch between their activities and their selves. But, since it is hard to believe that shallow commitlnents are the only ones which can give expression to anyone's authentic self, it is necessary to discover how an equilibrium can be maintained between the integrity of the self and the people and projects the self embraces. Returning to the problem presented by the traditional woman, it is a truism that her loving attachment to her family can supplant her self. Yet, it is not clear that her affection altogether eclipses her self, and it would be a severely impoverished conception of the authentic self which denied that love could be an expression of it. On the assumption that few people are so unfortunate as to love no one and to be "unloved, either personal autonomy is reserved for those whose lives are emotionally empty, or personal autonomy is possible in the context of ongoing love. Although the commitments and interdependencies implicit in love complicate the problem of autonomy, it seems better to contend with these complexities than to trivialize autonomy. Finally, if anything can, strongly directive socialization seems to controvert personal autonomy. Since the traditional woman has been assiduously groomed for the feminine role from the moment she was first wrapped in a pink blanket, her fulfilling her duties as housewife and mother seems a paradigmatic case of someone's doing what others want and expect one to do, regardless of one's own desires. In contrast, men seem blessed with options: they may choose from an array of careers, and bachelorhood does not carry the connotations of rejection and loneliness which stigmatize spinsterhood. Nevertheless, masculine socialization is powerfully directive. Little boys are ta"unted for "sissyish" behavior, and, through identification with their fathers or other male models, th.ey are firmly guided into the role of paterfamilias. For men as well as women, then, personal autonomy, if it is ever attained, must be attained within a context of choice tempered by childhood socialization. I do not mean to suggest that the traditional woman is somehow an ideal exemplar of personal autonomy. Quite the contrary, her autonomy is seriously threatened in a number of ways. I do want to insist, however, that the standard doubts about her credentials as an autonomous agent can be cogently lodged against most men, and that these doubts do not warrant the conclusion that the traditional woman altogether lacks autonomy.

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Chapter 1

THREE FORMS OF AUTONOMY

To leave room for personal autonomy despite pervasive childhood role preparation coupled with compelling incentives to accede to social norms, it must be possible for people to act autonomously in isolated situations, and to adopt SOUle projects and policies autonomously without having control over the basic direction of their lives. III other words, it must be possible for a life to contain pockets of auton.omy and threads of autonomy which do not add up to an autonomous life. In defense of this conception, I shall argue that viewing personal autonomy as an all-or-nothing phenomenon is misguided in several respects. Specifically, I shall urge that the scope of programmatic a'utonomy conlpasses narrow as well as global issues, that episodic autonomy is intelligible without programmatic autonomy, and that a measure of personal autonomy can be gained through partial insight into one's authentic self. Programmatically autonomous people pose and answer the question: "How do I want to live my life?" BLlt this question cannot be addressed unless it is broken down into subsidiary questions, such. as: "What line of work do I want to get into?" "Do I want to have children?" "Do I care more about material gain or spiritual values?" and the like. A person is programmatically autonomous when that person. is carrying out a life plan that embodies that person's answers to this family of questions. Still, it is evident that questions about the overall course of one's life can be pegged at different levels of generality. With respect to procreation, for example, one can ask questions as broad as whether one wants to have any children at all, or as narrow as whicl1 con.traceptive method to use. Moreover, autonomy at the highest level of generality is not necessary for autonomy at lower levels. Indeed, since less is at stake, people may find it easier to discern what they really want in regard to narrower matters. Although people who query themselves regarding the most general aspects of their life plans are plainly more autonomous than people who by and large conform to social expectations and only attend to themselves regarding the minutiae of their lives, the latter n1ay display narrowly programmatic autonomy. A person is episodically autonomous when, in a particular situation, that person asks "What do I really want to do now?" and acts on the answer. Here, the individual is not formulating a long-term plan or setting a policy to be applied in other circumstances; the question is confined to a single action. Autonomy is enhanced to the extent that the convictions and attitudes entering into the decision have been previously examined and endorsed. Yet, people can gain a measure of autonomy by addressing situation-specific questions that occasion introspective reflection. For they get to know themselves better, and they give greater expression to their

Personal Autonolny and the Paradox of Feminine Socialization

9

own beliefs and desires than someone who mindlessly apes convention or caves in to others' wishes. The traditional woman's personal autonomy is suspect, because she h.as been inducted into the feminine role willy-nilly. But traditional women cannot always rely upon popular formulas or feminine norms to handle the predicaments they confront. Thus, a traditional woman who summons the courage to demand that her cllild's teacher show respect for values that she cherishes may be acting in an episodically autonon10US fashion. This is not to imply that individuals who never ask themselves whether the general life plans they are pursuing are the ones they really want to pursue are nonetheless fully autonomous, b·ut it is to affirm that such people may have more personal autonomy than one might suppose if one never examined the details of their lives. We have seen that the autonomy of a life is a matter of degree inasmuch as distinct undertakings can be autonomous, though the overarching life plans that subsume them are not autoll.omous. It is equally important to recognize that the autonomy of any particular decision is also a matter of degree. Consider the case mentioned above of the mother protesting a teacher's contempt for the mother's values in her child's school. To be fully autonomous, the mother's action must not only be the most sincere and effective expression of her concern, but also it must articulate values that she has independently accepted. Yet, someone could fall short of this ideal and still evidence some degree of personal autonon1y. Suppose that the mother is a Christian fundamentalist who is angered by the teacher's glib dismissal of creationism, and suppose further that she is a fundamentalist preacher's poorly educated daughter who has never been exposed to less benighted theological doctrines and who has never questioned her faith. Plainly, her conduct is heteronomous to the extent that it voices beliefs that she regards as immune to criticism. Yet, insofar as she succeeds in conveying the outrage that she genuinely feels in a manner that enables the teacher to fathom and to respect the intensity of her conviction, she is exercising control over her life. In this limited manner, she is acting autonon10usly. Thus, partial access to and expression of the self must not be overlooked as a form that autonomy can take. Autonomy can be compromised in a number of ways. Although lack of critical rationality in considering one's traits, convictions, and plans subverts personal autonomy, lack of sensitivity to one's feelings, lack of inventiveness in conceiving plans and actions, and lack of detern1.ination to carry out one's decisions ·undermine personal autonomy, too. Accordingly, personal autonomy must be gauged along a number of dimensions, and fragmentary autonomy can sometimes be described in lives that are, in many important respects, heteronomous.

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Chapter 1

A COMPETENCY APPROACH TO PERSONAL AUTONOMY

If we accept that there are at least three lesser forms of autonomy, it is necessary to ask what conception of autonomy would account for them. Various theories of autonomy come to mind. One possibility would be that, when a person achieves episodic, narrowly programmatic, or partial access autonomy, she in some n1easure defies her prior socialization. A second possibility would be that this person occasionally gives some degree of expression to those of l1er qualities which are innate. A third possibility would be that this individual sometimes decides more or less definitely to identify with her effective desires. None of these proposals is devoid of appeal. I would urge, however, that, whatever account of the autonomous self one adopts, it will be necessary to introduce a repertory of skills to explain how this self finds an outlet. Since one must exercise control over one's life to be autonomous, autonomy is something that a person accomplishes, not something that happens to a person. If insanity enabled one to overcome one's socialization, to project one's innate qualities, or to identify with one's desires, one would not thereby become autonomous. Only if one expresses one's authentic self by exercising assorted introspective, imaginative, reasoning, and volitional skills would we agree that the resulting conduct was autonomous. Consider how people might achieve programmatic autonomy in the broadest sense-that is, how people could autonomously direct the overall course of their lives. Roughl~ this sort of auton.omy requires that people vividly envisage different life plans and seriously entertain them. Attuned to the feelings evinced by their alternatives, they must interpret these feelings correctly, and evaluate them critically. In light of relevant factual information, they must assess the practicality of these options. Likewise, they must judge the merits of sundry proposals in terms of their other values. Moreover, autonomous people must recognize and act on signs of discontent with previous decisions. They must be prepared to acknowledge inner change and must be willing to modify their plans in response to such change. Finall~ comprehensive programmatic autonomy requires that people be ready to resist the unwarranted demands of other individuals along with conformist societal pressures, and that they be resolved to carry out their own plans. In sum, to the extent that individuals survey their options guided by their self-scrutinized feelings, values, goals, and the like, and then marshall the determination to follow their own counsel, they live alltonomously. Personal autonomy, then, can only be achieved through the exercise of a repertory of coordinated skills, which. constitutes autonomy competency. People are prevented from extending their autonomy to global programmatic decisions when they lack proficiency in one or more of these skills or when these skills are ill coordinated. These deficiencies can explain the traditional woman's limitation to sporadic and gradated forms

Personal Autonomy and the Paradox of Feminine Socialization

11

of autonomy-narrowly programll1.atic autol1.0my, episodic autonomy, and partial access autonomy. Not only does traditional feminine socialization propel women into the low status role of housewife and mother, but also it curtails the developmel1.t of autonOll1.y competency.4 Thus, the efficacy of this early childhood experience is redoubled. This view of autonomy and feminine socialization enables us to see how both of the feminist positions with wl1.ich I begal1 can be correct. The traditional woman achieves a measure of personal autonomy, for she does not altogether lack autonomy COll1.petency. But, because the traditional woman's autonomy competency is underdeveloped, she cannot resolve the conflict between her internalized image of womanliness and her career aspirations. In addition, th.is view of autonOll1.y and feminine socialization explains why femiI1.ists are justifiably suspicious of the professed fulfillment of many traditional women. Since traditional WOmel1. do not use autonomy skills adeptly, tl1.ere is 11.0 reason to believe that they are doing what they really want to do. Conversely, however, if an adult who has been raised to aSSUll1.e the tasks of housekeeping and parenting embraces this role, feminists would have no grounds for complaint provided that the individual is skilled in autonomy competency. Since, in principle, the traditional femiI1.ine role could be the object of autonomous choice, feminists cannot presume to exclude it as a candidate life plan. Yet, insofar as feminine socialization impedes the development and the exercise of autonomy competency, feminists must seek to overhaul these socialization practices.

NOTES To be presented in an APA syn1posium on Feminist Perspectives on Individual Choice, December 30, 1987. Kathryn Pyne Addelson will comment; see Journal of Philosophy (vol. 84, 1987), 619-28. I would like to thank Kathryn Jackson for her helpful comments and the American Council of Learned Societies for the support of an ACLS/Ford Fellowship. 1. I am confining my discussion to prevalent practices within the dominant cultures in Western industrialized nations. 2. New York: Bantam, 1961, 274, 295, 306, 451, 642. 3. Matina Horner has argued that talented women whose prospects are excellent fear success and avoid success because they regard achievement as masculine and therefore associate success with loss of femininity. For helpful reviews of this research, see Lenore J. Weitzman, "Sex-role Socialization: A Focus on Women," in Women: A Feminist Perspective, Jo Freeman, ed. (Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield, 1984), 202-4; and Janet Shibley Hyde, Half the Human Experience: The Psychology of Women (Lexington, Mass.: D. C. Heath, 1985), 204-6. 4. See part 3 of my Self, Society, and Personal Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989).

2

+ Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self? Opposites Attract!l

start from the conviction that autonomy is not a figment of the philosophical imagination; rather it is a phen.omenon that most people have !some experience of and that they commonly value (in my opinion, rightly so). Nevertheless, th.e term "autonomy" is not in everyday usage, and, it must be admitted, it is a philosophical term of art. Still, it does not follow that people have no way of talking about alltonomy or that they don't talk about it. Colloquially, the exhortations "Be true to yOLIrself" and "Don't cave in!" express the value people place on autonomy, and the declarations "She lives by h.er own lights," "Now I know what I really want," and "I feel solid [right in my skin, at one with myself] about this" voice their achievement of autonon1Y. Think, too, of the soaring refrain of the Sinatra tune, "I did it my way"-a paean to autonomy. Likewise, there are idiomatic expressions associated with heteronomy. People may bemoan their lack of autonomy-"I feel at sea [adrift]," "I'm at odds with myself," or "How could I have given in?" And they may stan.d up for their autonomy and claim it as a right-"Mind your own busin.ess!" or "Butt out!n When people feel confused, irresolute, pressured, and so on, they may lament their lack of autonomy or protest incursions on it. When people are clear about what they truly want, who they deeply care about, what they genuinely believe in, and so forth, and when they are able to act on these desires, affections, and values, they may attest to their own a·utonomy. In philosophical treatments of autonomy, this satisfying, sometimes exhilarating, experience of self-understanding and self-realization has been 13

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Chapter 2

crystallized in the ideas of authenticity and self-governance. T11is way of conceptualizing the phenomenon of autonomy has, alas, proved susceptible to hyperbolic distortiol1. Self-understanding has been taken to presuppose a transparent self; congruence of self and action has been taken to presuppose a unitary, homogeneous self; self-governance has been taken to presuppose lU1fettered independence from other individuals, as well as from th.e larger society. To the extent that this caricature has seized the philosophical imagination., feminists have charged, the autonomous individual has been reduced to al1 androcentric phantasm. 2 Yet, despite feminist objections to the self-originating, self-sufficient, coldly rational, shrewdly calculating, selfinterest maximizing, male paragon of autonomyr, and despite feminist wariness that reclaiming autonomy will prove antithetical to the project of revaluing interpersonal capacities that are conventionally coded feminine, many feminist writers continue to invoke ostensibly discredited values like self-determination iI1 unguarded writing about the needs of women and the aims of feminisll1. 3 It is notable, too, that other feminists have rallied to the explicit defense of autonomy.4 This revival is by no means surprising, for femiIusts must account for the control women exert over their lives under patriarchy, for their opposition to subordinating social 110rms and institutions, and for their capacity to bring about emancipatory social change. The concept of autonomy promises to be helpful in these endeavors. Th.e philosophical problem of autonomy takes on texture and depth when it is situated in a realistic context. The reality I propose to inject into my discussion of autonoll1y is the fact that enormous numbers of people are assign.ed to social groups that are systematically subordinated. The wonder is that despite this subordination, some of these individuals are exemplars of autonomy, and few of them altogether lack autonomy. There are autonomous dissenters and revolutionaries and legions of individuals wh.o auton.omously craft private lives within the confines of oppressive regimes. 5 That this is so belies two prominent, seemingly incontrovertible assumptions about autonomy. First, although it seems undeniable that an autonomy-friendly environll1ent is necessary for auton.omy, this is not the case. Horrible as they are, social and economic structures that funnel individuals into a preordained status, that regiment their life trajectories, al1d that penalize nonconformity need not defeat aLltonomy. A social and economic environment that makes a wide range of attractive options available to all individuals is conducive to, not necessary for, autonomy. Second, intuitively it seems that psychic fragmentation would preclude autonomy. Yet, recent work on the social positioning, vulnerability, and subjectivity of subordinated people suggests that as long as oppressive social structures and discourses survive, which is to say, for the foreseeable future, their identities will not be unified and coherent. Still, many of

Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self? Opposites Attract!

15

these individuals enjoy autonomy in at least some parts of their lives. Indeed, one implication of the line of thought I develop is that multiply oppressed individuals are in some respects better positioned to make autonomous judgments concerning issues of social justice and policy, and hence are better positioned to exercise autonomous moral and political agency, than multiply privileged individuals are. Of course, recognizing that autonomy is possible despite structures of domination and subordination is no reason for complacency. On the contrary, to advocate expanded opportunities for autonomy is to endorse significant social and economic change. Nevertheless, I leave this aspect of autonomy aside and focus on the question of how autonomy is possible for individuals whose identities are shaped by structures of domination and subordination. Specifically, I take my cue from work by feminists and critical race theorists on women's diversity and intersectional identity. The idea of intersectional identity is premised on the general philosophical thesis that who one is depends on one's social experience. However, the intersectional conception is specific to societies that exhibit certain kinds of social stratification, for it derives from a social-psychological view about how individuals internalize gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ethnicity in sexist, homophobic, racist, classist, and xenophobic societies. This view does not purport to capture the whole of personal identity but rather those aspects that are conditioned by membership in subordinated or privileged social groups. It emphasizes that people are categorized according to gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ethnicity and that these multiple ascriptions interact-sometimes compounding one another's effects and sometimes creating inner divisions and conflicts. 6 On this view, who we are-what we are like and how we think and act-is significantly influenced by social systems of domination and subordination. Of course, intersectionally constituted sLLbjects mayor may not notice attributes that stem from crosscutting systems of domination and subordination, and when they notice such attributes, they mayor may not understand then1 as consequences of these social structures. People are not introspectively clairvoyant, but to the extent that they fail to make these connections, their self-concepts are incomplete and possibly distorted. Although Lacan originated the intersectional view of the self, I take the liberty of ignoring Lacanian doctrine. Instead, I draw attention to the tropes feminists and critical race theorists are currently using to articulate the concept of intersectionality. This approach is justified, in my view, because the impulse to fashion novel imagery hints at points of dissatisfaction with Lacan's theory and because these theorists' imagery is suggestive of heretofore buried agentic potential. After reviewing in the first section a number of tropes of intersectional identity and characterizing the experiences and --------------------

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Chapter 2

capacities they symbolize, I take up the topic of autonomy, and I seek to capitalize on the richness of these intersectional tropes. To clarify the problenl of autonomy once it is placed in an intersectional framework, I set out several obstacles to achieving autonomy as an intersectional subject (in the second section). I then focus on two aspects of autonomy-self-knowledge and self-definition-and argue that intersectional identity obliges us to rethink the concept of authenticity (in the third section). If ignorance of one's intersectional identity impairs autononlY, intersectional identity and hence the internalized norms of the groups to wl'lich one is assigned are attributes of the authentic self. But since intersectional identity is constituted in part through a process of self-defil'lition, the authentic self is an evolving self that is not chained to conventional group norms. Although it is easy to discard concepts of authenticity that exclude the influence of social experience or that rule out personal transformation, it is extremely difficult to furnish an account of authenticity that does not succumb to these pitfalls. To bring out the nature of this difficulty, I examine Harry Frankfurt's well-known views. Although Frankfurt's account of the autl'lentic self accommodates intersectional identity in some respects, I argue that its reliance on organizing identity constituents into an integrated order ultimately defeats it (in the fourth section). I propose, then, that we redirect our attention-away from the internal structure of the authentic self and toward the process of constituting an authentic self. Thus, I recommend viewing the authentic self as the collocation of attributes that emerges as an individual exercises self-discovery and self-definition skills (in the fifth section). Applying the skills that comprise autonomy competency, intersectional subjects analyze their position in social hierarchies, interpret the psychic impact of their social experience, and reconfigure their identities as members of social groups. In so doing, they constitute authentic intersectional identities.

THE TROPE OF INTERSECTIONALITY

Intersectionality is currently the reigning feminist metaphor for complex identities il'lsofar as tl'ley are constituted by race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation together with gender? The trope of intersectionality has numerous variants taken from a wide assortment of domains, including mathematics, cartography, anatomy, and botany. While all of these images share the aim of symbolizing an identity drawn from diverse sources that may give rise to conflicting desires and rival allegiances, they highlight different potentialities and liabilities of such identities. Kimberle Crenshaw's primary image of intersectionality may seem antiseptically mathematical. She pictures intersectional identities as points

Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self? Opposites Attract!

17

on a plane plotted in relation to axes which represent practices of oppres!sion such as sexism and racism. 8 Invoking social scientific quantification, It his image desubjectivizes gender and race and accents baleful social re/alities. But by declaring that the social scientific apparatus of variables, lequations, and graphs is itself a metaphor, Crenshaw punctures the ob/jectivist pretensions of social scientific analysis and resubjectivizes her image. The axes and plotted points translate into palpable experience. Crenshaw does not confine herself to a single static, figurative interpretation of intersectionality. She also dramatizes it. Sexisn1 and racism are vehicles on a collision course. The vehicles are hurtling down highways that converge at an intersection, where a pedestrian who is crossing cannot get out of the way before the two vehicles speed into the intersection and crash. 9 Struck simultaneously from two directions, the pedestrian's injuries are severe. But since it is almost impossible to trace them to their respective causes, responsibility cannot be apportioned between the drivers. Consequently, neither is blamed, and both go free. Crenshaw states that subordinating practices operate synergistically, but plainly she has in mind a sinister synergy-sinister both because of the devastating harm inflicted an.d because of the unwarranted privilege condoned. 10 Crenshaw's crash metaphor vividly symbolizes the victimization brought about by patterns of oppression. However, it misses a contrary feature of group-based identity. The targets of oppression seldom experience themselves solely as victims. They often defy others' bigotry by valuing their association with the group that others systematically penalize and by upholding its traditions. The most common vernacular trope for group-based identityr, namely, group membership, expresses this positive identification. Appropriating and adapting this locution, Kirstie McClure writes of intersecting group memberships.ll If visualized as lifeless Venn diagrams, her trope merely represents inert items sorted into various overlapping categories. But it doesn't take much imagination to animate the trope. Since the items referred to are people, it is natural enough to construe membership in a group as belonging to a group and to associate belonging to a group with joining it. Thus, membership imagery introduces connotations of feeling at home ll1 a community and of voluntary participation in it-that is, of willed and willing identification with a social group. Important as these dimensions of group-based identity are, it might be countered that group membership should not be portrayed in overly rosy terms. As Crenshaw observes, African-American women may find themselves "situated between categories of race and gender" since these categories are sometimes regarded as mutually exclusive. 12 Thus, they may experience ambivalence toward, even alienation fron1, their race or their gender. Maria Lugones's cartographic imagery perspicuously captures the complex group-based identities that may give rise to this sort of

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experience. Intersections of geopolitical entities-that is, borderssymbolize identity-constituting regimes of stratifying social classifications, and the border dweller personifies intersectional positioning and experience.l 3 Although familiar with and drawn to both sides of the boundary line, border dwellers are 110t completely welcome and comfortable in either territory. Despite the awkwardness of this position, Lugones recommends inhabiting frontiers. In her view, border dwellers occupy an episten1ically favorable vantage point, for the virtues and the defects of each community are easier to spot from the border. Lugones assigns border dwellers the role of emissaries who maintain diplomatic relations between mutually suspicious (in some cases, hostile) polities. Chantal Mouffe's construal of intersectional identities as articulations elaborates this mediational theme. 14 On the one hand, her metaphor calls to mind anatomical and botanical intersections. Articulations are joints or nodes, organic mechanisll1s of juncture and mobility. On the other hand, there are articulations that function as social intersections-utterances that demarcate and communicate positions; that invite others to reply; that may be refined, amended, or rel1ounced. Deemphasizing the harms wrought by group-based dOll1ination and subordination and playing on this double entendre, Mouffe's image symbolizes both the fixity of group classifications and their amel1ability to renegotiation and modification. This sall1ple of tropes of group-based identity highlights two claill1s about personal identity and groups. First, these images put a spectrull1 of identity determinants on a par. Gender is not portrayed as more fundamental or more pervasive thal1 race, class, ethnicity, or sexual orientation, nor is gender portrayed as secondary to any of these other group categories. Insofar as identity is shaped by these social structures, it is characterized as a commingling of equally robust, equally decisive identity determinal1ts. Second, the notion of intersectional identity is paradoxical. Ties to groups are commonly experienced as emotionally gripping and integral to one's sense of self, yet these ties may be experienced as imposed and confining, even wounding. Likewise, the divergent demands entailed by ties to different groups can lead to estrangement from oneself and from others, yet they endow individuals with opportunities for agency, both for self-definition and for affiliation with others.

BARRIERS TO THE AUTONOMY OF INTERSECTIONAL SUBJECTS

Intersectional subjects are not at all promising material for autonomy, for it is difficult for them to achieve self-knowledge, self-definition, and self-direction. If doing what one "really wants" is a hallll1ark of auton-

Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self? Opposites Attract!

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omy, one must know who one is-one's capabilities and weaknesses; one's values, commitments, and goals; and so on-so that one can make choices that express one's "true self," that is, one's "genuine desires." Unfortunately, everyday discourses of selfhood conspire against discerning the ways in whicl1 one's identity is codetermined by gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ethnicity. Thus, intersectional subjects may be too opaque to themselves to be autonomous. Even supposing that this obstacle to self-knowledge could be overcome, however, intersectional codetermination would itself pose further obstacles to autonomy. When autonomous individuals are dissatisfied with themselves, they must be able to make needed changes, and when they have decided upon a COLlrse of action, they must be able to carry it out. But since group ascriptions constrain intersectional subjects and since codetermination unsettles them, self-definition and self-direction are impeded. Again, intersectional identity jeopardizes autonomy. In the United States today, intersectionality is not a default conception of personal identity. Indeed, most people are not even acquainted with this conception. No doubt, American society's inveterate denial of social stratification and pervasive injustice combines with its creed of equal opportLlnity and upward mobility to militate against admitting relations of domination an.d subordination as sources of identity. On those occasion.s when we l1eed a conception of identity that acknowledges inner heterogeneity, for example, to make excuses, Freud's privatized divided self can be pressed into service without bringing issues of social justice to the fore. Likewise, the idealization that is homo economicus or the liberal bearer of rights valorizes unity, coherel1ce, and constancy, and the ubiquity of this idealization casts suspicion on the conflicts endemic to intersectional subjectivity. These default conceptions of identity leave little room for alternative conceptions to gain proponents, for the very familiarity of these discourses of selfhood induces us to articulate our self-concepts by using these models. Without a discourse that is conducive to articulating anirttersectional identity, few people will view themselves as intersectional subjects. Current ordinary American English does not furnish language for use in first-person singular identity avowals that gives equal weight to diverse group determinants of identity and that prompts individuals to consider how these identity determinants interact. 15 Colloquial language that demarcates class identities does not exist-according to our social mythology, almost everyone is middle class. Racial categories are conceptually muddled, and affirn1.ations of racial identity are so fraught with emotional uneasiness that they are often perceived as inflammatory.16 Yet, the ethnicities of racial "minorities are sidelined, so their race remains on center stage. For example, outside the Haitian and Korean communities, II

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Chapter 2

these ethnicities are subsumed by racial classifications. In contrast, for whites, ascriptions of ethnicity take precedence over race. Since the ethnicities of Euro-Americans are racialized-to be Swedish American or Italian American is by definition to be white-their race is ever-present yet pushed into the win.gs. The conventions of self-ascriptions of gender and sexual orientation are asymmetrical, too. Equated with humanity itself, maleness and heterosexuality go unmentioned, whereas womanhood, homosexuality, and bisexuality are mandatory and salient categories of self-description.l 7 Although people are intersectional subjects, many of them do not know it, for our discourse exaggerates the significance of some group memberships while discounting the significance of others. But to lack self-knowledge is to lack autonomy. An additional obstacle to autonomy for intersectional subjects stems from the fact that gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ethnicity are categories that divide people into dominant and subordinate groups and that prescribe personality types and behavioral norms for each. In a society that is historically divided along harsh, unyielding axes of dominance and subordination, individuals cannot escape the influence of cultural stereotypes and other prescriptive representations of the groups they belong to, nor can they escape the influence of the social and economic advantages and disadvantages that institutions confer on these groups. As Anthony Appiah remarks, "I don't recall ever choosing to identify as a male; but being male has shaped many of my plans and actions. fllS Group ascriptions are not the sole determinants of who we are, nor do members of the same social gr01.1p have iderltical identities or, for that matter, a subset of identical identity components. Nevertheless, individuals who belong to different groups have different social experience, and this targeted and lifelong socialization shapes individualized identities. 19 Whether they know it or not, people have intersectional identities, and these identities influence what they believe, how they deliberate, and how they conduct their lives. Many individuals in privileged categories do not experience their group ties as constraints, but many individuals in disvalued categories experience theirs as subjugating. Whether one is assigned to a dominant or a subordinate group, though, one is inducted into its distinguishing paradigms and norms. Most men never seriously consider using their right to family leave to spend time with a newborn or newly adopted child, and a man who does so is likely to have as hard a time climbing the corporate ladder as a woman who wants to be CEO (chief executive officer). Thus, to have an intersectional identity is to be culturally defined and directed. But since self-definition and self-direction are necessary for autonomy, group-targeted cultural norms put autonomy at risk. Finally, tensions often arise between the demands of gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ethnicity-for example, for an African-American

Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self? Opposites Attract!

21

man, the norms of gender prescribe authority, whereas the norms of race prescribe deference; for a lesbian, the norms of gender mandate motherhood, whereas the norms of sexual orientation prohibit it. Likewise, the diversity of the individuals assigned to these categories and their divergent interests may present political conundrun1s. For African-American women, commitment to antiracist politics may entail tolerating sexism, and commitment to feminist politics may entail tolerating racism. As a result, intersectional identities often leave individuals torn by conflicting self-understandings and conflicting social and political loyalties. But if one cannot decide what one really wants, one cannot do what one really wants-one cannot be "true to oneself." To the extent that intersectional identity prevents one from translating one's identity into action, it thwarts self-direction and hence autonomy.

AUTHENTICITY AS AN INTERSECTIONAL SUBJECT

Observations along the lines just sketched lead some theorists to jettison tl1e idea of intersectional identity. Some hold that group ascriptions have profound effects on individuals but that the in1pact of these classifications is so variable, so contradictory, and so volatile that no consolidation of identity is possible. In this view, intersectionality provides an argument against the very idea of personal identity and a compelling reason to join with postmodernists in declaring personal identity an anachronistic modernist sham. 20 Call this the contrarian view of identity. Others deny that individuals inevitably internalize group paradigms and norms and conclude that there are only unique individuals and individual identities. Whether an individual's identity is constituted by ties to any social group depends on that individual's choices. When externalized and lodged in oppressive social structures that place some individuals in "multiple jeopardy,"21 intersectionality clears the way for resurrecting a curiously voluntarist, individualist-that is, modernist-conception of identity. Call this the personalist view of identity.22 I urge that these two challenges to intersectional identity stem from opposite misunderstandings of the self and agency, and I take the occasion of examining these misunderstandings to rethink the concept of the authentic self. For the purposes of this discussion., I base my conception of authenticity on two ideas that are implicit in the following autonomy idioms: "Now I know what I really want" and "Be true to yourself!" The former expression distinguishes desires that one happens to have from one's real or genuine desires-that is, the desires of the authentic self. The latter voices the conviction that it is good for people to act on their authentic desires and so presumes that doing so falls within the bounds of social

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acceptability-that is, that one's authentic desires are morally creditable. One's authentic self points to a way of living that is both distinctively one's own and socially decent. Thus, I consider the relation between intersectional identity and the authentic self from the standpoint of three domains of atltonomous choice and action-personal, moral, and political autonomy.23

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

Proponents of the personalist view of identity-those who do not deny that each individual has an identity but who do deny that group ascriptions play a key role in shaping it-overestimate the degree to which individuals are immune to their social context and overlook a major threat to autonomous choice and action by oversimplifying the task of self-discovery. Self-ignorance is one of the principal enemies of autonom)T, and self-knowledge requires being h.onest with oneself about who one is-owning up to and owning one's identity. In what follows, I urge that understanding the impact of group memberships on one's identity is necessary not only for personal autonomy but also for moral and political autonomy. In view of the interconnections between owning up to and owning one's intersectional identity and leading an autonomous life, intersectional identity should be considered a feature of the atlthentic self. Now, let TI1.e forestall the objection that this view of authenticity posits a dangerously static conception of the self with retrograde social consequences by noting that owning up to and owning one's intersectional identity is an accomplishment not merely of self-discovery but also of self-definition (see the following subsection).24 Thus, accepting intersectional identity as a feature of one's atlthentic self does not entail clinging to a community of origin or capitulating to stereotypical group norms. Rather, it entails analyzing the social significance of one's community of origin, disclosing to oneself the ways in which associated 11.0rmS have become errLbedded in one's own cognitive and motivational structure, appreciating how entrenched they are, and assuming responsibility for the ways in which one may enact them. Autonomy unfolds in situ, and autonomous individuals must work with whatever material is at hand. Since part of what is at hand in historically stratified societies is an endowment of intersecting group-identity determinants, individuals who seek autonomy are well advised to candidly appraise where they stand in society's hierarchies and to make as complete an inventory as they can of what they have internalized as a result of being assigned to certain social groups. I stress that this advice applies differently but with equal force to individuals who identify primarily with dominant social groups and to

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individuals who identify primarily with subordinate social groups. Whatever one's social position, intersectional identity serves as a platform for autonomy. One reason to regard intersectional identity as a feature of the authentic self is that it is a starting point for leading an autonomous life. Moreover, as I now argue, impoverished, mistaken, or deluded views about one's group memberships and their psychic influence-that is, failure to own up to and to own one's intersectional identity-undermines autonomy. Self-knowledge of intersectional identity is not merely a possible point of departure for autonomy, it is a portal autonomous individuals in invidiously stratified societies cannot avoid passing through. Since the self-knowledge that is necessary for autonomy in unjust societies includes knowledge of one's intersectional identity, intersectional identity should be regarded as a feature of the authentic self as long as social injustice persists. Since intersectional identity is not among our default self-concepts, unacknowledged group men1berships commonly structure people's feelings, thoughts, and actions. Poor understanding of the implications of gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ethnicity ascriptions may have damaging repercussions. Ideologies of social stratification value or disvalue attributes depending on what "sort" of person bears themambitious white men are admirable, whereas ambitious women are distasteful; boisterous Irish Americans are lively, whereas boisterous Jews are loud; and so forth. 25 Self-interpretations are filtered through this noxious fog of bigotry.26 As a result, individuals whose self-esteem is enhanced may be emboldened to hope for more out of life, whereas those whose self-esteem is diminished may be dissuaded from hoping for much of anything. Plainly, individuals' voluntarily elected, identity-constituting goals and plans often echo the mandates of hierarchy-enforcing institutions and practices. A talented, ambitious woman may reproach herself for immodesty, pare down her aspirations, and reconcile herself to being the CEO's wife and unsalaried business hostess. To the extent that the unconscious influence of intersectional identity leads people to misjudge their potential and pursue plans that either stunt their development or exceed their capacities, and to the extent that this unconscious influence disrupts relationships or sabotages undertakings that matter to them, selfignoral1ce undercuts their personal autonomy. I take it to be axiomatic that desires, attitudes, and the like are enigmatic and subject to interpretation and reinterpretation because indefinitely many factors converge in their genesis. The origins of a person's overall moral outlook and specific political preferences are especially baffling. Fueled by one's social context-the opinions of friends, family, and respected public figures, as well as the opinions of people whom one detests

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or dislikes-and by one's prognostications about how social policy may further or hinder personal objectives and plans, a person's moral views and politics defy easy, linear explanation. Still, if the intelligibility of desires and attitudes requires that they be autobiographically situated, and if gender, sexual orientation., race, class, and ethnicity are important autobiographical strands, tracing the relations between one's moral convictions and political stance, on the one hand, and one's membership in these groups, on the other hand, will be necessary to autonomous moral judgment and autonomous political action. Crenshaw's crash metaphor draws attention to a dimension of intersectional identity that is particularly germane to the issue of moral and political autonomy. The crash metaphor represents those subordinated by group-based injustice as s'uffering from multiple injuries and those enforcing the subordination as exempted from harm and exonerated of all responsibility. Although CrenBhaw's focus is on the fate of the victims, the concept of intersectional identity reminds us that many people are reckless automobile drivers in some respects and pedestrian fatalities in others. Many members of subordinated social groups occupy some dominant social positions as well. Their identities fuse axes of harm with axes of advantage. Likewise, it is not unusual for individuals who belon.g to privileged social groups to belong to one or more subordinated groups as well. Thus, the trope of intersectional identity dismantles th.e stark opposition between dominant and subordinate positions. Very few people have wholly privileged identities. Very few people have wholly subordinated identities. Most people's identities blend socially disvalued and socially valued group-identity determinants. To many people, this is news. But, I urge, this self-ignorance compromises autonomy. Members of subordinated social groups face a cruel dilemma: they have very good reason to dwell on the proportions, the frequency, and the irreparability of the iniquities they suffer, and th.ey also have very good reason to forget all abol.lt it. As long as there is group-based disenfranchisement, many people will find their need to pursue their own projects and fulfill personal goals on a collision. course with a commitment to social justice. Thus, some highly successful professional women denollnce feminism and dismiss (even despise) women who blame their career setbacks on discrimination or family responsibilities-"If I could make it," goes their refrain, "why can't you?" Moral equilibrium is elusive when social structures and customary practices are stacked against you. Still, if individuals routinely framed their self-portraits by using the intersectional model, disavowal of group-identity determinants would be a less feasible, less tempting defense-less feasible because locating oneself in gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and ethnicity hierarchies would be regarded as a minimal condition of self-knowledge; less tempting because

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avowing membership in a subordinate group would not reduce individuals to victimhood since membership in subordinate social groups is usually coupled with membership in one or more privileged social groups. In reconnecting people to all of their group-identity determinants, intersectional identity works as an antidote to shame, self-contempt, and self-limitation and therefore as a support for personal autonomy.27 It may enrich the individual's moral an.d political outlook as well, for in counteracting the deracination of denying one's membership in a subordinated social group, it would COLmteract moral anesthesia and motivate people to overcome cooptation and anoll1.ie. 28 Apprehending one's intersectional identity-that is, knowing who one is-ll1.ay prompt resistance to Lmjust treatment-that is, moral and political autonomy. Intersectional subjectivity also broadens people's moral purview in other respects. Members of subordinated social groups sometimes become fixated on the subset of hardships that they themselves suffer, thereby losing sight of other grievous wrongs. Middle-class women who ardently object to sexist discrimination are notorious for exploiting the poor, uneducated women they employ as nannies. But greater awareness of how group identities are amalgamated in individual identities can alleviate this problem, for intersectional identity obliges many individuals to admit to some social privileges, such as the advantage of affluence in a sexist society or the advantage of heterosexuality in a homophobic society, at the same time as they fight the injustices that afflict them as members of subordinated social groups. The point, of course, is not to pacify people il1.to thankfulness for small blessings, nor is it to condemn strategic prioritization of one group identity over others. Rather, the point is to mobilize the resources of intersectional identity to temper th.e morally untenable zealotry that may accompany a monolithic group identification. Acute sensitivity to injustice is no threat to moral insight unless one group-identity determinant is split off from others or gains superordinate status in relation to others. Ignorance of one's intersectional identitythat is, ignoral1.Ce of who one is-is a major threat to nuanced social cri.. tique, and knowledge of one's intersectional identity is needed for autonomous moral judgment and autonomous political agency. For people who are identified primarily with dominal1.t social groups, moral integrity may become a casualty when intersectional idel1.tity is suppressed and discreditable political views are displaced onto universalistic moral principles. Failing to make connections between one's socially valued group memberships and one's political views leads to self-deception, rationalization, and corruption of principles in short, to ll1.oral heteronomy.29 If people fail to acknowledge their reliance on al1.d eagerness to keep advantages conferred by maleness, heterosexuality, wealth, whiteness, or ethnic privilege, impartiality is liable to be perverted into a

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self-serving excuse for dismissing n10rally warranted, urgent political demands. 30 In camouflaging the nefarious instrumental purposes served by steadfast adherence to ostensibly fair principles and the nature of people's emotional investment in the status quo, the "high ground" of moral scruple becomes an unassailable refuge for the beneficiaries of social stratificatiOl1 and elitism. 31 In societies in which gender, sexual orientation, class, race, and ethnicity matter enormously to individuals, it strains credulity to conduct social life as if venerated moral theories were insulated from these patterns of domination and subordination. Again, intersectional self-knowledge is indispensable to autonomous moral judgment and autonomous political agency. In urging people to analyze their intersectional identities, what I am endorsing is maximum transparency of group-identity determinants together with unsparing honesty about the ways in which group identities are replicated in people's moral and political thinking. It is as important to autonomy that self-concepts based on the trope of intersectionality would expose privileged identity determinants and the conservative views they undergird as it is that such self-concepts would expose devalued identity determinants (or cOlTlbinations of valued and devalued identity determinants) and the social critiques they spark. Without intersectional identity, self-knowledge is, at best, incomplete and inaccurate. Without self-knowledge, moral and political autonomy are imperiled. Now, according to feminist standpoint epistemology, the social analyses generated by oppressed social groups are more reliable. If the moral psychology I have sketched is correct, my account of the relation between intersectional identity and alltonomy lends support to this claim. Since it is probably less threatening for a person identified primarily with a subordinate social group (or groups) to acknowledge previously unnoticed ties to a privileged social group (or groups) than it is for a person identified primarily with a privileged social group (or groups) to acknowledge dependency on undeserved advantages, autonomous moral judgment and autonomous political agency may be more accessible to oppressed individuals. Still, it might seem that to accept the view I have presented is to despair of autonomy, for it seems unlikely that anyone who was not already autonomous could gain the self-knowledge that autonomy presupposes. As I pointed out before, the grammar of identity self-ascription in current American English downplays some group-identity determinants while spotlighting others. Since vernacular discourse does not invite people to articulate intersectional identities, it is no accident that relatively few people see themselves intersectionally. Indeed, owning up to and owning an intersectional identity involves a struggle to overcome these very cultural constraints-that is, a program of autonon10US self-examination and inter-

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pretation. I turn in the next subsection to the question of how this struggle can be conducted, and I offer in the last section a theory of the nature of authenticity that dissolves the paradox that one needs to be autonomous to become autonomous. At this point, I confine myself to sllggesting that if owning up to and owning an intersectional identity is an act of autonomy, we have a further reason to regard intersectional identity as a feature of the authentic self. If authentic attributes are neither innate nor transcendent, if authentic attributes are th.ose that are autonomously discovered or defined, the codeterminants of intersectional identity are authentic.

SELF-DEFINITION

According to proponents of the contrarian view of identity-theorists who repudiate the possibility of personal identity of any sort-individuals are at the mercy of the ebb and flow of incoherent group discourses. Wafted about by these crosscutting discursive currents, individuals have no stable traits and therefore no personal identity (never mind authentic identity). Plainly, this view flies in the face of most people's experience. People have reflexive experience of their own continuities. Some of these continuities are conspicuous because tl1ey are aggravating, frustrating vices, faults, weaknesses, or foibles that just won't go away. Others n1ay be less attention grabbing, perhaps because they are not troublesome, but nonetheless real-for example, gratifying emotional bonds, beneficial capabilities, pleasing personality traits, and rewarding interests. Likewise, people have interpersonal experience of others' continuities an.d rely on their associates to react in characteristic and hence fairly predictable ways. The experience of personal identity that I am invoking does not require an immutable or a monotonously consistent core self. Decentered, processual subjectivity is compatible with a sense of personal identity. Indeed, to lose all sense of personal identity (or to find oneself split into multiple identity fragments) is not to advance to the postmodernist condition with winning verve. Nor is experiencing oneself as a tight identity knot cleansed of social taint to regress to the modernist condition in pitiable trepidation. Both are symptomatic of a dire need for the services of a psychotherapist. There is no doubt that continuities stemming from group membership have sometimes been portrayed as if they were trait nuggets implanted in individuals. I suspect tl1at the metaphor of internalization fosters a proclivity for reading theories that report group-specific patterns of attributes or conduct in this simplistic way-as if our psyches swallowed social inputs whole and never metabolized them. 32 But it is also true that the contrarian view of identity exaggerates the flux of subjectivity and, more important, overlooks faculties of self-definition.

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Reprising some of the tropes of intersectionality high.lights the intersectional subject's capacity for self-definition. Crenshaw's crash metaphor polarizes groups into axes of harm or axes of benefit. But McClure's image of group membership complicates this picture by suggesting that axes of harm are not exclusively harmful. Despite long histories of oppression, subordinated social groups have sustained traditions that are worthy of respect and that nlany group members willingly uphold. Thus, belonging to a group is often a source of sustenance and guidance. Still, as Lugones's trope of border habitation implies, belonging to a group does not entail total immersion in that group's culture and norms. To have an intersectional identity is to belong to a number of groups and not to belong wholly to any. Thus, group members can use their experience of alienatiolL to gain critical insights into the norms and values of different social groups.33 Responding to the concern that a purely negative critique condemns people to unchanneled rage or unavailing despair, Mouffe's trope of articulation endows people with a capacity for piecemeal synthesis and provisional reconstruction. Although group-based identity is neither expungible at will nor free of liabilities, persons with. intersectional identities are plainly not helpless captives of social groups. To clarify the view of self-definition these identity tropes adumbrate, I begin by sketching an example. Worldwide, almost all women want to have children, and most of thenl become mothers. Yet, studies of U.S. women provide abundant evidence that few of these women autonomously choose to become mothers; most regard motherhood as tlLeir destiny and proceed automatically to fulfill it. 34 I submit, however, that reflecting on this undertaking from the standpoint of intersectional identity would provide one route through which autonomous motherhood might be achieved. Consider a young, wILite, middle-class, heterosexual (let us suppose, recently married), Italian-American woman. What perspectives on motherhood do her various group memberships afford her? Her gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity collude in propelling her toward pregn.ancy and motherhood. "Woman," as Sinlone de Beauvoir renlinds us, "is a womb";35 the telos of female heterosexuality is childbearing; Catholicisminfused Italian-American culture reveres nl0therhood. Plainly, these identity codeterminants-the ones she is most likely to be conscious of converge on and affirm her becoming a mother. What about her race and class identities? They, too, support this choice, but not quite so unambiguously. TILe ubiquitous (albeit nlore and more outdated) image of U.S. middle-class life-the happy, prosperous sllburban family-includes a heterosexual couple and a pair of kids. It is less obvious, though no less sure, that her white racial identity reinforces the nlotherhood norm. A century ago, it was still respectable for AnlericalL

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public figures to urge white women to procreate to maintain white racial dominance. 36 Such blatantly racist doctrines are no longer proclaimed publicly, but they contaminate white racial heritage and surface occasionally in the fulminations of right-wing fanatics. Notice, though, that if my hypothetical woman attended to her racial identity and exposed the nature of the support it proffered for motherhood, it Inight give her pause. Unconscious racism remains common among white middle-class Americans, but naked racism is hard for most of them to stomach. Likewise, inspection of the class backing for maternity might raise an alarm. That every baby born into the American middle class can be expected to consume a colossal chunk of the planet's resources might prompt her to consider abstaining from bringing another resource glutton into the world. I am not suggesting that attention to intersectional identity would convince women to stop having children. On the contrary, many women, including quite a few feminists, see mothering as a practice worthy of celebration and as a legacy that ought to be self-consciously and joyously perpetuated. What I am suggesting is that intersectional identity both reinforces conventional gender expectations and affords opportunities to reassess those norms. Linking oneself to white racial status or to middle-class economic status exposes reasons militating against conformity. Most important, perhaps, the tensions between the different dimensions of intersectional identity introduce a wedge of optionality that authorizes individualized reflection and choice. In the end, a woman mjght refuse on principle (antiracist or ecological) to reenact the feminine maternal norm, but alternatively she might conclude that the satisfactions of motherhood would probably outweigh the negatives and decide to have children. I have not attempted to canvass every conceivable way in which intersectional identity might figure in an autonomous decision about becoming a mother. However, the selection of factors I have presented suffices to demonstrate that intersectional identity contributes to autonomy by connecting individuals to systemic social relations and to the social meanings of those structures. The light social interpretation sheds on seemingly personal conduct makes room for autonomous self-definition-thoughtful clarification or reshaping of one's desires, personal traits, values, interests, and goals-and thus for autonomous self-direction-plotting a course of action that enacts those attributes as fully as possible. i\smembers of social groups with worthy traditions, individuals may find inspiration and guidance; as border dwellers between social groups, they may find critical tools in one tradition to apply to another; as articulators linking diverse groups, they may find ways to synthesize and reconstruct familiar traditions. But how do they do this? And what does this say about authenticity?

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First, it is important to underscore the fact that in the example I sketched the most promising springboards for critical reflection are the dimensions of intersectional identity that are most suppressed and least likely to be taken into account-in this case, race and class. Most U.S. whites do not think of themselves as having any racial identity, and they regard middle-class status as virtually universal and therefore nothing special. Thus, avowing an intersectional identity with race and class as codeterminants itself requires an initial process of autonomous self-definition. , Second, embracing such an in.tersectional identity would not necessarily lead a woman to the critical levers I l'lave described. She might perceive her race as neutral and her class as an unalloyed blessing. T11us, gaining access to the critical potential of group-identity determinants requires scrutinizing and analyzing the history and current position of the social groups to which one belongs-another process of autonomous self-definition. Finally, consider a woman who has engaged in the first two forms of self-definition and who has decided against motherhood but who is beset by residual cOl'lflicts between that choice and l'ler identity as a won1an, a heterosexual, and an Italian American. Her independence of mind and will notwithstanding, her gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity continue to construct her as a mother and thus wage a psychic guerrilla campaign agah1st her con1mitment to her chosen course. Let us suppose that she confronts these challenges to her decision and, defying them, renews it. Let us suppose further that she resents the rigidity of the reproductive norms correlated with her gender, sexual orientation, and ethnicity and that she resolves to put a stop to these attacks on her autonomy.37 To do this, she needs to redefine herself as a woman, a heterosexual, and an Italian American. But, of course, she lacks the cultural and linguistic authority to redefine these categories as she pleases. She can vow to, ignore well-intentioned associates' efforts to induce her to reconsider; she can terminate relationsl'lips with those who cannot resist menacing her with disparaging comments about her barrenness; she can boycott the pronatalist media onslaught; and so on. But since she has already internalized the motherhood imperative and since extirpating this message is tantamount to repudiating femininity as it is defined by or for these groups, individualistic strategies of self-definition have serious drawbacks, and moreover, they are unlikely to be entirely successful. To address this problem, a nonconformist woman would be well advised to join with other group members and embark on a project of cultural critique aimed at reconfiguring the social identity of their group-a project of autonomous collective self-definition. 38 For individuals, self-definition involves addressing questions along the following lines: What sort of person am I? What groups do I belong to?

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What is the significance of belonging to these particular groups? What sort of person do I aspire to be? How do the groups I belong to hold me back? How do they help me? Wh.at really matters to me? What desires, personal traits, values, interests, and aims should I seek to enact? At the collective level, self-definition focuses on social groups, people's attitudes toward th.em, an.d their expectations of group members: What are the social meanings of being, say, a woman? What is worth preserving from traditional feminine norms? What should be scrapped? How can we build solidarity among women despite our diversity and disparate needs? What objectives should we pursue as a group? How do we want our group to be symbolized in the popular imagination? To accomplish self-definition, individuals must exercise a repertory of skills. 39 The competency needed for self-definition includes, but is not limited to, the following: 1. Introspective skills that sensitize individuals to their own feelings and desires, that enable them to interpret their subjective experience, and that help them judge how good a likeness a self-portrait is 2. Imaginative skills that enable individuals to envisage a range of self-concepts they might adopt 3. Memory skills that enable individuals to recall relevant experiences not only from their own lives but also experiences that associates have reco'unted or that they have encountered in literature or other artforms 4. Communication skills that enable individuals to get the benefit of others' perceptions, background knowledge, insights, advice, and support 5. Analytical and reasoning skills that enable individuals to compare different self-concepts and to assess the relative merits of these alternatives 6. Volitional skills that enable individuals to resist pressure from others to embrace a conventional self-concept and that enable them to maintain their commitment to the self-portrait that they consider genuinely their own, that is, authentic 7. Interpersonal skills that enable individuals to join forces to challenge and chan.ge social norms It is important to recognize that intersectional self-definition poses unusually exiguous problems. A gesture of cultural dissidence, intersectional self-definition involves seeking out heterodox resources within one's culture, perhaps borrowing from other cultures, and synthesizing these materials in novel ways. Individuals who define themselves as intersectional subjects are exceptionally dedicated and intrepid, and they need proficiencies that are sadly uncommon.

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It cannot be emphasized enough how difficult intersectional selfdefinition is. Indeed, I would venture that one reason why the contrarian view of intersectional identity is so attractive is that the obstacles to intersectional self-definition are so formidable. As I have said before, there is no convenient terminology-no shorthand, as it were-for articulating intersectional identities, nor, I would add, are there narrative templates that are conducive to intersectional autobiographies. For the most part, then, people's interpretations of their psychological developm.ent, character formation, and desire arousal sideline intersectional identity. Indeed, stories that feature intersectional subjects can seem precious and overcomplicated, if not downright weird. People cannot be expected to cast their gaze in.ward, behold their intersectional identity, and intuit its import, for culturally transmitted cognitive schemas and en10tional scripts organize introspection, and these frameworks are not hospitable to intersectional self-definition. To define oneself intersectionally, OIle must activate competencies that mesh intellect and feeling in order to seek out and assimilate nonstandard interpretive frameworks. One must be introspectively vigilant, attuned to signs of frustration and dissatisfaction, attentive to baffling subjective anomalies, and willing to puzzle out gaps in one's self-understanding. One must be equipped to tap into oppositional intellectual currents. Curiosity about other people and their cultures is invaluable, and so is a passion for ideas. But it would be disastrous to sponge up whatever one comes across, for neo-Nazis are publicizing their views on the internet alongside benign political movements. Although one cannot learn anything new unless one approaches unfamiliar material in a receptive and charitable spirit, one must comn1and critical thinking skills. Not only must one be alert for errors of fact and fallacies in reasoning, but one must also register emotional cues that signal confusion or danger. Still, extracting what is worthwhile from newly encOlul.tered material is the key to enriching one's self-knowledge and to redefinhl.g oneself. 40 Thus, one must be able to identify such ideas, incorporate them into one's own cognitive and emotional viewpoint, and apply them as one defines oneself. Yet, since secl.1ring all. intersectional self-portrait ultimately requires cultural transformation, one must have a way to displace conventional tropes of the self and stereotypes of social groups, as well as a way to replace them with intersectional tropes and emancipatory group images. Now, individuals with different temperaments, talents, priorities, and personal styles exhibit autonomy competency in distinctive ways. Some rely on reading or exposure to other media to acquaint themselves with heterodox perspectives; others rely mainly on social exchanges. 41 Neither is superior. Some rely on informal support networks to help then1 develop and sustain intersectional self-definitions; some seek out professional

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psychological counseling. 42 Both can be effective. To catalyze needed cultural change, some people become journalists, scholars, novelists, or artists and publish books or articles, create artworks or advertizing, or mount dramatic productions; others form political groups within which intersectional identities are reaffirmed and through which social structures that reinforce monistic conceptions of identity and repressive group identities are opposed; others become lawyers, politicians, or business leaders and work through the system to bring about such change. 43 All of these strategies are needed. There is no "universal formula or step-by-step procedure for intersectional self-definition. I have emphasized that intersectional self-definition takes place at both the individual level and the collective level and tl1at self-definition at one level interacts with self-definition at the other. The concerl1S that individuals identify as central to their lives will shape a group's self-understanding, and a group's interpretation of its social position together with the political agenda it sets for itself will have an impact on the options that are psychologically and materially available to (or beyond the reach of) individuals. These reciprocal effects suggest that self-definition has no terminus. Groups ll1USt modify their self-concepts in response to individual needs and initiatives, and individuals must adjust their self-concepts as collectivities reconstruct the meaning of group membership and gain expanded opportunities for members of subordinated groups.44 Self-definition is best viewed, then, as an open-ended process of reflection, reconsideration, revision, and refinement, and self-portraits are best viewed as works in progress. Authentic intersectional selves are never finalized.

THE AUTHENTIC SELF AS AN INTEGRATED SELF

Lately, there has been quite a vogue in comn1ending playas the prime mode of personal and political agency.45 The values of insouciance and fun are surely needed as a counterweight to the image of the autonomous individual as an isolated, plodding planner, wholly lacking in panache and merriment, and also as a corrective to the image of leftist activism as a deadening drill of solemnity and stalwartness. Playfulness calls to mind relaxing with friends, as well as casual fooling around that breaks the ice with strangers or eases strained relationships. Likewise, this n10de conjures up the frisson of dreaming up outre schemes, the allure of trying on outlandish personas, the kick of bashing the establishment, and the puckish sport of tweakin.g convention. These gambits connect play with a key strategy for achieving autonomy-namely, improvisation-and also with an important subjective dimension of autonomy-that is, the exhilaration that stems from 11itting on just the right enactment of one's desires and

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values, especially when circumstances are not conducive to expressing them at all. Playfulness contributes to self-discovery and self-definition when it helps intersectional subjects maintain intimate interpersonal bonds and forge connections across social barriers. Moreover, unlocking one's imagination. and freeing up one's will are plainly necessary for self-definition particularly for members of subordinated groups who have been tyrannized by severely restricted opportunities and repressive norms, but also for members of privileged groups who need to divorce their picture of egalitarian social relations from their fears of loss and fantasies of subjugation. Yet, conflating agency with play threatens to reduce agency to the randomness and arbitrariness of acting on impulse. Members of subordinated groups cannot afford to be seen this way (or, for that matter, to see themselves this way), for being cast as a "playmate" is in.fantilizing (all too reminiscent of being cast as a plaything), and this belittlement allows others to decline to take their grievances seriously. Nor can n1embers of subordinated groups afford to see members of privileged groups who are mobilizing to defend their dominant status as playmates, for construing their retrograde politics as play would exempt them from accountability. The trait of playfulness is an asset for intersectional subjects, but play is only part of autonomous agency. Members of subordinated groups should not stake their future on serendipity. The compass of authentic individual identity is needed to guide individuals' choices and to chart a progressive political course. If severing agency from identity is misguided, though, it is necessary to clarify what it is like to have an authentic identity. I begin by considering Harry Frankfurt's influential account of the authentic self. In my view, Frankfurt's treatment of personal integration illustrates how the exigencies of addressing a traditional philosophical problem can supersede awareness of human psychological frailty and the confollnding complexity of leading a life in the real world to yield an excessively rigid conceptiOl1 of integration. Indeed, Frankfurt's account shows how very difficult it is to explicate integration without appearing to recommend personal ossification. Harkening to the classic problem of freedom and determinism, Frankfurt treats the authentic self as a psychic state that ensures free will once a person achieves it. For Frankfurt, one knows what one really wants when one has a "second-order volition that a first-order desire be effective"that is, when one identifies oneself"decisively" with a first-order desire. 46 Identification is an act of self-constitution, which is accomplished through two types of decision: (1) demarcating the boundaries of the self, that is, separating oneself from desires one does not want to satisfy at all; and (2) internally organizing the self, that is, integrating one's competing desires

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into a "single ordering" that establishes one's priorities. 47 When one makes such decisions "without reservation" and thus "wholeheartedly," the first-order desires with which one identifies are"authoritative for the self."48 To have an authentic self is to be wholeheartedly committed to a rank ordering of the desires one has decided to satisfy and to be wholeheartedly disassociated from those of one's desires that one has decided against satisfying. Autonomous individuals act only on their authentic desires; hence they have free will. On Frankfurt's view, an authentic self is integrated in two respects: (1) one's endorsed first-order desires have been rank ordered so that one knows what is most important, and (2) one does not feel ambivalent about any of these desires or about the priorities one has set for oneself. Integration eliminates conflict, and wholeheartedness complements and completes integration. Frankfurt accounts for some key phenomena associated with autonomy. At the beginning of this article, I listed some of the colloquial expressions people use to affirm their autonomy-"I feel solid," "I feel right in my skin," and "I feel at one with myself." Frankfurt's conception of wholeheartedness nicely captures the flavor of these expressions and the general sense of resolution, equanimity, and confidence they evoke. In addition, theories of intersectional identity implicitly endorse one form of integration, for they stress the urgency of opening lines of communication between differently situated group members to prevent one segment of the group from undertaking political initiatives that would be detrimental to another. Likewise, they call on group members to find shared interests that can serve as a basis for solidarity. Thus, these theorists underscore the need for intersectional subjects to conceptualize their group-identity determinants in inclusive terms and to integrate this enlarged understanding of the diversity of social groups into their political views. Frankfurt's emphasis on evaluating the worthiness of one's desires and on sorting out one's priorities is consonant with this view of the in;,;. tersectional subject's political task. Frankfurt's account of self-constitution through identification also seems promising for intersectional subjects. As the crash trope suggests, members of subordinated groups are victimized by their group identities, although as the membership trope suggests" they also find sustenance in their group identities. Now, it might seem that Frankfurt's idea of identification and integration gives these individuals a technique for coping with this predicament. They can disidentify with the harmful attributes they have internalized, for example, self-doubt, servility, or submissiveness, and they can identify with the empowering attributes they have internalized, for example, a mordant sense of humor, persistence in the face of adversity, or a love of convivial gatherings. 49

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Unfortunately, the strategy of identification and disidentification breaks down when faced with a core feature of subordination, namely, victimization. To disidentify wholeheartedly with one's victimization when one is in fact a victim of systemic injustice is to deny social reality and to foreclose resistance. Such disidentification may redouble the individual's vulnerability to injustice, or it may draw individuals into complicity in their own subordination or the s'ubordination of other group nlembers. Only if individuals can disavow harmful group-linked attributes, while identifying with their position as members of a wrongfully subordinated group and retaining their compassion for group members who have not succeeded in ridding themselves of disabling and disfiguring group-linked attributes, is the strategy of disidentification feasible for autonomous intersectional subjects. But since it is doubtful that one can decisively or wholeheartedly identify with being a victim without succumbing to self-pity or self-annihilation, it is doubtful that such an identification could be integrated into an empowering and coherent hierarchy of desires and values. 50 Indeed, ambivalence toward one's victimization seems a better attitude to strike. Neither whole11eartedly embracing it nor eschewing it, one seems more likely to preserve one's balance and one's autonomy. Whereas theorizing agency as play underrates th.e intersectional subject's capacities for self-discovery and self-definition, in my judgn1ent Frankfurt's account of authenticity and autonomy demands more self-mastery than intersectional subjects can (or should try to) deliver. Intersectional identity resists wholehearted integration. As the trope of border dwelling suggests, tensions between one's various group-identity determinants are bound to occur. Moreover, since these tensions fuel critique and social innovation, it would be dangerous to eradicate them. 51 For intersectional subjects, then, to attain integration would be to betray one's authentic self. Moreover, I have argued that the intersectional subject's need for ongoing self-definition precludes finalizing one's authentic self. Again, wholeheartedly settling into an ordering of one's desires seems incompatible with authentic intersectional identity. The root difficulty here is Frankfurt's conception of integration. Recall that according to Frankfurt, conflicting desires with which one identifies must be integrated into a "single ordering."52 At first, this might seem unexceptionable, for it seems that when people have conflicting desires, either they must set priorities, or events will decide for them. But setting priorities can short-circuit autonomy. Presumably, an autonomous individual would brainstorm and try to come up with a way to satisfy both desires before sacrificing either of them. If this is so, Frankfurt's emphasis on linear rank ordering deflects attention from the skills that enable people to reconcile apparently competing desires-whether by figuring Ollt

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how both can be enacted after all or by working to change the social context that brings them into irresolvable conflict. Thus, Frankfurt discounts the activity of exercising those skills and inflates the importance of imposing order on one's identity constituents. It becomes apparent how grave this preoccupation with order is when one recalls that Frankfurt's account is not lin1.ited to situation-specific autonomy. He speaks of identifying with characteristics that endure, and he avers that integration "provides ... for coherence and unity of purpose over time."53 In this broader context, wholeheartedly committing oneself to a "single ordering" would be self-defeating. There are no desires or characteristics that sl1.ould always take precedence in any individual's life. Insofar as intersectional subjects are subordinated, they need to be on the qui vive for unanticipated opportunities. Insofar as intersectional subjects are both privileged and subordinated, they need to be ready to extend their social critique and build political coalitions with people whose interests are somewhat at variance with their own. If integration is understood as a wholehearted and lasting commitment to a self-chosen hierarchy of desires, personal traits, values, interests, and goals, and if an integrated self is an authentic self, integration and authenticity are often inimical to autonomy.54 Frankfurt might reply, however, that I am fastening on his phrases "single ordering" and "wholehearted commitment" and that I am reading him too literally. When Frankfurt shifts, as he often does, from propounding an account of free will to exploring the byways of moral psychology, it is clear that he regards the process of achieving integration as a gradual one and that he is well aware that intrapersonal conflict may persist despite one's second-order volitions. Nevertheless, we are left with the question of how to understand his claims about integration. Maybe the right geometrical image for his conception of integration is not the vertical line but rather the pyramid. If integration has a pyramidal structure, an authentic self could have quite a few desires, personal traits, values, interests, and goals on the same level, but as one ascended toward the top of the pyramid, the levels would accommodate fewer and fewer identity constituents. This model would give the autonomous individual the multidimensionality and flexibility needed to respond appropriately to a wide range of situations, for individuals could pick and choose among identity constituents that they have placed on the same level, depending on circumstances. Indeed, the pyramid could be flat-topped, which would allow for the possibility that two or more projects could be of paramount importance. I submit, however, that anyone who tried to decide in advance which sets of desires, personal traits, values, interests, and goals should always take precedence over other sets would either give up, reverse himor herself in the face of real situations, or live to regret sticking to his or her

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decisions. Moreover, if part of the point of making decisions and becoming integrated is to eliminate conflict, as Frankfurt claims it is,55 this model of integration would fail. Suppose an individual puts her career and her family on the same level of her pyramid. The chances are slim indeed-even in a postpatriarchal world-that she will never face conflicts between them. It seems to me that the geometry of integration is rapidly leveling down to a planar array of multifarious desires, sundry personal traits, plural values, and multiple overarching interests and goals. Yet, it is not true that autonomous people have no idea what is more important to them or that they have no guiding ideals. The trouble with theories of autonomy like Frankfurt's is that there is no way to codify their self-knowledge without forcing it into a mold that falsifies it and that turns autonomous individuals into cartoon figures, mechanically executing their previously elected plans. To be sure, autonomous people think prospectively about how much weight to give to different identity constituents, but they are prepared to adjust their plans, even to alter them radically, in light of new experience or unforeseen circumstances. If a neo-Nazi party made an unexpectedly strong showing in the next congressional elections, many reclusive intellectuals who are deeply committed to scholarship would autonomously set aside book manuscripts to join the battle against this threat. Frankfurt is right that autonomous people are not incessantly besieged by wrenching conflicts and that they do have a sense of being integrated. I hesitate to call it a feeling of wholeness, but that is the sort of thing nonphilosophers (including many clinical psychologists) say. I think, however, that this sense derives from their powers of insight and judgment and their ingenuity at devising enactments of their desires, personality traits, values, interests, and goals-enactments that usually satisfy them; that their associates by and large respect; and that do not regularly antagonize people they need and care about. Although it is important to salvage the idea of personal integration, the quest for a blueprint for personal integration is futile.

AUTHENTICITY AND AUTONOMY COMPETENCY

We need to reinterpret authenticity and to reconceive the relationship between authenticity and integration. It is a mistake to conflate authenticity with personal integration and to regard integration as a state persons must achieve as a precondition for autonomy. Instead, we should understand personal integration as the emergent intelligibility of an individual's autonomous self-discovery and self-definition. Moreover, since au-

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thenticity relies on intrapsychic tensions to spark personal development and social dissent, since it is compatible with ambivalence, and since it languishes if an individual cannot tolerate provisionality and rushes to closure, having an authentic self is best understood as the result of an ongoing activity of persons. By exercising autonomy skills, such as the ones I enumerated previously, people take charge of their identity alld gain allthenticity. What autonomous people do to understand and defin.e themselves is not aptly figured by any Euclidean shape or formal reasoning pattern. It is akin to improvisational orchestration. 56 Different instruments take solos; different instruments join in as backup; some instruments may fall silent for awhile. A tune sets the themes of the performance. But the rendition is not preplanned, nor will it ever be repeated in quite the same way. Still, the qualities of the instruments in the ensemble, the musicians' idiosyncratic playing styles, and the melody coalesce into a discernible logic-an integrated dynamic, if you will. Moreover, although the group will never duplicate a performance, their sound-their musical identitywill be recognizable whenever they play together. I have shifted the accent from "integration" to "dynamic"-that is, from a psychic state, instantiating a prescribed infrastructure, to an intelligible process constituted by skillful but unregimented activity. The capability behind improvisational orchestration is musicianship; the capability behind self-discovery and self-definition is autonomy competency. The authentic self is nothing but the evolving collocation of attributes-analogous to a musical ensemble's sound-that issues from ongoing exercise of this repertory of skills. And an authentic self-portrait is an interpretation of that evolving collocation-analogous to an astute band member's commentary on the group's performance career. This reorientation makes sense both of the intersectional subject's capacity for authentic identity and of some major obstacles to intersectional authenticity. It is evident that most people have acquired some degree of facility with most of the skills needed for self-discovery and self-definition. Thus, there is hardly anyone who has no authentic identity whatsoever. However, some individuals' circumstances in life strongly discourage them from acquiring this competency and virtually prohibit them from exercising it, whereas a few lucky individuals find themselves in environments that cultivate their autonomy skills and that shower them with opportunities to exercise their competency. Consequently, different people are more or less proficient at exercising these skills, more or less inclined to exercise them, and more or less successful at coordinating their skills into a smoothly functioning competency. Not surprisingly, then, intersectional subjects occasionally feel somewhat estranged from themselves or even thoroughly alienated from themselves. Yet, there ~£~_~--!~Q_mQments-----

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when they are able to summon their skills and make enormous strides in self-discovery or self-definition. 57 Exposure to the concept of intersectional identity itself migl'lt precipitate a consolidation of authentic identity. So might discovering an unrealized potential or entering a new social milieu. Still, it must be emphasized that these advances are gains in authenticity, not because some core trait has been disclosed and not because the individual's priorities have been decisively set, but rather because exercising autonomy skills has drawn these attributes into the orbit of the authentic self and authenticated" this self-portrait. It might seem that wl'lat happens when people exercise these skills well is that they come to have a special feeling about the attributes they include in their self-portrait. As I said earlier, wholeheartedness is not an implausible candidate for this special feeling. But to resort to wholeheartedness would be to revert to a managerial-clerical view of integration, and as we have seen, intersectional identity rules that out. Furthermore, given the complexity of authenticity-the many different sorts of attributes that can be authentic identity constituents, as well as the multitude of ways anyone of them can be enacted-it would be astonishing if authenticity were correlated with a single emotion. Thus, I recoll'lmend a multipronged account of the subjective sense of authenticity that is linked to exercising autonomy skills. When one is adept and does not need to struggle to exercise a repertory of skills, the activity itself is often absorbing, enjoyable, and satisfying in itself. Moreover, demonstrated competence produces reinforcing feelings of confidence and security. We have seen that self-definitiol'l involves self-exploration and self-discovery. Finding an undeveloped aptitude or a hidden virtue can be heartening; it might even spark elation and excitement. It is important to remember, too, that autonomy competency cushions the blow of discovering a limitation or a fault, for it enables people to change and to minimize the ill effects of what they cannot change. Thus, a disappointing revelation about themselves is not likely to plunge them into frustration or despondency. Ideally, it will be perceived as a fascinating puzzle or a revitalizing challenge. Sometimes self-definition reconciles seemingly opposed desires, personal traits, values, interests, or goals. Such resolutions may bring welcome feelings of relief and repose, short-lived though they may be. Finally, it is important to bear in mind the social skills that are enlisted in self-discovery and self-definition-autonomous individuals are equipped both to bel'lefit from others' input and to recruit others to their point of view. This interaction is interesting and gratifying, and the resulting interpersonal backing for self-knowledge is reassuring. Of course, the emotions I have mentioned do not exhaust the subjective experience of self-discovery and self-definition. Nevertheless, I think I have filled in this constellation of emotions sufficiently to show that it II

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does justice to the idiomatic affirmations of autonomy that I have cited, as well as the sense of wholeness that autonomous individuals report feeling. I would add that since these emotions are tied to the exercise of particular skills, they seem less arbitrary and hence less mysterious than Frankfurt's conception of wholeheartedness. The competency-based view of the authentic self that I am recommending dissolves the air of paradox around the conjunction of intersectional identity and autonomy. If there is no pattern that an authentic self . must fit into, there is nothing troubling about an authentic self that harbors ambivalence about some matters and unresolved tensions between some identity constituents. Inasmuch as unresolved tensions can spur individuals to exercise their self-definition skills in more sophisticated and creative ways, these tensions may prove to be invaluable resources for authenticity. When cirCllmstances are such that ambivalence is a reasonable response, as I have argued it is when individuals are victimized as members of a social group, viewing this attitude as an authentic identity constituent need not defeat autonomy~ On a competency-based view of autonomy, it is not necessary to plot out every detail of one's life in advance, for one's autonomy skills enable one to address situations on a case-by-case basis. To be sure, mixed feelings about an identity constituent necessitate skillful deliberation each time it becomes an issue. But that hardly seems a liability if one commands autonomy competency and if no preprogrammed response is appropriate to every occasion. Ambivalence, when coupled with a'utonomy competency, may ensure supple and subtle responses. Neither does the evolving, unfinished status of the authentic intersectional self pose a problem for this view of autonomy. Once again, if there is no pattern that an allthentic self must instantiate, and if authenticity is not an all-or-nothing matter bllt allows for degrees, the loose ends of the intersectional subject-gaps and lags in self-knowledge, as well as approximate or incomplete self-definition-need not be problematic. Provided that individuals are able to exercise autonomy competency and are disposed to do so, they will gradually gain authenticity. Piecemeal authenticity, I would urge, is the best that we ml.lrky, fallible human beings can hope for. Correlatively, the competency view makes sense of the fact that intersectional subjects need autonomy to gain the self-knowledge that they need to become aLlthentic. If the autonomy they need to gain self-knowledge is autonomy competency-not a particular configuration of the self achieved through higher-order volitions about the self but rather the repertory of skills through which self-discovery, self-definition., and self-direction are achieved-there is no vicious circularity and no reason to be baffled. As with other competencies, one learns through practice, and practice augments proficiency. Children learn a language by

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hearing it spoken and by speaking. As they incrementally gain linguistic competency, they express n10re and more con1plex and interesting ideas. So, too, with autonomy competency. As one gains proficiency, one's authentic self develops, and one's self-portrait becomes more and more nuanced and rich. On this competency view of autonomy, authenticity is a lifelong project, yet it is attainable,' as well as desirable, for intersectional subjects-that is, for us.

NOTES 1. I am grateful to the editors of this volume, Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar, for their extraordinarily helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Also I have presented different versions of this article at the Conference on Feminist Perspectives on Autonomy and Agency at the Australian National University, at a meeting of AMINTAPHIL at the University of Kentucky, at a colloquium of the Philosophy Department at the University of Illinois, Chicago, at the 1998 World Congress of Philosophy, and at sessions sponsored by the Society for Analytic Feminism at the Central Division APA and by the Society for Women in Philosophy at the Pacific Division APA. I am grateful to the audiences at all of those presentations for their responses to my work. 2. For skepticism about this feminist critique, see Marilyn Friedman, "Autonomy and Social Relationships: Rethinking the Feminist Critique," in Feminists Rethink the Self, ed. Diana Tie~ens Meyers (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997). 3. See, for example, Teresa de Lauretis, "Fen1inist Studies/ Critical Studies: Issues, Terms, and Contexts," in Feminist Studies/Critical Studies, ed. Teresa de Lauretis (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 10; Deborah K. King, "Multiple Jeopardy, Multiple Consciousness: The Context of Black Feminist Ideology," Signs 14 (1988): 42-72, 72; Maria Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman, "Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism, and the Demand for 'the Won1an's Voice,'" in Women and Values, ed. Marilyn Pearsall (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1986), 19. 4. See, for example, Jennifer Nedelsky, "Reconceiving Autonomy: Sources, Thoughts, and Possibilities," Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 1 (1989): 7-36, 7; Diana Tie~ens Meyers, Self, Society, and Personal Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989); Trudy Govier, "Self-Trust, Autonomy, and Self-Esteem," Hypatia 8 (1993): 99-120, 103-4; Seyla Benhabib, "Feminism and Postn10dernism," in Feminist Contentions, eds. Seyla Benhabib, et al. (New York: Routledge, 1995), 21; and, Alison Weir, "Toward a Model of Self-Identity: Habermas and Kristeva," in Feminists Read Habermas, ed. Johanna Meehan (New York: Routledge, 1995), 263. 5. For exan1ples, see Meyers, Self, Society, and Personal Choice, 3-8. 6. I should note before proceeding any further that I do not regard gender, race, ethnicity, class, and sexual orientation as an exhaustive and final list of group-identity determinants. However, there is wide consensus about the importance of these identity determinants, and these are the ones that the scholars who have developed the concept of intersectionality have stressed. Therefore, although

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I draw my examples from these sources, I do not foreclose the possibility that there are additional group categories that function intersectionally as codeterminants of identity. 7. The other major contender is multiplicity. See Naomi Scheman, Engenderings: Constructions of Knowledge, Authority, and Privilege (New York: Routledge, 1993), 102-4. However, I agree with Amy Mullin that in representing complex group-based identity as an internal population of personlike entities, this trope misrepresents complex group-based identity in serious ways. See Mullin, "Selves, Diverse and Divided: Can Feminists Have Diversity without Multiplicity?" Hypatia 10 (1995): 1-31. Moreover, I would urge that its associations with the pathology of multiple personality disorder make it an unfortunate choice. See my "The Family Ron1ance: A Fin-de-Siecle Tragedy," in Feminism and Families, ed. I-Iilde Lindemann Nelson (New York: Routledge, 1996). 8. Kimberle Crenshaw, "Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Fen1inist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist Politics," in Feminist Legal Theory, eds. Katharine T. Bartlett and Rosanne Kennedy (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991), 57-58. 9. Ibid., 63. 10. Ibid., 58. For a related discussion of multiple jeopardy, see King, "Multiple Jeopardy," 47. 11. Kirstie McClure, "On the Subject of Rights: Pluralism, Plurality, and Political Identity," in Dimensions of Radical Democracy, ed. Chantal Mouffe (London: Verso, 1997), 115. 12. Kin1berle Crenshaw, "Beyond Racism and Misogyny: Black Feminism and 2 Live Crew," in Words that Wound, eds. Mari J. Matsuda et al. (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993), 114. 13. Maria Lugones, "On Borderlands/La frontera: An Interpretative Essay," Hypatia 7 (1992): 31-37, 34. 14. Chantal Mouffe, "Feminism, Citizenship, and Radical Politics," in Feminists Theorize the Political, eds. Judith Butler and Joan W. Scott (New York: Routledge, 1992), 373-74, 381. 15. I confine my observations to current American English. Obviously, other linguistic communities, including other English-speaking communities, may furnish richer resources for articulating intersectional identities. 16. Anticipating the next U.S. census, some antirace theorists are stressing the frequency of mixed-race ancestry and are challenging government reliance on familiar racial categories. 17. This is only one of many reasons why the U.S. military's "don't ask; don't tell" policy is bizarre, as well as unfair. 18. K. Anthony Appiah and Amy Guttman, Color Consciousness (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1996), 80. 19. For discussion of individualized gender identities, see Nancy Chodorow, "Gender as a Personal and Cultural Construction" Signs 20, no. 3 (1995): 516-44. 20. See Judith Butler, Gender Trouble (New York: Routledge, 1990)/ and Patricia Mann, Micro-Politics: Agency in a Postfeminist Era (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press/ 1994). 21. I borrow this expression from King, "Multiple Jeopardy."

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22. See, for example, Naomi Zack, Race and Mixed Race (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1993), and Iris Marion Young, "Gender as Seriality: Thinking about Women as a Social Collective," Signs 19 (1994): 713-38. 23. For discussion of different varieties of autonomy, see my Self, Society, and Personal Choice, 8-19. As will become evident, it is impossible to sharply distinguish one kind of autonomy from another because different domains of autonomous choice and action overlap. 24. It is ironic that some advocates of the intersectional trope hold that just the reverse is true-that an intersectional self is too fluid, too indeterminate to have an identity, let alone an authentic identity. I take up this view in a later section. 25. See Adrian M. S. Piper, "Higher Order Discrimination," in Identity, Character, and Morality, eds. Owen Flanagan and Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990). 26. If this is so, it blurs Anthony Appiah's distinction between the collective dimension of individual identity and its personal dimension. See Appiah and Guttman, Color Consciousness, 93. Intelligence, charm, wit, and cupidity-these are Appiah's examples of personal attributes-take on different meanings according to what social groups an individual belongs to. In an anti-Semitic culture, "cupidity" has distinctive connotations when a Jew is being described; in a sexist culture, "charm" has distinctive connotations when a woman is being described; in a racist culture, "intelligence" has distinctive connotations when an African American is being described; and so forth. Thus, stereotypes infect the personal dimension of individual identity. 27. I should stress here that n1en1bership in subordinated social groupsindeed, membership in every major subordinated social group-does not necessarily lead to shame and self-contempt. I have more to say about subordinated social groups as sources of heterodox values and personal pride in my discussion of self-definition below. Also, although I do not have space to pursue this related point, it is worth mentioning that intersectional identity could playa key role in an account of transformative experience and retrospective ratification of political conversions. For discussion of this important and difficult topic, see Susan Babbitt, "Feminism and Objective Interests: The Role of Transformation Experiences in Rational Deliberation," in Feminist Epistemologies, eds. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter (New York: Routledge, 1993), and Claudia Card, The Unnatural Lottery (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1996), ch. 2. 28. I do not mean to insist that every member of a subordinated social group is obligated to dedicate himself or herself to resisting injustice. SOlYLe people are drawn to politics, and others are not. Still, to ignore injustice may be to dissociate from oneself or to debase oneself. Moreover, ignoring injustice can betray other group members. While there is nothing wrong with choosing not to devote oneself to politics, denying or falsifying one's own background and social position is problematic, and there is a great deal wrong with thwarting others' efforts to overcome group-based subordination. 29. Piper, "Higher Order Discrimination," 296, 305; for related discussion of culturally normative prejudice, see Diana Tietjens Meyers, Subjection and Subjectivity: Psychoanalytic Feminism and Moral Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1994), 51-56.

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30. Martha Minow, Making All the Difference (Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press, 1990). 31. Implementing liberal principles without the insights furnished by intersectional identity often amounts to feigning impartiality. Since impartiality is the centerpiece of the liberal democratic ideat proponents of traditional liberal precepts have good reason to endorse intersectional identity. 32. For good measure, I have used the plural"continuities" to stress that awareness of personal identity is not awareness of an enduring, invariant unit (who would think it is?). I also want to stress that continuities are not uniformities and that continuities can exist along with discontinuities. 33. If men1bers of subordinate social groups are more likely to experience alienation from some of their group identities than members of privileged social groups, they may be more disposed to critically assess the values and practices of different social groups. Although other factors may counteract this disposition and neutralize this advantage, alienation may give individuals from subordinated social groups both a psychological incentive and an epistemic boost in seeking autonomy. 34. See, for example, J. E. Veevers, Childless by Choice (Toronto: Butterworths, 1980), 15,40-42; Lisa Kay Rogers and Jeffrey H. Larson, "Voluntary Childlessness: A Review of the Literature and a Model of the Childlessness Decision/' Family Perspective 22, no. 1 (1988): 43-58,48; and Judith N. Lasker and Susan Borg, In Search of Parenthood: Coping with Infertility and High-Tech Conception (Philadelphia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1994), 11. 35. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley (New York: Vintage, 1989). 36. Actually, at that time her Italian immigrant forebears were deemed as much a threat to white racial purity as the recently "emancipated" African-American slaves. In 1999, Italian Americans are fully assimilated whites. 37. It is worth noting that even if she herself capitulates to these reproductive norms and starts trying to get pregnant, she may resent this impingement on her autonomy, and she may dedicate herself to working to overturn these norms for the sake of future generations of women. 38. Nancy Fraser sketches a complementary conception of autonomy as being "a member of a group or groups which have achieved a degree of collective con:" trol over the means of interpretation and communication sufficient to enable one to participate on a par with members of other groups in n10ral and political deliberation; that is, to speak and be heard, to tell one's own life-story, to press one's claims and point of view in one's own voice./I See Fraser, "Toward a Discourse Ethic of Solidarity," Praxis International 5 (1986): 425-29, 428. In a discussion of group merrlberships as affinities, Iris Young stresses the emancipatory potential of asserting group difference when doing so "reclaims the definition of the group by the group./I See Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 172. Likewise, Linda Alcoff locates agentic possibilities of collective self-definition in viewing gender as a "construct, formalizable in a nonarbitrary way through a matrix of habits, practices, and discourses./I See Alcoff, "Cultural Feminism versus Post-Structuralism: The Identity Crisis in Feminist Theory," in Culture/Power/History, eds. Nicholas Dirks, Geoff

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Eley, and Sherry Ortner (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994), 114. In a similar vein, I have defended a discursive politics of collective self-definition through self-figuration in Subjection and Subjectivity, 103-15. 39. For a detailed discussion of these skills and the ways in which they ll1ust be coordinated, see Meyers, Self, Society, and Personal Choice, 76-91. I would like to refer readers to an intriguing psychological discussion of the experience of control that lends support to my competency-based approach to autonomy. Ellen J. Langer and Justin Pugh Brown observe that psychologists have generally identified experiences of control with the ability to dictate or predict an outcome, and they argue that this conception is misguided. Reflecting on the problematics of control and self-blame in the psychology of victims of sexual violence, they maintain instead that one experiences control when one is "mindful of the choice one was making," that is, when one regards oneself as an able decision maker and has made one's decision in a thoughtful way. See Langer and Brown, "Control froll1 the Actor's Perspective," Canadian Journal of Behavioral Science 24 (1992): 267-75, 269, 273. Presumably, individuals who have autonomy competency are more likely to view thell1selves as good decision makers, more likely to exercise those skills when confronted with choices, and therefore more likely to feel in control of their lives. 40. I can't resist putting in a plug for liberal education here, for it seems to me that education designed to ensure knowledgeability about history and contemporary society and to nurture subtle readings of fiction and biography has a pivotal role to play in strengthening self-definition skills and thus in securing autonomy. I would stress, moreover, that liberal education should not be confined to colleges and universities; grade schools and high schools should also see liberal education as their mission. Neither can I resist lamenting the vacuity of popular entertainment. The media could be doing a far better job of broadcasting information and innovative ideas for people to reflect on and possibly to appropriate. 41. lowe the inception of my feminist consciousness and feminist sense of gender identity to a friend who would not let me deny the gender bias in a Fellini movie we had just seen, and lowe a great deal of my limited grasp of my racial identity to the work of critical race theorists. 42. I regard myself as lucky to have been associated with women's studies programs throughout most of my professional career, for in addition to their academic contributions, these programs constitute dissident cultural cOll1ll1unities in which nonconformist views of personal identity flourish. 43. Despite the relatively small audience for scholarly articles like this one, I cannot help hoping that my writing will have an impact, however sn1al1. 44. It is perhaps advisable to issue a caveat at this point. Intersectional identity does not, in my view, suffice to account for social critique and emancipatory politics. Intersectionality is an invaluable trope, but no single figuration of the self can symbolize all identity determinants together with the extensive repertory of intellectual, emotional, and social capabilities that contribute to social critique and emancipatory politics. Since there are different ways in which views of the self can be monistic, monistic views of the self can be ll1isguided for different reasons. Not only do we need to recognize each individual's multiple group memberships, but we also need to draw on multiple figurations of the self (for extended discussion

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of the virtues of the tropes of heterogeneity and relationality, see my Subjection and Subjectivity). Although I endorse the intersectional view of the relation between individual identity and social groups, I do not believe that this relation exhausts individual identity, and I do not favor a monotropic view of individual identity. 45. For example, Butler, Gender Trouble; Appiah and Guttman, Color Consciousness; Susan Rubin Suleiman, "Playing and Motherhood: Or, How to Get the Most out of the Avant-Garde," in Representations ofMotherhood, eds. Donna Bassin, Margaret Honey, and Meryle Mahrer Kaplin (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1994); and Maria Lugones, "Playfulness, 'World' Traveling, and Loving Perception," Hypatia 2 (1987): 3-19. 46. Harry Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person," The Journal of Philosophy 68 (1971): 5-20, 10-13, 16. 47. Harry Frankfurt, The Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 170. 48. Ibid., 170, 174-75. 49. Members of privileged social groups might disidentify with attributes that reinforce their dominant social position and identify with attributes that foster egalitarian social relations. 50. This is not to say that one should never temporarily and strategically identify or disidentify with one's own victimization. Such identification can strengthen bonds of solidarity with other victims, and such disidentification can make psychic space for renewing one's sense of self after a bruising experience. However, such tactical identification and disidentification is not decisive, wholehearted, or identity defining, and it is not the sort of thing Frankfurt is talking about. 51. It is sometimes argued that thoroughgoing integration-the convergence of one's group identities into a smooth blend-is a privilege of the totally privileged. See Naomi Scheman, "Queering the Center by Centering the Queer," in Meyers, Feminists Rethink the Self, 125. Although I agree that social structures and cultural norms confer "easy" integrity on some privileged individuals, I suspect that this outsider's picture of privilege is not altogether accurate. There are sources of conflict within any group identity; I noted a case in point with respect to white racial identity in an earlier section. The difference between socially esteemed group identities and socially ostracized group identities is that the conflicts are well camouflaged and therefore are difficult to discern in the former. Also, members of privileged social groups have little incentive to uncover them. Ironically, then, in this respect privilege makes it harder to be autonomous. Pure privilege is no panacea for heteronomy. 52. Frankfurt, Importance of What We Care About, 170. 53. Ibid., 171-72, 175. 54. For related discussion of Frankfurt's account of integration and the virtue of integrity, see Cheshire Calhoun, "Standing for Something," Journal ofPhilosophy 92 (1995): 235-60, 236-41. 55. Frankfurt, Importance of What We Care About, p. 175. 56. In a somewhat different context, Martha Nussbaum invokes jazz in1provisation to figure deliberation. See Nussbaum, Love's Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990). I would also like to mention that the view of

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personal integration I propose in an earlier work depicts integration as a very loose weave-"a personality marked by characterological strands that are amenable to combination and recombination both amongst themselves and also with various evanescent traits." See my Self, Society, and Personal Choice, 73. Construed in this way, the concept of integration functions as a beacon for self-definition. Since integration enables autonomous spontaneity and minimizes self-reproach, exercising autonomy skills moves self-definition in this direction (59-75). But notice that getting carried away and trying to achieve a tight, sharply patterned weave is counterproductive, for people with rigid personalities cannot adjust to changing circumstances and consequently their efforts to realize their values and fulfill their goals are likely to be thwarted. In short, hyperintegration impedes self-direction. Finally, I want to emphasize that, in this view, integration does not dictate the outcome of self-definition. Integrated personalities are unique, individualized personalities. 57. Elsewhere I have discussed the possibility that there might be threads and pockets of autonomy in a life that is not globally autonomous. See Self, Society, and Personal Choice, 160-62.

3

+ Decentralizing Autonomy: Five Faces of Selfhood

eople are cast into highly variable and unpredictable circull1stances. Sometimes they face appalling situations. SOll1etimes they face predicaments of mind-boggling complexity or paralyzing opacity. Even the most familiar, seemingly routine situations are nuanced in unforeseen ways, and ignoring these subtleties can only lead to missteps, misunderstandings, or worse. I take it that an account of autonomy should capture the agentic resourcefulness people need to cope with life's vicissitudes, ordeals, and upheavals. 1 To do this, an account of autonoll1y must explain how one can encounter unexpected constraints, discern novel opportunities, and improvise on the spot without parting company from one's authentic traits, affects, values, and desires. More specifically, a tenable account of self-discovery and self-definition must be premised on a view of authenticity that COllntenances sllfficient adaptability to make sense of these agentic capacities. In this chapter, I seek to extend the range of autonomous agency while preserving a rich enough view of autonomous reflection and choice to draw the vital distinction between enacting authentic attributes and enacting inaut11entic ones. 2 There are all sorts of good reasons to classify conduct as nonautonomous, but I suspect that philosophers misclassify some conduct because it stems from agentic capacities that 11ave wrongly fallen into disrepute among autonomy theorists. Autonomy theorists for whom Kant's moral philosophy is the locus classicus tend to gravitate to a mentalistic, individualistic conception of the autonomous subject and to a rationalistic

P

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account of autonomous deliberation and volition. In this view, forms of agency that evidently are not anchored in rational powers are deemed autonomous only if they can somehow be assimilated to reason. Consequently, much of the philosophical literature is devoted to designing rational certification procedures to draw conduct into the orbit of autonomy. Two considerations have led me to question autonomy theory's focus on critical reason and rationally mandated volition. First, there are several creditable conceptions of the self in widespread use both in scholarly contexts and in everyday discourse, and it strikes me as troubling that the idea of autonomy has become so entwined with one of them that the others seem altogether problematic from the standpoint of autonomy. To flesh out this concern, I set out five conceptions of the self-the unitary self, the social self, the relational self, the divided self, and the embodied self. For each conception, I sketch how it represents the constitution of individual identity, and I explain how that view of identity sets up friction with autonomy. Second, thinking freshly about my own experience has led me to suspect the privileging of one of these conceptions, namely, the unitary self, over the others. Bringing two recent experiences to bear on this issue prompted me to reconsider the role of the relational self and the embodied self in autonomy. The kinds of experiences I describe present puzzles for autonomy theory because, although it is hard to believe that my conduct did not comport with authentic traits, affects, values, and desires, it is far from clear that I rationally reviewed and endorsed these attributes, and it is all too clear that my will was not under rational control. In my view, the best way to meet the challenge posed by these experiences is to recognize the social self, the relational self, the divided self, and the embodied self as potential sites of autonomous self-discovery, selfdefinition, and self-direction. In the third section, I begin to make my case for this claim by describing forms of practical intelligence associated with each of these conceptions of the self. But since agreeing that there are agentic skills linked to each conception of the self does not rule out denying that these skills secure autonomy, I consider how a theory of retrospective autonomy or a personal style theory of autonomy might explain the autonomy of the sorts of experience I recount in the second section without adverting to any of these skills. I argue, however, that neither type of theory provides a convincing analysis of the forms of agency that interest me, although they do point up the need to rethink self-discovery and self-definition. Thus, my strategy is to focus on self-discovery and self-definition and to argue that a plausible account of these processes would accommodate the agentic skills of the social self, the relational self, the divided self, and the embodied self, as well as the unitary self. But an obvious objection to this

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decentralized approach is that I have fractured autonomous subjectivity beyond repair-that five-dimensional subjectivity is an unwieldy, disjointed monstrosity. In reply, I explain how easily and cogently autobiographical narratives reconcile these seemingly disparate motifs. Since this self-descriptive form is available, there is no need to reduce autonomy to its rationalistic dimension, and autonomy theory can make sense of otherwise unintelligible autonomy phenomenology.

FIVE CONCEPTIONS OF THE SELF AND FIVE-DIMENSIONAL SUBJECTIVITY

In this section, I layout what I take to be the five principal conceptions of the self that are commonly invoked in vernacular discourses and that are currently prominent in philosophical thinking, as well. They are the unitary self, the social self, the relational self, the divided self, and the embodied self. Associated with each of these conceptions is a distinctive endowment of desirable attributes and capacities. Likewise, each conception provides a particular kind of answer to the question of what an individual is like-that is, each sees individual identity as derived from a different source and as invested in a different dimension of human existence. As a corollary, each pinpoints a different set of contributions to autonomy as well as a different set of threats to autonomy (apart from coercive threats). The unitary self is the independent, self-monitoring, self-controlling self that has been pivotal to autonomy theory. As the seat of rationality and thus rational deliberation and choice, the self-as-unitary is often viewed as the ground for free will and responsibility. Indeed, the selfas-unitary and the autonomous self are so closely identified that they almost seem indistinguishable. 3 To be rationally reflective and free to carry out one's rationally reached decisions is to be autonomous, on many accounts. I submit, though, that intelligence and good sense should not be equated with reason, and that if reason is kept distinct from these broader desiderata, rationalism is not without its perils for autonomy. A zealous commitment to reasoned decision making can leave the individual inhibited, rigid, unspontaneous, and shallow-in a word, inhuman. The social self is the socialized or enculturated self. This conception of the self underscores people's assimilation of social norms and mastery of appropriate ways to act and interact, as well as their assimilation of culturally transmitted values, attitudes, and interpretive frameworks through which they perceive and negotiate social relations. Internalized, this material is constitutive of the individual's identity, and thus the identity of the self-as-social is invested in a community and its cultural heritage. While it is obvious that individuals cannot create their own value systems and

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styles of conduct ex nihilo and that individuality is parasitic on socialization and enculturation, it is also clear that these norn1.alizing processes pose a danger to autonomy. When individuals have little opportunity to explore alternative value systems and social practices, and when dominant values and practices are rigorously enforced, socialization and enculturation function as indoctrination, which precludes critical reflection on the values and desires that shape one's choices. The relational self is the interpersonally bonded self. As relational selves with lasting emotional attachments to others, people share in one another's joys and sorrows, give and receive care, and, generally, profit from the many rewards and cope with the many aggravations of friendship and family membership. These relationships are sources of identity, for people become committed to their intimates and to others whom they care about, and these commitments become integral to their psyc11ic econon1.ies. Thus, the self-as-relational is invested in a circle of family and friends, and the lives of individuals are incalculably enriched by these ties. Yet, these ties also threaten autonomy, for responding to others' needs and fulfilling one's responsibilities to them can become so consuming that the iILdividual is deprived of any opportunity to pursue personal goals and projects. The divided self is the psychodynamic self. Split between cOlLsciousness and self-awareness, on the one hand, and elusive unconscious affect and desire, on the other, the self-as-divided is characterized by inner depth, complexity, and enigma. The fluid, but distinctive psychic economy of the self-as-divided is manifest in a unique-indeed, a vibrantly individualized-personality. In an important respect, the value we place on autonomy pays tribute to this conception of the self, for autonomy enables people to express their individuality ilL the way they choose to live. Yet, this psychodynamic conception alerts us to another peril for autonomy, namely, unconscious drive and repressed desire. IlL pathologies such as obsessive compulsive disorder, these forces take over the individual's agency. Bllt the peril is not limited to this extreme. To the extent that individuals are oblivious to unconscious materials, their self-knowledge is incomplete and possibly distorted, and to the extent that their choices and actions are shaped by these obscure forces, individuals lack cOlLtrol over their lives. Outside of legal theory, the embodied self is often overlooked in discussions of autonomy. This is rather surprising since errtbodiment is necessary for taking actiolL or partaking in sensuous pleasure. Moreover, people are deeply invested in their body image-their sense of what they look like and what their physical capabilities are. Consequently, attacks on their bodily integrity can be traumatic. Because the attributes of the en1.bodied self are central to individual identity and agency, U.S. law gen-

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erally treats the embodied self as sacrosanct. 4 Still, the self-as-embodied deserves sustained attention from autonomy theorists, for health, physical proficiencies, and vitality expand the scope of autonomy, whereas illness, frailty, and disability put autonomy in jeopardy.5 Laid out this way, it seems obvious that each of these conceptions captures a significant dimension of selfhood-of what it's like and what it means to be a human subject. Before proceeding, though, I would like to comment briefly on the terminology I have introduced here. I have referred to the self-as-unitary, as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and asembodied. In what follows, I shall use these expressions interchangeably with the more idiomatic expressions, "the unitary self," "the social self," "the relational self," "the divided self," and "the embodied self." However, I wish to stress that the latter expressions, though familiar, are also misleading, for they seem to reify these different selves. They make it seem that each person is somehow an aggregate of five selves. The implausibility of this claim then leads to the supposition that one must decide which kind of self one really is and somehow subsume the other four phenomenal selves within that conception. I think that this move is wrongheaded, and I like the "self-as" terminology because it deflects this reductionist proclivity.6 What I mean to convey by the "self-as" terminology is that each of these conceptions represents a focus of attention, a dimension of subjective life, and a way of framing a self-understanding or a project. Accordingly, these expressions should not be viewed as mirroring ontology, but rather as labeling phenomenological and epistemological perspectives. It is important to note, as well, that in the social scientific and philosophicalliterature these five conceptions of the self are not as discrete as I have made them seem for the purposes of my argument in this chapter. In psychoanalytic object relations theory, for example, the relational self is also divided and social. Likewise, philosophical accounts of the autonomous self often recognize that the self is divided while positing the unitary self as a regulative ideal, and feminist ethics of care often focus on the relational self while presuming its enculturation and rationality. In my concluding remarks, I shall revisit the issue of the interconnections between these conceptions of the self.

AUTHENTIC ATTRIBUTES AND DECENTRALIZED SELF-DIRECTION

My aim in this section is to discredit the assumption that autonomous agency is inseparable from the reasoning skills of the self-as-unitary. To that end, I shall sketch two episodes, one pertinent to the self-as-relational

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and another pertinent to the self-as-embodied-episodes in which, I would maintain, I enacted authentic attributes but in which it is doubtful that I acted autonomously. In these two cases, what raises doubts about my autonomy is the fact that I did not decide to act as I did because I would be enacting my authentic attributes. Indeed, I experienced no introspectable decision-making process at all. Nevertheless, instead of concluding that my autonomy was compromised, I shall suggest that the self-as-relational and the self-as-embodied sometimes function as agents of autonon10US self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction. In the interest of concision, I shall leave it to readers to imagine examples of how the self-as-social and the self-as-divided might also enact authentic attributes, but iI1 later sections I shall develop reasons to think that these dimensions of the self can function in ways parallel to those of the selfas-relational and the self-as-embodied.7 My first case focuses on the self-as-relational. A few years ago, I learned that I had developed a metabolic condition that requires me to restrict my diet. Alas, I love good food; there are almost no foods I don't like; and I've always enjoyed the conviviality of eating with friends. Consequently, adhering to this diet is not easy for me, but by and large I've managed to. I've come to realize, though, that doing so has been a con1plex relational achievement. My husband and some of my close friends have patiently listened to my gripes, and they've even abstained from ordering or serving forbidden dishes when I'm around. Not only does their compassion and sympathetic self-restraint reduce my exposure to temptatiol1, but also their willingness to adapt helps me overcome my resistance to adapting. This sort of support, valuable as it is, has received considerable attention from autonomy tl1eorists. 8 Instead, I would like to spotlight a quite different relational mechanism of control. I have discovered that, when I am with people who know of my condition but who don't refrain from indulging in pleasures I must forego, I seldom succumb to temptation. The mere knowledge that there would be witnesses to my delinquency curbs my appetite. I don't ask people to encourage me to stick to my diet, and no one ever has. Yet, their knowing presence prevents me from violating my diet. In informing associates about my situation, do I delegate responsibility? Do I make these individuals into enforcers of my values? It might seem that I exercise self-control because I created a social network of knowledge that suppresses self-destructive behavior. But iI1 an important respect this construal is inaccurate, for it exaggeratys the role of my rational will. When I first told people about my condition, my intentions were different. I inforn1ed good friends because one tells good friends important news, and I informed people who invited me to dinner parties because I wanted to avoid awkward situations. In time, however, as I en-

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countered these confidants in other contexts, I realized that these individuals were preempting, my occasional renegade impulses. 9 Without realizing what I was doing and unbeknownst to these individuals, I had transferred some of my agentic powers to our relationships. Now that I know this trick, I can deliberately recruit acquaintances into this scheme, and to do so would seem a straightforward case of making them ul1.witting extensions of my autonomous will. But I submit that before I anticipated the full consequences of my telling people about my predicament, a relational conative capacity simply materialized as an unintended consequence of my disclosures, and this conative capacity enabled my self-as-relational to autonoll1.ously refuse harmful delectables. My other case concerns the self-as-embodied. Several years ago, I was hiking by myself on Mt. Rainier. While descending a vast, steep, hardpacked snowfield quite high on the mountain, I slipped and fell twice, and I broke a wrist each time. There was no one else around. After picking myself up from the first fall, I thought for a moment about whether I should go back up to Camp Muir, a base camp used for summiting where I had encountered a few people and that was much closer than the ranger station at Paradise thousands of vertical feet below. I quickly decided that returning made no sense and continued down the mOLlntain. At that point, my body took over in two respects. Without ever pausing to figLlre anything out, I took measures to protect myself from fllrther injury, for example, sitting and using ll1.y legs to propel myself down especially steep places. Also the wonder-drug adrenaline kept me energized, painfree, and fear-free throughout the ordeal. My body improvised quite ingeniously, and it proceeded with extraordinary determination in the face of considerable danger. So, I consider ll1.yself lucky to have had a clever, courageous self-as-embodied. Here I must ask for your indulgence and beg you not to dismiss this seeming category mistake out of hand. Apart from reflexes, we don't have good ways of talking about situations in which one's body assumes control and acts on one's behalf, as it were. 10 Ordinarily, we think of adrenaline's psychoactive properties as analogous to those of Prozac-the former functions as an anticowardice drug, just as the latter functions as an antidepressant. It seems natural, then, to say that this hormone temporarily made me-the agentic consciousness-courageous. Yet putting things this way seems false in my case, for at the time I did not feel infused with courage. In fact, it was not 'untillater when friends asked me if I had been afraid that it occurred to me that I could have been afraid or that anyone might consider what I'd done courageous. Nevertheless, my body was certainly doing exactly what a courageous body would do. It would not be odd either to say that it was lucky that my body was strong and vigorous enough for me to be able to extricate myself from the

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mess I had gotten myself into. Although true, this observation fails to capture my body's expeditiousness in managing my descent. Of course it does not strain credulity to say that one's body has acquired certain skills, e.g., the ability to swim, and that these ingrained capabilities can take over and ensure survival, e.g., in a boating accident. I would stress, though, that learned mountaineering skills contributed very little to my actions. Thus, the idea of a trained, adept body isn't quite to the point. Nevertheless, I would like you to entertain the possibility, peculiar though it may seem, that my self-as-embodied bravely and resourcefully orchestrated an autonomous descent for me. lt might be objected that the fact that someone does not definitely want to act otherwise, puts up no resistance to acting as the self-as-relational or the self-as-embodied ordains, and does not come to regret going along this way is necessary but not sufficient for autonomy. In addition, the agent must really want to act as she does, and, as the following hypothetical shows, it cannot be a mere coincidence that her conduct meshes with her authentic attributes. Here is an example of such a coincidence. I often send donations to an organization called City Harvest, which collects leftover food from restaurants and grocery stores and uses it to feed destitute people. There are quite a few charitable organizations in New York City that seek to reduce hunger. But since I particularly approve of City Harvest's methods and its effectiveness, I see my donations as autonomous gestures, and I intend to continue giving. Suppose, though, that late one night as I am walking home, a City Harvest Robinhood threatens me with a knife and demands my wallet. Preferring safety over the meager contents of my wallet, I relinquish my money. Although my action conforms with my values and past practices, I don't regard it as autonomous, for, however worthy the cause, I was forced to hand over my cash. In the aftermath, I might console myself by reflecting that I would have sent them at least that much anyway. Still, since my control over this donation was severely diminished, it was not autonomous. ll Rephrasing Isaiah Berlin's famous remark, people cannot be forced to be autonomous. The autonomy of conduct, elicited by interpersonal relations or issuing from bodily processes may seem like "forced autonomy," too. The same objection, I would note, applies to conduct prompted by enculturation or fueled by the workings of the unconscious. In each case, something other than reason gives rise to action, and canonical mentalist, individualist presuppositions about autonomous volition raise doubts about the autonomy of such action. From that point of view, it seems that in these cases internal or internalized forces impel one to act. Yet, there are some striking ways in which the experiences I have described diverge from the Robinhood mugging scenario.

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Most striking is the fact that the nature of the compulsion, if compulsion is not a misnomer in the cases I set out, is entirely different. There is no violence or threat of violence in my friends' inadvertent control over my unruly appetite or my body's carrying me to safety despite the treacherous mountain terrain. Also significant is the fact that people who are unwittingly keeping me within my dietary regimen are not intentionally n1anipulating me, nor are they imposing a choice I would eschew. Indeed, it might be a smart move to deliberately enlist some more of these innocent accomplices. Nor is my clever, courageous body acting against my interests or wishes-there's nothing about the postaccident descent that I would have done differently if I had wasted time thinking over the advantages and disadvantages of functional arms and hands or plotting eac:h step. In contrast, I would never choose to be terrorized iI1to fulfilling my charitable obligations. Finally, the City Harvest Robinhood is a stranger, and this mugger could not have known whether I needed that money for some other compelling purpose. But the self-as-relational and the self-as-embodied are not strangers. Indeed, they are more than acquaintances. They are aspects of me, aspects of my identity, aspects of who I am. 12 The same goes for the self-as-social and the self-as-divided. All in all, then, the gulf between me and effective agentic power seems far wider in the City Harvest Robinhood scenario than it does in my real-life experiences. For these reasons, I think it would be unwise to short-circuit inquiry by declaring my experiences heteronomous. Still, it is not clear how autonomydefeating, alien motivations differ from autonomy-preserving, authentic ones. The succeeding sections of this paper propose a way to distinguish the autonomous agency of the self-as-relational, as-embodied, as-divided, and as-social from nonautonomous behavior arising from these dimensions of the self.

THE AGENTIC SKILLS OF THE FIVE-DIMENSIONAL SUBJECT

Mere doings are not autonomous. Nor is aimless, self-defeating, or subservient behaving. 13 As a first step toward persuading you that conduct stemming from the self-as-social, the self-as-relational, the self-asdivided, or the self-as-errLbodied can be autonomous, I urge that attending to these dimensions of selfhood brings to light some neglected agentic skills. Moreover, I urge that these skills endow people with forms of practical intelligence that can be seen to facilitate selfdiscovery, self-definition, and self-direction. If this is so, it seems to me that we cannot dismiss the possibility that the self-as-unitary is not the preeminent arbiter of autonomy.

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Skills are forms of know-how. There are standards of performance-in deep water there's a big difference between a nonswimmer and a swimmer, and in any pool there's a big difference between an average recreational swimmer and an Olympic contender. Skills can be taught, and they can be practiced, cultivated, and improved. Even a rudimentary skill like walking, which babies seem to pick up with minimal adult assistance, is sometimes painstakingly taught-e.g., in the aftermath of a severe spinal injury, the victim might need a physical therapist's "tutoring" to regain the ability to walk. Skills can be exercised thoughtfully, but they need not be. You can just swim without thinking about it, or you can concentrate on perfecting your butterfly stroke. Proficiency enables people who possess a skill to correct their own mistakes-e.g., a pianist senses her lagging tempo and picks up the pace. Likewise, proficiency enables people to adapt to varying circumstances-e.g., a dietician customizes menus to suit particular nutritional needs. So, skills are learnable, improvable, flexible, standard-governed abilities to engage in different types of activity, and autonomy skills are skills that contribute to self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction. Turning to the social self and our experience of enculturation, it is necessary to recall the role of cultures in people's lives. A culture encodes a collective intelligence-the accumulated wisdom of a social group coupled with its share of folly and falsity. Cultures prescribe ways to meet ineluctable needs; they disseminate models of lives well lived; and they furnish a worldview that enables people to experience life as meaningful. The self-as-social is imbued with this collective intelligence. Of course, it is often pointed out that, from the standpoint of autonomy, that is precisely the trouble. The social self is too imbued with this collective intelligence to be autonomous. In my view, however, this objection rests on an impoverished conception of culture, on a misunderstanding of enculturation, and perhaps on a misunderstanding of autonomy, as well. To be autonomous, one needn't be outlandish. For many people, living autonomously means living a fairly conventionallife. l4 In these cases, it is obvious how cultures help to secure conative resolve. Insofar as one's values and projects coincide with a culturally entrenched way of life, one's social context powerfully reinforces one's resolve to live up to those values and carry out those projects. Still, it is important to notice that lending its imprimatur to certain ways of life is only a small part of culture's involvement in volition. Cultures do not merely impart doctrines. They also impart skills, including skills that enable people to seek and obtain social approval and, if not approval, tolerance. Thus, a cultural environment integrates the self-as-social in practices of self-revelation and self-justification that afford opportunities to test one's values and aspirations and that solidify one's resolve, whether or not social endorsement is ultimately forthcoming. ls

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That culh.lres contribute to the capacity for social dissent may con1.e as a surprise if one pictures cultures as exquisitely coherent systems of beliefs and practices embalmed in amber. But since a static culture is a dead culture, thriving cultures have built-in mechanisms of change. 16 To be a cultural initiate, then, is to know how to use these mechanisms-that is, to know how to resist uncongenial cultural norms and defective cultural values. Thus, cultures endow the self-as-social with resistance skills as well as resolve skills, both of which are integral to autonomy. Interpersonal relationships are also implicated in people's capacity for autonomy. Feminist consciousness-raising is a paradigm of self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction. Through the synergy of pooled men1.Ories, dreams sparking off each other, and energizing solidarity, tl1.e relational selves participating in these groups became preternaturally smart, visionary, and willful. 17 In other words, the interpersonal skills of the selfas-relational transformed women's seemingly personal complaints into political critique and oppositional activislTI. We find the same skills in play 011. a smaller scale, as well. A friend may discern an intimate's distress before she consciously registers it herself, and sometimes the friend understands the distress and grasps what needs to be done about it far better than the sufferer does. Listening to a friend can jump-start autonomy or prevent autonomy from flagging. Indeed, I doubt that autonomy can survive in an interpersonal vacuum. If the tabloid press has any use at all, it is to record an endless stream of evidence that opting for extren1.ely attenuated social relations is not especially conducive to autonomy-people's autonomy skills get rusty and lan.guish for want of interaction with others, and crazy or vicious ideas take root more easily. People frequently depend on friends to bolster their resolve to undertake a daul1.ting, but needed change of direction or to persevere despite discouragement with a project. But receptivity to explicit suasion is by no means the whole of the volitional structure of tl1.e self-as-relational. As we have seen, constellations of compal1.ionship can in themselves constitute individual resolve, and tl1.ey need not be set up deliberately. As with th.e collaborative insights of consciousness-raising groups, volitional structures can arise through the dynamics of interaction. Now, it might seem that I am describing a passive subject rather than an autonomous subject-someone who absorbs and yields to other people's ideas, not someone who is living by her own lights. But few, if any, real people are relational sponges. Discriminating receptivity to others' criticism, reassurance, and advice is a skill that can be deficient in either of two respects-one can have too little facility in distinguishing helpful from unhelpful input or too little facility in assimilating the benefits of others' perceptions. Here, it is worth remembering that relationships are (or should be) cooperative endeavors. Individuals exercise interpersonal

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skills that shape their relationships, and thus they have some control over the trustworthiness of their associates as partners in autonomy. If people express their values, needs, interests, and so forth in fashioning their relationships, they not only act autonomously in maintaining these ties, but they also minin1.ize the risk of the relational self's receptivity.l8 Under these circun1.stances, exercising discriminating receptivity to others is less dicey and more likely to augment autonomy. Intelligence is not exclusively a property of the conscious mind. Unconscious thought processes work on abstract or personal problems while we sleep; unconscious memory processes post reminders and revive lost meanings; unconscious imaginative processes generate fantasies that can open liberating possibilities; unconscious self-evaluative processes issue warnings manifest in pangs of guilt and in outbreaks of anxiety, frustration, boredom, agitation, confusion, and the like. Moreover, when a person's values, goals, and commitments become embedded in subconscious desire and affect, the individual's determination to stay the course is less liable to falter. The unconscious mind is plainly a resource for self-knowledge, selfdefinition, and self-direction. But it might be objected that none of the phenomena I have singled out involve skills. They are merely psychic incidents that require interpretation and psychic structures that happen to back up authentic values, goals, or commitments. Although the actual operation of these processes is mysterious and largely beyond our control, some of them-notably memory, imagination, and self-evaluation-are subject to deliberate cultivation. Also the operation of these processes, though not always predictable, is patterned and can be judged n1.ore or less availing. 19 These features of unconscious processes bring them into tl1.e ambit of skills. But the case for the contribution of the self-as-divided to autonomy need not depend on the admittedly debatable claim that the unconscious mind is by itself a repository of skills, for consciousness is as much a part of the self-as-divided as the unconscious. Thus, it is this whole system-the self-as-divided-that is skilled in selectively appropriating unconscious materials, and it seems clear that the interpretive, reflective, and intention-forming skills of this systenl are needed for autonomy. Now, it goes without saying that the self-as-divided is not an unalloyed blessing from the standpoint of autonomy. Unconscious processes can defeat autonomous plans, as well as support them. But since there are numerous accounts in the psychological literature of how autonomy is possible for a divided self, I shall not pause to rehearse them here or to argue that a divided self can gain autonomy.20 Foucauldians will find nothing to quarrel with in the claim that tl1.e body is a site of skills that perpetuate the social order but that also gel1.erate resistance to it. For Foucault, disciplinary regimes inscribe social iden-

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tities on the body by instilling styles of comportment and bodily routines that enforce these identities. Yet, deviations fronl these disciplines-and deviations are inevitable, in Foucault's view-constitute opposition to the status quo. I mention Foucault because I agree that characteristic deportment and demeanor express what one is like and because I agree that ingrained bodily configurations and habitual bodily practices help to preserve one's sense of self. It is well known how profoundly disorienting alienation from the body brought on by physical pain, illness, or injury can be. 21 It is also worth underscoring the fact that somatic discontent and damage can be excellent barometers of injustice and potent catalysts for resistance. 22 Feminists have called for an end to women's sexual deprivations and vulnerabilities, and advocates of workers' rights have organized against backbreaking and repetitive labor. In a related vein, I also agree with Foucault that strategic refusals to replicate normalizing bodily conventions can pose a sharp challenge to an oppressive social order. Nevertheless, I do not propose to rely on Foucault to make my case for the embodied self's contribution to auton.omy, for the theory in which he couches his insights about the self-as-embodied makes it hard to see how individuals could assert control over their deviations from entrenched disciplin.es and thus hard to see how they cotLld autonomously redefine themselves or overcome oppression. What is missing from Foucault's account, as I understand it,.is an appreciation of the practical intelligence of the skilled embodied self. Thin.k of how subtle messages delivered through body language can be, and remember that body language is a skill that people seldom exercise selfconsciously. Also, consider why self-defense training helps traumatized sexual assault victims recover. 23 It gives them reason to believe that they are safer because they feel confident that their bodies would assuredly and forcefully react if they should ever be attacked again. Notice, however, that if these individuals had reason to fear that the self-as-embodied would be prone to lose control and misuse its fighting techniques, say, by aggressing against loving partners or children in their care, this new capability would not be much of a comfort. It is both because the selfas-embodied has acquired a crucial form of practical intelligence-not just a batch of hand-to-hand combat moves-and because self-defense training increases the likelihood that the individual will act on her desire to protect herself that this physical skill seems constitutive of victims' autonomous agency.24 If the skills of body language and self-defense are typical of the skills of the self-as-embodied, there is no reason to exclude the self-as-embodied from autonomous volition. In highlighting the agentic skills of the self-as-social, as-relational, asdivided, and as-embodied, I am not denying that autonomous people

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need the rational skills of the self-as-unitary. Autonomous people often call upon instrumental reason to figure out how to achieve their goals, and they use abstract reasoning skills to notice, to assess, and sometimes to resolve conflicts within their value systems. What I am questioning is th.at these skills suffice to account for autonomy and that exercising these skills is always necessary to achieve autonomy.

RECKONING WITH ANOMALOUS

AUTONOMY PHENOMENOLOGY At this point, it might be acknowledged that, like the self-as-unitary, the self-as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied are sites of agency enabling skills, yet it might be doubted that the skills I have inventoried are autonon1y skills. Since autonomy may seem to require deliberate self-direction, and since so many of these skills operate with little or no conscious supervision, they may seem like poor candidates for inclusion. In this section, I consider two ways to account for the autonomy of my dietary control and my mountain descent without invoking these skills. Specifically, I ask whether the idea of retrospective autonomy or the idea of personal style can circumnavigate the problem posed by the subconscious, unn10nitored functioning of these skills. It seems undeniable th.at people sometimes spontaneously act in atypical ways and that in retrospect they realize that this devil-may-care moment revealed a previously submerged, yet highly desirable potentiali~ one that the individual regrets not actualizing in the past and very much wants to actualize more fully in the future. Limiting autonomy to preauthorized action would deny that such spontaneous departures from critically examined and certified pattern.s of behavior could be autonomous. Serendipity and surprise would be expelled from autonomous life. Only after such anornalous behavior had been scrutinized and judged to be expressive of authentic traits, affects, values, and desires could similar future behavior COUl1.t as autonomous. Since this exiguous view is vulnerable to the familiar objections that autonomy valorizes bo·urgeois planning and stability and masculinist rationalism,25 an account of retrospective autonomy-that is, critically reflecting on past conduct and validating it after the fact-is indispensable. John Christman proposes a promising theory of retrospective validatiOl1.. For Christman, an agent is autonomous with respect to a desire "if the influences and conditions that gave rise to the desire were factors that the agent ... would not have resisted had she attended to them," al1.d the agent making the judgment about these influences and condition.s is minimally rational and not self-deceived. 26 In other words, authentic past desires are desires that were formed by processes one now freely accepts.

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I am not at all sure that Christman's theory of retrospective autonomy would certify my mountain descent and my gustatory inhibition as autonomous. Of course, I'm glad I somehow got to be the sort of person who could n1ake her way down the snowfield, and I am not sorry that I somehow became the sort of person who is sensitive to others' opinions of me. I have to confess, though, that I don't have a very clear idea of what caused me to turn out this way. Moreover, when I speculate about the influences and conditions that may have given rise to my capacities an.d character, I find much to criticize, for I grew up in a fairly typical 1950s Euro-An1erican, middle-class, patriarchal nuclear family. With.in the household precincts, my father's authority was unquestioned and unshared. He modeled decisiveness and competence, and he strictly suppressed displays of weakness in his children. He set high standards, and he bestowed approval sparingly. No doubt, these aspects of my upbringing greatly influenced the way I've turned out, and they seem especially relevant to the examples of embodied autonomy and relational autonomy I've proposed. Since I would not choose to raise children in a similarly inegalitarian and censorious environment, hovvever, it seems to follow that neither of my cases qualifies for autonomy. Now, Christman n1ight ask whether overall I disapprove of the way I was raised, and I would readily acknowledge that I do not. In innumerable respects, I was extremely fortunate to have had the parents I had and the upbringing they gave me. But does that mean that everything I do now is autonomous since my upbringing was not unequivocally bad? Or does it mean that nothing I do now is autonomous since it is impossible to distinguish those of my present actions that are caused primarily by deplorable influences or conditions that I now wish I had resisted from those of my actions that are not so tainted. Evidently, our understanding of desire and capability formation is far too crude to draw the distinctions Christn1an's account of retrospective autonomy requires. But what if our social-psychological knowledge was less fragmentary and conjectural? I would remain skeptical that a subtle and reliable theory of desire and capability formation would settle whether the episodes I have sketched were instances of autonomy. If this high-powered theory revealed that the worst features of my childhood experience were the principal factors responsible for my mountain descent and my avoidance of unhealthy foods, I would wonder whether I should have resisted those noxious influences and opprobrious conditions. After all, had I resisted, I might be maimed today, or my health might be rapidly deteriorating. Perhaps I would be better advised to reject Christman's account of retrospective autonomy, which could omit some actions that further my core values and that further these values in ways that I have no reason to repudiate.

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What I would like to suggest here (and what I shall argue in the next section) is that a model of autonomy that centralizes competency and authority in the rational oversight functions of the self-as-unitary underestimates the role of self-discovery and overestimates the role of self-definition in autonomy.27 Theories of this sort assign self-discovery as an exclusively instrunl.ental role. Self-examination is a necessary preliminary to critically evaluating one's past social background or one's present attributes. Also, one must recognize one's temptations and weaknesses if one is to take steps to counteract them and keep them from thwarting enactment of authentic traits, affects, values, and desires. But why should self-discovery be relegated to these ancillary roles in autonomy? I suspect that the impulse to subsume self-discovery under self-definition is synl.ptomatic of a misguided conflation of socialization with indoctrination and the correlative conflation of self-determination with self-creation. If I cannot actually cleanse myself of social input and create myself from scratch, at least I can approximate this ideal by rationally defining myselfthat is, by exposing and evaluating my attributes and by figuring out ll.oW to accent my strengths and improve what I find lacking. Now, I do not deny that there is a place for such "self-management" in the autonomous life. That is why I have included the self-as-unitary among the dimensions of the autonomous subject. In my view, however, it would be a mistake to assume that self-definition must always take precedence over self-discovery in autonomous living and that self-definition must always take this cerebral form. Perhaps it is not always necessary to authell.ticate traits, affects, values, and desires in rational self-definitional reflection. Perhaps people have authentic traits, affects, values, and desires that they discover ill. acting. Perhaps people autonomously define themselves in part by enacting these discovered traits, affects, values, and desires. It seems to me that a key virtue of personal style theories of autonomy is that they do not overemphasize self-definition through critical reflection. For example, Richard DOl.lble's "individual management style" theory requires only that conduct be in keeping with a person's characteristic way of living to count as autonomous. Different people have different "individual management styles"-some like to chart their course in adVall.Ce and work steadily toward their goals; others like to play the odds and see where life takes them; some like to rely on personal precepts and ideals to figure out what to do; others like to turn to religion or some other authority for guidance; and so forth. 28 In Double's view, to make choices in one's characteristic way, whatever that is, is to be autonomous. 29 Double's latitudinarian account neutralizes the charge that autonomy is the province of dull plodders and hyperrationalists by minimizing the role of reflective self-definition in autonomy. Moreover, it honors individ-

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ual uniqueness. But can this go-with-the-flow theory pick out actions stemming from authentic traits, affects, values, and desires? Consider the experiences I described in earlier. In one sense, both of them were, for me, altogether extraordinary. I had never before been obliged to deprive myself of any culinary pleasures to speak of. I had never been alone and seriously injured in a hazardous environment before. Thus, it is difficult to say what my "individual management style" is in such predicaments. Since Double acknowledges that one might have different characteristic ways of making different sorts of decisions-one might scrupulously calculate investment decisions, but see whatever movie happens to be playing at a convenient theater and time-the indeterminacy of one's characteristic decision-making style in unprecedented situations is not a trivial objection to his theory.30 Just when it seems autonomy matters most of all-that is, in an emergency or other exceptional situation in which what you do really counts-Double's theory falls silent. But maybe I am being unfair. Perhaps there was more continuity between my everyday individual management style and my responses to these unprecedented situations than I have admitted. I do tend to trust my body. I generally assume that I have enough strength, agility, and coordination to carry me through, although you will be forgiven if you are thinking that in light of my multiple hiking injuries this must be a case of delusional overconfidence. So it seems that there was no manifest conflict between my reliance on my physical competence on Mt. Rainier and my usual decision-making practices. My dispersal of appetite control, however, is rather aberrant for me. I'm generally pretty good at self-discipline and pretty self-reliant about staying on course and living up to commitments. Indeed, it bothers me a bit that I could not muster the willpower to resist tempting foods entirely on my own. Thus, it seems that, if Double's theory has anything to say about my experiences, it would pronounce my mountain descent autonomous and my refusing forbidden foods heteronomous. I am not convinced that this conclusion would be right, however. I suspect that insofar as it seems right, it is because the locus of control in the Mt. Rainier case is within my individual unit-my body is ontologically part of me-whereas in the dietary restriction case the locus of control extends beyond my individual unit-other people are not ontologically part of me. If it is possible, however, that, in the sense of identity that is germane to the issue of autonomy, I am just as much a relational self as I am an embodied self, this metaphysical truism is irrelevant. On Double's view, then, whether my relationally assisted compliance with my diet is autonomous must turn on whether relying on others' opinion of me to motivate myself is altogether alien to my quotidian individual

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management style, and of course it is not. Like most people, I care what others think, and that influences what I do. But notice that Double's theory now seems to be conferring autonomy a little too promiscuously. Since people's individual management styles are typically quite dense and flexible, it is hard to imagine a realistic case which Double's theory would decisively pronounce heteronomous. Only a person who is living an out-and-out caricature of a particular individual management style could act in ways that would be disqualified as autonomous. For normal people, the distinction between the authentic and the inauthentic collapses. The trope of the self-made man limns conceptions of self-definition, and its contrary, the trope of finding yourself, limns conceptions of selfdiscovery. What I have sought to show in my discussion of Christman's and Double's views is that tipping the balance toward either of these images yields an untenable account of autonomy. Of course, no serious student of autonon1y takes either of these tropes literally, and common sense tells us that self-discovery and self-definition are intertwined. Still, the problems I have pointed to in Christman's and Double's views su.ggest how very difficult it is to keep self-discovery and self-definition in balance. Overemphasizing critical self-analysis and self-definition disqualifies conduct that enacts traits, affects, values, and desires that could only be disavowed at one's peril. Overemphasizing self-discovery and uncritical self-acceptance leaves us without resources to identify conditions of self-alienation and acts of self-betrayal.

BALANCING SELF-DISCOVERY AND SELF-DEFINITION

What makes us think that we ever enact authentic traits, affects, values, and desires? How does one ever know what one really cares about? Which commitments are one's own? Whether one's life accords with one's true self? People who are innocent of postmodernism and many clinical psychologists associate autonomy with feelings of wholeness-in colloquial terms, feeling in touch with oneself, feeling at one with oneself, and feeling right iI1 one's skin. 31 From a phenomenological perspective, then, what is distinctive abo'ut enacting authentic traits, affects, values, and desires; is that doing so, whether in a particular situation or throughout one's life, gives people the sense of wholeness that is characteristic of autonomy. Of course, individuals are supplied witl1 an almost constant stream of visceral and affective feedback referencing their conduct. For autonon10US people, the predominant tenor of this feedback runs the gamut from steady equanimity andlow-key satisfaction to occasional incandescence and zingy exhilaration. In the aggregate, these positive feel-

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ings anchor a confident sense of who one is, of one's worthiness, and of one's ability to translate one's traits, affects, values, and desires into acceptable conduct-in sh.ort, a sense of wholeness. 32 In contrast, for people who find some of their traits less than admirable, who are not sure what matters to them, who are uneasy about their relationships, or who feel overpowered by desires, much of this feedback is far from reassuring. Emotional disqlliet-anxiety, confusion, anger, humiliation, frustration, discouragement, exasperation, embarrassment, .guilt, shame, etc.-impugns autonomy. And so does bodily distressrestlessness, tensed muscles, headache, fatigue, tearfulness, palpitations, and the like. Nor should we overlook the fact that complacency signals inveterate inattentiveness, if not obtuseness that bespeaks questionable alltonomy, too. Dissonant cues such as these together with affirming cues on the satisfaction-exhilaration spectrum comprise the expressive vocabulary of the self-as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied. This visceral and affective vocabulary is a trenchant vehicle for communicating avowal and disavowal and for advocating either persisting in or altering one's course. Autonomous people are attuned to and responsive to these messages. Reports of self-alienation or poor fit between self and action prompt self-monitoring, possibly leading to change. Sometimes negative affective or visceral cues initiate an arduous process of analysis and self-questioning which may ultimately persuade the individual to craft a program of self-redefinition. Philosophers typically focus on this enterprising sort of self-transformation. As often as not, however, the import of these cues is assimilated and integrated into the individual's agentic infrastructure without conscious mediation, and the individual's subsequent conduct reflects this adjustment. In addition, it is necessary to bear in mind that positive cues are as important as negative ones. They let us know what we are doing right. Now, someone might object that turning autonomy over to the social self, the relational self, the divided self, and the embodied self blunts autonomy's critical edge. Many conforn1ists feel ashamed when they abrogate pointless customary practices. Aren't their social selves defending the status quo? Many U.S. mothers feel anxious and guilty when they work outside the home. Aren't their relational selves telling them to confine themselves to domesticity? Many sexists feel confused or angry when womel1 bring charges of sexual harassment. Aren't their divided selves arguing for won1en's subordination? Many bigots' bodies knot up when they find themselves among African Americans. Aren't their embodied selves opposing racial integration? In short, doesn't autonomy mandate rationally probing these affective and visceral responses? I would hasten to point out that mobilizing critical reason by no means guarantees th.at these people will change their minds and adopt

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less reactionary views. Critical reason does not confer sensitivity to affective and visceral cues, nor does it ensure insight into their import. Still, it is undeniable that rationally examining these affective and visceral responses would at least provide an opportunity to grasp the harmfulness of the views with which they are linked. So, let me reiterate that I have not excluded the reasoning skills of the self-as-unitary from my conceptioIl of the autonomous s·ubject, and I have no doubt that rational reflection can be salutary. Still, I would deny that rational reflection is always essential to autonomy. The objection lInder consideration and the suggestion th.at autonomy cannot be salvaged without critical reason are premised on a mistaken. view of the relation between social doctrines and subjective responses, as well as an oversimplified view of subjectivity.33 There is no one-to-one correspondence between social norms and practices, on the one hand, and affective or visceral responses, on the other. An anxious, guilty working ll10ther need not read her feelings as an argument for 1950s style homemaking. She could just as well read her feelings as an argument for on-site daycare. Moreover, subjectivity is far from homogeneous. No one's affective and visceral responses are altogether harmonious. Even the diehard bigot has probably had pleasant encounters with African Americans now and again. Thus, autonomous individuals cannot escape the need to l1.egotiate the conflicts amOl1.g their affective and visceral responses and to separate aLlthentic traits, affects, values, and desires from inauthentic ones. Still, it ll1USt be admitted that many people have a prodigious capacity to suppress disconcerting feeliI1.gs, to rationalize misjudgll1ents, and to excuse blunders. That is why a sense of wholeness is not sufficient for autonomy. That is why agentic skillfulness is necessary, as well. There is no reason, however, to limit our conception of this skillfulness to critical reason, for to do so would be to ignore the complexity and scope of the skills of the self-as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied. Exercising the latter skills is an ongoing process of self-reading and self-configuring. The skilled self-as-social registers convergences and clashes with cultural norms, accounts for convictions and conduct when appropriate, and revises these aCCOllnts as necessary. The skilled self-asrelational elicits, internalizes, and deploys candid reactions and sympathetic counsel from associates. The skilled self-as-divided retrieves, symbolizes, and interprets subjective material. The skilled self-as-embodied senses inclinations as well as needs, micromanages itself to ll1eet performance standards, and maneuvers to achieve goals. My suggestion is that autonomous people have a diverse, welldeveloped, well-coordinated repertory of agentic skills that they exercise routinely and adeptly. Moreover, I am suggesting that, in. being re-

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peatedly enacted under the auspices of these agentic skills, a trait, affect, value, or desire is reviewed and re-reviewed, and its authenticity is validated. If I am right, it follows that the presumption that people/s cultural, relational, intrapsychic, and bodily endowment is alien and must be overcome or rationally mastered to attain autonomy is mistaken. Provided that people have developed reasonable facility in exercising agentic skills, their everyday choice making and action authenticate or disown elements of this- endowment. It is characteristic of skills that, the greater one's proficiency, the more rapidly and successfully one contends with variable conditions, recovers from lapses, and corrects one's mistakes. Like the agentic skills of the selfas-unitary, the agentic skills of the self-as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied keep familiar traits, affects, values, and desires in full view, disclose unrecognized attributes, notice problematic self-enactments, and devise and carry out corrective measures. Self-discovery is not exclusively an analytical introspective and interpretive project. We discover much about who we are in doin.g what we do. Self-definition is not exclusively a project of critical reflection and reconfiguration. We define ourselves as we act, and we cannot redefine ourselves without altering our patterns of action. Self-discovery and self-definition can, but need not be, intentional undertakings. Thanks to the agentic skills of the self-as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied, one may find out who one is, and one may reaffirm, renew, revamp, recondition, or repair oneself as one acts and interacts. Neither living skillfully nor feeling whole sLlffices for autonomy. The reqllirement of agentic skillfulness counters the objection that one may feel good about one's life and remain utterly oblivious to the damage one causes and deluded aboLlt the esteem one's efforts and attainments deserve. In virtue of agentic proficiency, one/s self is being constituted and reconstituted in an ongoing and intelligent way. Thus, there is no reason to distrust positive affective and visceral feedback and no reason to suspect that one/s sense of wholeness attests to rampant self-deception. The requirement of feeling whole counters the objection that one can act skillfully and live a lie. People who are estranged from themselves-whether by choice, negligence, or ineptitude or because they are forced to capitulate to an inimical social context-lack this sense of wholeness. Their lives fail to mesh with their authentic self, and they feel the loss. Turning this point around, since exercising agentic skills well typically confers a lively awareness of oneself and others together with a robust sense of engagement with others while fully inhabiting oneself, it is no wonder that someone who uses these skills adeptly would develop a sense of wholeness. Elsewhere, I have urged that autonomous people exercise a repertory of skills to engage in self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction, and

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that the authentic self is the evolving collocation of attributes that emerges in this ongoing process of reflection, deliberation, and action. 34 Here, I have argued that the agentic skills of the self-as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied, along with those of the self-as-unitary, belong among the reflective, deliberative, and volitional skills that comprise autonomy competency, for these agentic skills give rise to choices and actions that tap authentic attributes. In exercising these skills, one constitutes an.d enacts one's authentic self. 35 I readily concede, though, that none of the skills that I have identified infallibly taps into authentic traits, affects, values, and desires and that no one can completely avoid waywardness alLd self-betrayal. But privileging the reasoning skills of the self-as-unitary would not solve this problem and would leave us with an account of autonomy that is inapplicable to a vast array of circumstances in which autonomy is badly needed. Proficiency with respect to agentic skills is a matter of degree. Most people have a pretty good idea how proficient they are in various respects, and they can work on improving weak skills if they want to. Thus, one's autonomy is a function both of one's overall level of facility with respect to a-utonomy competency and of how successfully one uses these skills on any given occasion-success being gauged by affective and visceral commentary. All sorts of things can interfere with exercising autonomy competency or block it altogether. Some of these obstacles are peculiar to a particular occasion or a particular person, but some of them are embedded in cultures and social structures. In the latter case, the value of autonomy together with the widespread desire to lead all. autonomous life provides a prima facie reason to change those norms, practices, and institutions that impede individual autonomy. It is at this juncture that autonomy theory provides a platform for social critique. Although it is indisputable that we must be satisfied with partially autonomous lives, we should not reconcile ourselves to pervasively, intractably nonautonomous lives.

DECENTRALIZING AUTONOMOUS SUBJECTIVITY AND AGENCY To avoid misunderstanding, it is necessary to call attention to a certain artificiality in my discussion. Because I have sought to link autononly skills to the self-as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied, my exposition might leave the false impression that these "selves" are compartmentalized agents of autonomy. But, on the contrary, an autononlOUS person has a smoothly functioning repertory of complementary autonomy skills and adroitly calls on one or more of these skills as needed. The uni-

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tary self, the social self, the relational self, the divided self, and the embodied self are not ontologically distinct selves with no direct access to each other. 36 They merely and, I fear, cumbersomely signal different sources of identity, different threats to autonomy, and different autonomy skill specialties. Still, we should not be tempted to seek a reductionist acco'unt of the autonomous subject or to pare down our view of autonomous agency just because we have no theory that synthesizes the five conceptions of the self that I have invoked. In fact, individuals have at their disposal a means to accommodate the self-as-unitary, as-social, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied in a single self-conception, namely, the atltobiographical narrative. Unfolding life-stories weave together all of these disparate motifs with amazing ease. 37 In fact, I am inclined to think that one reason narrative accounts of selfhood have attracted so many exponents is that they finesse the incongruity of positing a five-dimensional self-as-unitary, associal, as-relational, as-divided, and as-embodied. 38 However, I also believe that to find such narrative accounts attractive is in1.plicitly to acknowledge the urgency of retaining all of these conceptions of the self in some form. 39 Thus, I see theories of the narrative self both as furnishing a convenient way for five-dimensional subjects to articulate their autonomy and as confirmatiol1. that autonomy theory must reckon with fivedimensionality. 40

NOTES 1. Autonomy theorists do not agree, however, about what a theory of autonomy should accomplish. David Velleman's account, for example, seeks to distinguish action from mere behavior and ... fron1 mere activity" (The Possibility of Practical Reason [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000], 6). 2. This distinction is indispensable to feminist theory as well as to theories concerned with other types of systematic social domination and subordination. In this work, it is not enough for an account of autonomy to analyze the bases for ascribing actions to individuals or for holding individuals responsible for their actions. To account for both subordination and resistance to it, these theories also need to be able to distinguish colonized consciousness and collaboration in one's own subordination from emancipated consciousness and autonomous choice and action. 3. Unity enters into accounts of autonomy in two different ways. In the Kantian approach that John Rawls endorses, autonomy is traced to reasoning, the hallmark of which is consistency, i.e., unity. In the Humean approach that Harry Frankfurt endorses, autonomy depends on an integrated, i.e., unified, personality that need not be achieved through reason. In this chapter, I use the term self-asunitary to refer to the Kantian conception. 4. For discussion of this august legal tradition and the disturbing exception to lit that the courts have recently carved out for1?~e~~~!~~~~_aE-~!?~ P!"o~e~!!~n II

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of the fetuses they are carrying, see Susan Bordo, "Are Mothers Persons? Reproductive Rights and the Politics of Subjectivity," in Unbearable Weight (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). 5. I want to emphasize, however, that illness, frailty, and disability by no means preclude autonomy. 6. I defend this claim in "Narrative and Moral Life," in Setting the Moral Compass, ed. Cheshire Calhoun (l'-Jew York: Oxford University Press, 2003). 7. Here are a couple of hints for thinking about how the self-as-social and the self-as-divided might contribute to autonomy. As many social psychologists have pointed out, enculturation commonly combines with social situations to assume control over people's conduct. Ingrained conventions of politeness, for example, keep an assortment of sensitive topics out of many people's conversation at dinner parties. Often enough, the agent does not really want to do anything different from what is customary. Also, many of you have probably noticed, too, that the self-as-divided sometimes exhibits wonderful powers of divination. I have often awakened from a deep sleep knowing exactly how to deal with a vexing interpersonal or intellectual problem. Thankfully my unconscious mind has solved the problen1 for me, and I go ahead and do its bidding. 8. For related discussion of interpersonal support in relation to agency, see Susan J. Brison, "Outliving Oneself: Trauma, Memory, and Personal Autonomy," in Feminists Rethink the Self, ed. Diana Tie~ens Meyers (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1996). 9. As autobiographical narratives are wont to do, this story has spawned subplots since I originally drafted this chapter. However, I shall not go into these complications, for they do not bear on the philosophical point implicit in my earlier narrative. 10. These observations about agency and the body are indebted to a conversation with Elise Springer in which she remarked that she thinks of some practices of evaluation as being "in the body." Her comment made a strong impression on me and prompted me to think about the body as a locus of control. 11. George Sher argues that such actions are autonomous provided that the agent is responsive to reasons, such as safety is more important than property ("Liberal Neutrality and the Value of Autonomy," Social Philosophy and Policy 12 [1995]: 136-59). Whatever the merits of his arguments, however, it would be question-begging in the context of the issues I am raising to agree that coercion and autonomy are compatible. 12. This point also distinguishes my mountain descent as it actually happened from the following scenario. Suppose that n1Y accidents cause me to become paralyzed with fear. Luckily a Saint Bernard (recruited and trained to patrol Mt. Ranier National Park in order to "downsize" the ranger force and save money) finds me. Toting a brandy cask and pulling a sled, the Saint Bernard anesthetizes me with drink, nudges me onto the sled, and takes me to the ranger station. Awakening later, I would undoubtedly thank the Saint Bernard for hauling me to safety and medical treatn1ent. But for the same reasons that my Robinhood induced donations are not autonomous and for additional reasons that I develop later in this chapter, my descent would not be autonomous. 13. But for a contrary view, see Paul Benson's chapter in which he argues that "trivial" behavior can be autonomous. For Benson, one is autonomous when one "takes ownership" of one's actions. In contrast, my account accents self-governance.

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14. For critique of the idea that autonomy requires eccentricity or rebellion and defense of autonomous conventionality, see Diana Tie~ens Meyers, Self, Society, and Personal Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 75. 15. I think this line of thought adds weight to Paul Benson's suggestion that "normative competence" is necessary for autonomy ("Free Agency and Selfworth," Journal of Philosophy [1994]: 650-58 at 660-63). 16. It goes without saying that cultures also have built-in mechanisms of selfperpetuation. I discuss the tension between cultural stability and cultural transformation as well as the tension between cultural stability and individual autonomy in "Feminism and Women's Autonomy: The Challenge of Female Genital Cutting," Metaphilosophy 31 (2000): 469-91. 17. See Naomi Scheman, "Anger and the Politics of Naming," in Engenderings (New York: Routledge, 1993). 18. Notice that whereas the City Harvest Robinhood neither knows nor cares about his victims' needs and values, philanthropically gung-ho individuals willishould temper their expressions of enthusiasm for charitable giving when interacting with friends who need their money for other purposes. If they persist in extolling the virtues of giving, and if their thoughtless zeal is making their less affluent friends feel like guilty outsiders, the latter are in a position to ask them to turn down the volull1e. Moreover, they are in a position to turn their friends' seeming insensitivity into an opportunity to explore whether they have struck the right balance between personal need and helping needy others. Unlike the City Harvest Robinhood whose solicitation methods thwart interpersonal skills and preclude interpersonal exchange, friendship, even when it goes awry, can foster the autonomy of the self-as-relational. 19. There is more similarity between unconscious thought processes and reasoning than philosophers usually acknowledge. If rationality, much less practical rationality, is not reducible to formal logical deduction, the outcome of reasoning processes is not predictable either. Likewise, reasoning mayor may not turn out to have been availing. 20. Nancy Chodorow provides a helpful discussion of some of these theories, "Toward a Relational Individualism: The Mediation of Self through Psychoanalysis," in Feminism and Psychoanalytic Theory (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1989). 21. This phenomenon is familiar in medical settings. But it is worth noting that Jon Krakauer's account of summiting Mt. Everest features the prolonged and relentless physical disruption and discomfort the climbers endured and links it to the moral dislocation and curtailment of personal agency that contributed to the fatalities on the mountain during his expedition in Into Thin Air (New York: Villard, 1997). It would be interesting to learn whether studies of famines and similar calamities bear out this line of thought. 22. Susan Babbitt discusses how non propositional knowledge of oppression can be lodged in and expressed by the body ("Feminism and Objective Interests: The Role of Transformation Experiences in Rational Deliberation," in Feminist Epistemologies eds. Linda Alcoff and Elizabeth Potter [New York: Routledge, 1993], 257-59). 23. Susan Brison discusses the role of self-defense skills in restoring the autonomy of sexual assault victims (op. cit., 31).

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24. Another case I find illuminating is one medical ethicists and physicians address. Hospitals strongly encourage patients to make out living wills, and many patients declare that they do not want extraordinary measures taken to prolong their life if there is no realistic hope of recovery. However, when the need for some extraordinary measure arises and the patient is able to consent to it or not, it is standard practice to ask again whether the patient wants to be treated. Many patients reverse themselves at this moment of crisis, and n1.edical practitioners defer to their decisions in order to respect their autonomy. It seems to me highly dubious that these patients have rationally reviewed their values and priorities and figured out what was wrong with their earlier decisions. On the contrary, it seems to me that for many people the authentic supremacy of the value of continued life is embedded in their bodies, their self-as-embodied revolts against the dry rationalism of their earlier judgment, and their request for treatment is the autonomous self-as-en1.bodied speaking. 25. See Kathryn Addelson, Moral Passages: Toward a Collectivist Moral Theory (New York: Routledge, 1994), ch. 5; Margaret Walker, "Getting out of Line: Alternatives to Life as a Career," in Mother Time, ed. Margaret Walker (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999),97-106. 26. John Christman, "Autonomy and Personal History." Canadian Journal ofPhilosophy 21 (1991): 1-24 at 22. I am pleased to see that in his chapter for this volume and elsewhere, Christman revises his position. He now holds that "what matters is the person's relation to the attitude or characteristic given its etiology rather than her attitude toward that etiology (sin1.pliciter)." Thus, a person might not feel alienated from a character trait despite feeling alienated from the process through which the trait was formed, and enactments of the trait would be autonomous. I do not have space to discuss Christn1.an's current view in the detail it deserves. But I would like to point out that the concerns I set forth about our inability to isolate the etiologies of our traits seen1. to apply both to Christman's earlier view and to the view he develops here. 27. Christman now stresses 1) that alienation and nonalienation are affective states and therefore that his account of autonomy does not rely solely on the rationality of the self-as-unitary, and 2) that the rational reflection required for autonomy is undertaken on a need-to-know basis and therefore that his account of autonomy does not stipulate that the autonomous self must be unified (see his chapter in this volume). 28. Richard Double, "Two Types of Autonomy Accounts," Canadian Journal of Philosophy 22 (1992): 65-80 at 68-69. 29. Ibid., 69. 30. Ibid., 69. 31. For example, see Chodorow, op. cit., 159. 32. Some accounts of autonomy call attention to affective states, such as feeling powerful (Jennifer Nedelsky, "Reconceiving Autonomy: Sources, Thoughts, and Possibilities," Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 1 [1989]: 7-36 at 23-26), self-worth (Paul Benson, "Feeling Crazy: Self-worth and the Social Character of Responsibility," in Relational Autonomy, eds. Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar [New York: Oxford University Press, 2000], 72-80), and self-trust (Trudy Govier, "SelfTrust, Autonomy, and Self-esteem," Hypatia 8 [1993]: 99-120 at 104-9). They claim

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that these states of mind empower people to choose and act autonomously. But since feeling powerful can be overblown and since self-worth and self-trust can be unwarranted, I am convinced that feeling this way is not a good index of autonomy unless these reflexive attitudes stem from exercising autonomy skills well. Without this backing, such attitudes may be a better index of social advantage or of effective defenses against severe disadvantage. Thus, I would examine the . sources of these feelings before I attributed autonomy to an individual. 33. I suspect that this objection is also fueled by a failure to honor individuality. If autonomous individuals enact unique authentic selves, we should not expect uniformity in autonomous lives. To be sure, some autonomous individuals join with like-minded associates and rebel against social ills. Many others subvert the system and enact dissident values in less public and dramatic ways. But some autonomous individuals find ways to express their sense of self within existing social constraints. A theory of autonomy cannot dictate the traits, affects, values, and desires of the authentic self, nor can it anticipate the trajectory of individual autonomous lives. 34. Meyers, op. cit., 53 and 76; also see my "Intersectional Identity and the Authentic Self? Opposites Attract!" in Relational Autonomy, eds. Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 172-73; and my Gender in the Mirror: Cultural Imagery and Women's Agency (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), ch. 1. 35. It may seem that this view locks us into a vicious circle. If the authentic self has no existence apart from a person's exercising autonomy skills, how can we tell which skills are autonomy skills? How can we tell which skills enable one to discover and shape one's authentic self and to enact authentic values and desires? It seems to me that the requirement of feeling whole provides the leverage we need to resist this objection. Agentic skills that promote this positive sense of self count as autonomy skills. 36. For a complementary treatment of identity through time, see Susan James, "Feminism in Philosophy of Mind: The Question of Personal Identity," in The Cambridge Companion to Feminism in Philosophy, eds. Miranda Fricker and Jennifer Hornsby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000). 37. For discussion of autobiographical narrative and the autonomous subject, see J. David Velleman's chapter in this volume. 38. For example, Richard Rorty, "Freud and Moral Reflection," in Pragmatism's Freud, eds. Joseph Smith and William Kerrigan (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 18; Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press), 93-135; Margaret Walker, Moral Understandings, (New York: Routledge, 1998), 106-29; Seyla Benhabib, "Sexual Difference and Collective Identities: The New Global Constellation." Signs 24 (1999): 335-61 at 341-50; Hilde Nelson, Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press), 15. 39. My worry about narrative accounts of the self is that they tend to obscure autonomy competency-that is, the extensive repertory skills needed to achieve and renew autonomy-or, in other words, the repertory of skills one must exercise in order to be in a position to tell the story of an autonomous protagonist. Autonomy competency is not reducible to storytelling facility. One can

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be a beguiling raconteur without being autonomous. I develop this line of thought in "Narrative and the Moral Life," op. cit. 40. I am grateful to Susan Brison, John Christman, Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Margaret Urban Walker, and an anonymous reviewer for Cambridge University Press for their helpful suggestions about earlier drafts of this chapter. I presented this chapter at the Conference on Reasonably Autonomous Persons: Rationality, Neutrality, and the Self, which was sponsored by Washington University and the University of Missouri, St. Louis, as the Irving Thalberg Memorial Lecture at UIC, and at a colloquium of the Dalhousie University Philosophy Department, and I am indebted to these audiences for their comments.

4

+ The Personal, the Political, and Psycho-Corporeal Agency

[B]ecause women's oppression is not just in the head, feminist conscious-

ness is not just in the head either. Catharine Mackinnon (1982) In a world that offers women challenges along with choices, compromise along with control, our bodies n1ay seem the only realm where we can claim sovereignty. So we focus our power there. We start with what we can control-sorta. Our bodies. Our hair. Our weight. Our breasts. Our clothes. When this control inevitably eludes us, our feelings of powerlessness solidify. Ophira Edut (2000) In a society that is corrupt, people will learn all the wrong things, argued Aristotle; they will achieve neither virtue nor happiness. Here is the feminist expression of this insight: no personal solutions! Sandra Lee Bartky (1998)

have coined the expressions psycho-corporeal identity and psycho-corporeal for three reasons. First, I want to call attention to a problem in Western culture that feminists diagnosed long ago-namely, that mind/body dualism is gender coded and encodes gender hierarchy. Mind is coded masculine; body is coded feminine; and the mind is superior to and ought to control the body. Indeed, because this somatophobic,

I agency

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misogynistic dualism is so well entrenched in Western culture, we have no colloquial vocabulary that conveys what I want to say about the self, which is why I have resorted to a clunky neologism. Second, I want to provide myself with a vocabulary that forthrightly repudiates this objectionable conception of selfhood and that gives voice to what I regard as one of the most promising trends in recent feminist philosophizing. This work highlights embodiment by ascribing presumptively mental properties and/ or capacities to the body. I detect th-is trend in a wide range of recent feminist scholarship which I briefly document. Third, in my view this renewed attention to the body exposes some weaknesses in the most prominent feminist approaches to agency with respect to the body-poststructuralism and rational choice theory. In the second section, I identify those weaknesses, and in the next section., I propose several emancipatory strategies that give psycho-corporeality its due. Throughout my discussion/ I focus on the problematics of (mostly Western) women/s psychocorporeal identity. This is only half of the gen.der story, and there is much to be said as well about age marked, disability marked, and racialized psycho-corporeal identities. Space constraints rule out a full exploration of these dimensions of the topic.

PSYCHO-CORPOREAL IDENTITY

A number of feminists seek to rectify the neglect and confusion that typify philosophical commerce with the body. Influenced by Lacan/s theory of the n1irror stage and Kristeva's account of abjection, Moira Gatens, Drucilla Cornell, and Elizabeth Grosz adopt the Freudian concept of the body ego and stress the centrality of one's body image to one's identity (Gatens 1996/ 32-33; Cornell 1998/ 34-35; Grosz, 1994/ 37). The idea is that establishing bodily boundaries and control over bodily movement is an achievement and that this achievement is a precondition for individuation. According to this theory, infants are initially awasl1 in sensation and devoid of motor control. Eventually, the sight of a separate caregiver or the sight of the infant's own image in a mirror ignites the aspiration to distinct selfhood-tl'lat is, the aspiration to unified identity and intentional agency. Deprivation and disappointment, such as periods of hunger or longing for the absent caregiver, together with episodes of bodily expulsion/ such as defecation and vomiting, provide the visceral experience that consolidates the infant's sense of boundedness and separateness. Instead of locating individual identity primarily in the isolation of rational minds or in the continuity of streams of n1ental representations, these theorists assert the priority of physical self-awareness in their accounts of selfhood. 1 On this psycho-corporeal view, proprioception-that is, the

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unconscious perception of movement and spatial orientation that arises from within the body-is crucial to sustaining the individual's body image, which, in turn, is indispensable to identity and agency. Another line of thought contributing to the corporealist trend in feminism Llrges that knowledge and memory can be embodied. Susan Babbitt accents the role of non propositio11al knowledge in identity and agency, and she shows that much of this knowledge is lodged in the body. For example, she cites the protocols that members of subordinate social groups commonly adopt in order to appease members of dominant groups. These looking-respectful and staying-out-of-the-way routines point up the social stratification. that makes these practices adaptive (Babbitt 1997, 379). Likewise, Sandra Bartky's dissection of "proper" feminine demeanor and comportment reveals how this regimen renders women pleasing to men, and her description of flushing and tensing under a barrage of catcalls and whistles exposes the objectification of women under the male gaze (Bartky 1990, 27, 67-69). According to Babbitt (and Bartky might well concur), these ingrained coping mechanisn1s and these corporeal emblems of subordination encode a mute, but essential knowledge-namely, knowledge that all is not right with the status quo (Babbitt 1997, 379). More transparently, unnecessary physical suffering-including backbreaking or blinding labor, incessant hunger, bound feet, and infibulationfurnishes a somaticized critique of the social system that enforces or tolerates it. Susan Brison's work on trauma exhibits a way in which memory can be embodied. Her discussion of post-traun1atic stress disorder (PTSD) en1phasizes the physical nature of flashbacks to the traumatic event (or to a past traumatic period). These devastatingly vivid recollections typically revive the terror and/ or rage of undergoing the trauma, and they fuse intense, agitating physiological changes-such as uncontrollable crying or a racing 11eart-with tormenting resuscitatiol1 of the sensory features of the traLlma-tactile sensations, odors, sOLmds, tastes, and visual images (Brison 1997, 17). Traumatic memory is nothing like a replayable mental video tape. It recurs unbidden, and it embroils the entire body in reliving the horror. Still, embodied memories may be welcome, for they can sensuously recover good experiences as well as bad ones. Indeed, I suspect that people reach for"comfort food" in times of stress and uncertainty because the flavors, textLlres, and feelings of satiety associated with those foods trigger pleasurable errlbodied memories of carefree safety and ease. Finally, femin.ists have made important contributions to our understanding of wh.at it is for a person to have value commitments, for they have made it clear that political disvalues can be embodied without being mentally endorsed. Iris Young's discussion of aversive racism describes how white people wl10 are consciously committed to the value of racial

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equality may neverthless enact bigotry when they encounter people of color by becoming jittery or by keeping their distance (Young 1990, 141-42). Their reflexes palpably signify racial hierarchy and segregation. In a similar vein, Sandra Bartky analyzes how feminine body management encodes inferiority in women's flesh (Bartky 1990, 71-74). Not only are conventional feminine self-beautification goals liInited to in1.itating banal, elitist media images, but also their prescribed posture, gestures, and facial responses express self-diminishment and deference. By satisfying feminine body norms, women homogenize their own looks, constrict their own agency, and deprive themselves of the individuality and freedom that full persons should enjoy. Thus, countless women WI10 consciously believe in their own equality embody their own inequality. Aversive racists and effemininate women 2 viscerally avow bigoted or misogynistic beliefs while professing egalitarian principles. Their split psycho-corporeal identities underwrite a peculiarly dangerous form of ambivalence-so innocent in a way, yet so politically treacherous. Although bodily encoded disvalues are of greatest concern to feminist critics, it is worth noting that bodily encoded values also figure in psychocorporeal identity. For example, I think that in most cases people's comll1.itn1.ent to the value of life is basically somatic and that intellectual apprehension of th.is value is usually parasitic on its visceral encodement. Most people physically recoil at the idea of suicide, and normal human reflexes are all geared to escaping from danger and preserving one's life. I am not saying that people cannot supply themselves with reasons to value living, nor am I saying that people cannot rationally decide to sacrifice their lives. I contend only that most people's commitment to the value of life is encoded in their sinew and synapses long before it is reflectively endorsed and, moreover, that it is quite possible that we owe our commitment to some other values to corporeal encoding. Perhaps the neonatal body's receptivity to caresses and cuddling encodes rudimentary understandings of the values of affection and intill1.acy.3 I am putting forward three claims: 1) The human body is not only a medium of meaning communication but also a medium of meaning storage; 2) the body is the principal medium in which some knowledge, memories, and value commitments are encoded; 3) these embodied meanings are presumptively constitutive of psycho-corporeal identity.4 It follows, in my view, that we cannot understand individual subjectivity and agency, never mind social relations, if we reduce psycho-corporeal identity to a purely mental phenomenon or if we dissolve it into the crosscurrents of discourse. Neither can we understand how oppression can install fallacious knowledge, distorted or transfixing ll1.emories, and toxic values in individual subjectivity. Worst of all, we cannot understand how individuals can successfully resist oppression's power to cramp and en-

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miserate lives and to misdirect or stifle social critique ·unless we grasp the dynamics of psycho-corporeal identity. I turn to the topic of emancipatory agency in the next section.

A PUZZLE OF EMANCIPATORY AGENCY

Regrettably, as Sandra Bartky observes, feminists have no "effective political practice around issues of person.al transformation" (Bartky 1990, 61). After decades of feminist inquiry and debate, the problem of emancipatory psycho-corporeal agency remains vexing. No less baffled than anyone else, I have sought inspiration in autobiographical essays by young American women. Some of these essays courageously and candidly recount struggles with internalized feminine body norms, and they have convinced me that existing theories of emancipatory agency suffer from inattention to its corporeal dimension. Thus, I shall use this instructive work to frame my argument. To my mind, the afflictions and the ordeals these writers lay bare give the lie to the bad-girl, cutey-pie insouciance about resistance that some feminists and postfeminists affect. Here is athlete Gabrielle Reece ventilating her enthusiasm for her "power chick" image: "We can sport strong bodies but be chicks at the san1e time.... This open display of schizophrenia is fun.... [T]rue power comes from knowing we have the choice and playing it whichever way we like" (quoted in Heywood 2000, 206). Plainly Reece glories in flaunting and manipulating gender contradictions. But fellow athlete Leslie Heywood's acerbic rejoinder deflates Reece's triumphal self-image: "Yeah, well, Gabby, I was doing this back in high school. But it wasn't always a 'choice'" because "[e]ven if you were one of the guys, you also had to be a babe" (Heywood 2000,206-7, 203, my emphasis). Anyone who has followed the Serena and Venus Williams saga from the sports pages to the pages of Elle and Vogue knows that Heywood is right. For the U.S. culture industry, it is not enough that they are great tennis players. They must also be fashionistas whose athletic bodies are quasi-fen1inized when packaged in slinky, bejeweled evening gowns and other pretty, high-end garments. Effeminacy is not optional for muscular, masterful.women. 5 PuslLing Heywood's skepticism about the extent of women's choice a step further, African-American journalist Erin Aubry objects that th.e only people who can jOll1 the gender-tweaking movement with impunity enjoy race and class privilege: "'[W]hen, say, Madonna puts on that image, it's understood that it's all image. She can move betweel1 being a ho' and being a film genius. We don't move that easily'" (Gail Elizabeth Wyatt quoted in Aubry 2000, 25). Both because women who overtly refuse inferiorizing feminine

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norms in some respects may find, comforming to them compulsory in other respects and because some women are not permitted to switch to good girl status once they have enacted a bad girl stereotype, I am wary of poststructuralist theories of feminist agency that bank on the subversive power of free spirited vamping and instrumental masqllerading. Poststructuralist accounts of emancipatory agency equate gender dissidence with gender misprision regardless of whether it is intentional or inadvertent/ flagrant or inconspicuous, flamboyant or den1ure. From the standpoint of agency, there is no difference between a woman in a miniskirt sitting on a park bench with her legs spread wide apart and a breast cancer survivor who founds a network of support groups for women who refuse reconstructive surgery or prosthetics after ul1dergoing mastectomies. Poststructuralism reclaims women/s agency, but this reclamation comes at the price of an implausibly promiscuous view of emancipatory agency. This theory of agency also overlooks the staying power of institutionalized norms and values. There are well-entrenched legal and social rules governing sex and procreation, and differential economic positions afford disparate opportunities and constraints. In many U.S. comn1unities, lesbian couples who hold hands or kiss while accompanying their children to the playground can expect abusive censure from other parents. Moreover, as Aubry points out/ an ordinary African-An1erican woman cannot pull off the same shenanigans as Madonna and get away witl1 it, much less be admired for it. Thus, gender transgression. th.at is not gauged to its audience or that is conducted outside a social movement or a site of social dissidence is as likely to be pronounced stupid or disgusting as it is to dislodge gender binarism and normative heterosexuality. If this is so, poststructuralist assurances of the political efficacy of donning incoh.erel1t gender personae (even with malice aforethought) are unduly sanguine. Kathryn Morgan and Sandra Bartky underscore the impact of genderenforcing social structures on psycho-corporeal agency with respect to appearance issues. Morgan argues that coupled with consumer capitalism, patriarchy nullifies women's freedom to create their OWl1 beauty standards and set their own personal appearance goals (Morgan 1991/ 35-41). Concurring with Morgan, Bartky concludes that emancipated agency requires a "radical revisioning of the body" and that this revisioning presupposes"altered modes of sexual desire and a new aesthetic/" which in turn presuppose the demise of gender and class society (Bartky 1998/ 26-27).6 A tall order, to be sure. In my judgment, a little too tall. I agree that patriarchy and consumer capitalism are in many respects inimical to emancipatory psycho-corporeal agency. Projected in an alluring/ omnipresent media culture, heterosexism compounds the damage. Still, I offer two caveats because I fear that Morgan's and Bartky's ambi-

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tious emancipatory program rlIns the risk of erasing the possibilities for emancipatory agency within oppressive contexts. First, consider two vignettes from the devastating documentary, Beneath the Veil (Saira Shah 2000-2001). Defiant Afghan women are shown opposing Taliban repression, first, by meeting in secret to educate themselves and their daughters and, second, by patronizing a clandestine beauty parlor. Surely, this ironic twist rules out flat condemnation of women's endorsement of normalized femin.ine beauty ideals or their participation in feminine adornment practices. Second, although I agree in a sense that there can be no personal solutions for the somatic woes that beset women, I worry that a feminism that has nothing to offer women in the here and now, a feminisn1 that can only urge women to join the battle against heterosexist patriarchy and/ or consumer capitalism, is a feminism that is going to have (as a matter of fact, is having) a lot of tro·uble attracting women and sustaining their loyalty. Meredith McGhan goes after body-esteem in the here-and-now. By the age of twelve, she tells us, she considered herself a "fat, ugly freak" (McGhan 2000, 168).7 Later, with a friend's encouragement, she embarks on a quest for psycho-corporeal contentment. Fed up with hating her body, McGhan declares, ill wanted redemption. I wanted to be someone's fantasy for once" (McGhan 2000, 171). So she got a job as a topless dancer, and sh.e got her wish: "At least two men would tell me I was beautiful every day.... MyoId self-image was eroded there [at the topless bar], little by little, until I became proud of my appearance" (McGl1an 2000, 172). Alas, ambivalent feelings eventually intrude on her newfound well-being. Feeling cheap, objectified, and hypocritical, she realizes that the cultural commodification of women's bodies n1ade her hate her body, but that she "conqllered much of [her] body hatred by proving to [her]self that [her] body was an adequate object of consumerism" (McGhan 2000, 173, 174). She sums up her "accomplishment" sardonically: ill have become a person who is tremendously relieved to discover that she really does look okay to her oppressors" (McGhan 2000, 175). Despite the rueful, bitter undertone of this self-assessment, McGhan does not gainsay the fact that her body-image is vastly improved and that she has freed herself from the most debilitating encumbrances of body-hatred. Stories like McGhan's pose a dilemma for feminist theory. Patriarch.al gender norms saturate her psycho-corporeal identity-both as a bodyhating woman and as a body-accepting woman. She admits that stripping and dancing and being applauded for her performance did nothing to subvert male don1inance-hers is a personal solution. The incongruity that she is a n1iddle-class woman with an M.A. in Women's Studies does not make her seminude performances any more subversive than those of poor, uneducated women. McGhan is under no illusion that she has

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wrested control over her body-image from men, for she knows full well that she would not be reconciled to her body were it not for their admiring gaze. The tyranny of objectification remains as formidable as ever. Yet, McGhan's narrative is unmistakably a tale of emancipatory, albeit compromised, psycho-corporeal agency. At ease at last with her corporeal identity, she is physically and emotionally conlfortable in her social world. In short, she is better off than she was before. In my view, feminist theory needs to furnish a sufficiently realistic and nuanced account of emancipatory agency to make sense of her self-help experience. In her work on cosmetic surgery, Kathy Davis tries to stake out a modulated position on emancipatory psycho-corporeal agency. Davis recognizes that cosmetic surgery is 110t an unalloyed good. It's dangerous; it doesn't always succeed physically or psychologically; it's expensive; it effaces family heritage; the beauty ideals that induce women to consider surgery are implicated in women's subordination (Davis 1991, 23-24, 29, 33). Still, by focusing on women's decision-making processes rather than on the gender-enforcing contexts in which they make their decisions and by applying rational choice theory to women's decision-making processes, Davis mounts a credible defense of opting for a surgical fix. Typical cosmetic surgery patients, she claims, are well aware of the pressures to attain beauty ideals, aggressively seek out information about their surgical options and risks, rationally assess their needs and prospects, and carefully sift through the pros and cons of medical intervention. These sophisticated calculations suggest that many women who choose surgery pursue the "best solution under the circumstances" (Davis 1991, 24, 31, 34-35). Davis's view respectfully represents women's selfbeautification projects as well thought out and individualized choices through which they gain a measure of control over their psycho-corporeal identity. Still, Davis's account of agency is troubling. First, it exiles agency to the head by identifying agency with the rational calculations and strategizing of prospective cosmetic surgery patients. Second, this view of agency slights embodied meaning, for it treats the flesh as stuff to be molded into a shape that instrumental reason deems acceptable. Finally, in accommodating conventional beauty standards rather than challenging then1, this form of agency fails to advance an emancipatory agenda. Although I do not begrudge McGhan the relief she obtained through topless dancing, the same three points could be made against her solution. McGhan gets over feeling ugly. But if her memoire is complete, the changes in her psycho-corporeal identity are probably superficial and fragile. Because she induced these changes by soaking up her clientele's praise, she may not be able to withstand the mixed reactions she gets outside the club for very long. Deeper and, I believe, more reliable and politically desirable changes require mobilizing the full potential of one's

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psycho-corporeal economy. Indeed, I suspect that if McGhan's topless treatment proves to be enduring, it activated psycho-corporeal capacities that she omits from her essay.

PSYCHO-CORPOREALIZING EMANCIPATORY AGENCY

Compare McGhan's account of her dancing days with the way Susan Brison enlists her body in the process of recovering from a ll1urderous rape and the PTSD that ensued. Brison describes her hyper-vigilance and startle reactions in public places and explains that one reason she could not get angry at her assailant was because she couldn't bear to think of herself anywhere near him (Brison 1997, 17; 1999, 219). Taking a self-defense class proved to be an important component of her recovery (Brison 1997, 220-21). Acquiring these practical, physical skills altered her visceral body-image, and this repaired body-image increased her confidence in her ability to protect herself. Her renewed sense of security made her more comfortable among strangers and gave her the courage to imagine herself close enough to her assailant to direct her anger where it belongs. To contend with her embodied memories of sexual assault, Brison acquires new embodied knowledge. Retraining her body-that is, enhancing her psycho-corporeal agency-helps Brison reconfigure her psychocorporeal identity and come to grips with her paralyzing disorder. 8 In contrast, to contend with her embodied commitment to cultural beauty ideals and her embodied knowledge of her failure to measure up, McGhan finds an entourage of claquers whose accolades lead her to superimpose a more positive body-image on the detrimental meanings her body encodes. If Brison had hired a bodyguard instead of taking selfdefense classes, her solution would have paralleled the ogling eyes and lavish tips that supposedly alleviate McGhan's body-hatred. I say "supposedly" because there are passages in MeGhan's essay where she seems on the verge of extending her analysis beyond the effects of audience appreciation. Did she relish her dancing-the sensuality of her exposed skin and her undulating movements? Did this psycho-corporeal pleasure contribute to improving her body-image? Unfortunately, McGhan never takes up her visceral experience of the dancing itself. So we'll never know. It might be objected that Brison's proficiency in self-defense maneuvers is nothing more than a coping skill that enables her to function better under a regime in which male sexuality is organized around eroticized violence. On this view, McGhan's self-help program plays into the hands of her political opponents, and so does Brison's, for they leave the structure of ll1ale sexuality intact and hence do nothing to diminish the objectification of

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women's bodies or to reduce the incidence of rape. Both are merely personal solutions. I believe, however, that Brison's strategy, can be adapted to serve broad feminist objectives. If physical education classes aimed to give girls proficiency in self-defense as well as field hockey, the balance of power between women and men would shift a bit and leave a small, but not insignificant, dent in the binary gen.der hierarchy. Similarly, there n1ight be a way to use single-sex improvisational dance classes to acclimate girls to their bodies and to build their body-trust and body-esteem. 9 I confess that I am less confident about this suggestion both because the n1edia bombardment of ideal body-images is so incessant and because this training cannot eliminate heterosexual girls' vulnerability to later adverse experiences, such as being rejected by prospective boyfriends. Still, if they el1tered adolescence with lively embodied memories of the visceral and interpersonal pleasures of spontaneous movement and a solid sense of their strength, flexibility, and agility, they might not become so obsessed with measuring up to culturally venerated beauty ideals. Taking the impact of oppression on psycho-corporeal identity seriously requires discovering visceral antidotes for harmful embodied knowledge, men10ries, and values. Neither thinking differently nor situating oneself in a less threatening environment suffices to emancipate an individual once oppression conscripts the flesl1. Of course, it would be a mistake to discount the usefulness of reinterpreting one's experience or associating with more supportive people. But because bodies are stubborn,lo corporeally attuned strategies are pivotal to emancipatory transformation. An. example of emancipatory psych.o-corporeal agency with respect to female genital cutting suggests a way to apply the lesson I extract fron1 Brison's experience of PTSD to psycho-corporeal pathologies like McGhan's devouring body-hatred. In cultures in which female genital clltting is the norm, women cling to the practice for many different reasons. Two of these reasons have broad implications. First, fentale genital cutting is often the climax of an adolescent initiation rite in which girls of the same age are instructed in the dLlties and proprieties of womanhood, and the seclusion period surrounding this rite establishes "age groups" that forge lifelong bonds among girls who undergo the process together. Second, feminine body aesthetics dovetail with this practice. For example, cultures that scorn open orifices of all kinds despise uninfibulated female genitals too (Boddy 1989, 52). There is some evidence that feminine aesthetic standards are secondary to the social function of the ritual. In central Kenya, the social benefits formerly delivered by age groups-namely, solidarity among women and cOl1solidation of women's social autltority-are now secured by women's self-help economic organizations (Robertson 1996, 616, 631). When alternatives such as this are available, feminine aes-

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thetic standards may become negotiable. Kenyan women and their families have created "circumcision through words" rituals in which cultural teachings about wOll1anhood are transll1itted and girls' entrance into womanhood is celebrated, but the traditional cuttin.g is eliminated (James 1998, 1046). For women who undergo circumcision through words, female bonding occurs without the traditional genital cutting, and the achievement of female bonding supersedes the need to comply with the traditional beal-lty norm. I mention all of this because one theory about the genesi~ of the body pathologies that are rampant among U.S. women today is that they stem from a bonding ritual that easily goes awry (Parker et al. 1995, 107). Some students of the en.culturation of the feminin.e body argue that girls bond with one another through normalizing psycho-corporeal rituals. Don't these scenarios sound familiar? 1) Two teenage friends are in a dressing room trying on clothes. What

are they saying? One says, "This makes me look so fat." The other replies, "No, it looks great on you." 2) Now picture them at luncl1time in the school cafeteria. Food is on their min.d. One says, "Have you heard about the micro-sulfer oxigenation diet?" The other responds, "Oh yeah, let's try it together." Of course, not all girls who participate in these formulaic friendship consolidating exch.anges develop warped body-images or eating disorders. However, many do, and perhaps fewer would if the bonding ritual could be modified. In the background of the body-friendly modification I shall propose is a version of the feminine bonding ritual that I recall from my own childhood. I can't say how widespread this form of play is, but around the age of ten my best friend and I spent ll1any hours in her mother's dressing room. The dressing table was a cabiI1et of wonders. There were bottles of perfumed elixirs and soothing potions arrayed on its glass top, and its drawers were stocked with sticks, powders, and ointments of countless hues, as well as soft brushes, pads, and puffs for applyiI1g these ravishing pigments. Affixed to the wall behind the table was a wall-to-wall, floorto-ceiling mirror. The possibilities for experill1entation were endless, but our imaginations were already in thrall to Vogue. We avidly (and witlessly) tried to replicate the fabLL10us visages adorning the pages of that venerable manual. And so we bonded, and now we silffer. What if we changed the ritual? To figure out how to change it, we must first understand the nature of the damage it causes in its present forll1. In reflecting on the etiology of her own body-hatred, McGhan notes that when she was young, it never occurred to her that she might not grow up

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to look like the models in the glossy magazines (McGhan 2000, 167). Thus, one of my goals is to pUIlcture this illusion because it predisposes girls to regard their bodies as traitors later on. To accomplish this without wrecking girls' self-esteem, I propose to adapt the technique that Orlan uses in one of her artworks to the developmental needs of girls. Self-Hybridizations (1999)11 is a series of digitally manipulated self-portraits. In this work, Orlan reconfigures her own headshots using Mayan and Olmec beauty standards as guideposts. The results are stunning-her cranium bulges and compresses into all manner of sculptural shapes, and the surface of her face and scalp is emblazoned with sensational patterns of color. Although Orlan's stated objective is to critique all normalizations of beauty, her amusing, yet provocative art also demonstrates the nonuniformity of beauty norms (Brand 2000, 299). Thus, it challenges viewers to come to terms with radically different conceptions of beauty and also to anticipate the scope of truly inventive, individualized forms of beauty (and uses of cosmetic technology, whether surgical or not). Along these lines, Silja Talvi claims that her tattoos "represent a sense of pride in one's ability to survive adverse circumstances; a visible affiliation with a given subculture, and a permanent luck you statement to a larger society that honors beauty only within the parameters of its own rigid definition" (Talvi 2000, 212). My informal, 'undercover locker room surveys indicate that tatooing has been coopted by normative femininity. For the most part, young women seem to choose insipidly pretty tatoosflowers and butterflies are especially popular. But some women's tatoos are very much in the spirit of Orlan's Self-Hybridizations. To normalize Talvi's attitude and capitalize on Orlan's technique, I envisage a computer game that girls could use to fool around with digital photographs of themselves. To spur th.eir imaginations, the game should come with a digital pictorial library stocked with a vast assortment of beauty templates taken from diverse cultures and diverse historical periods. The game's program should n1ake it possible for players to synthesize whole templates with their own image or to select and combine features from different templates and synthesize them with their own image. It should enable them to "masculil1ize" their looks, too. A Barbie block should be installed in the program.1 2 Now let girls loose with the game at sll.,lmber parties, and let them morph the night away. Perhaps this computer game would be a flop with young customers. 13 Perhaps they are indoctrinated by feminine beauty lore even before they learn to use computers. But maybe they'd love it. Maybe they'd delight in improvisation. Maybe they'd learn 110t to take their looks too seriously. Maybe they'd eventually form unorthodox, individualized beauty goals for themselves. At any rate, this proposal is a lot less grim than Katharine Morgan's suggestion that women use cosmetic technology to acquire

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wrinkles, sagging jowls, or other features that are usually considered ugly (Morgan 1991, 44-46). Talvi's story gives me hope that women can become corporeally committed to an emancipatory, self-defined aesthetic without going to such lengths. In my view, however, displacing narrow beauty ideals and leaving behind obsessive regimens are only partial sohltions. Because many women distrust their bodies and routinely ignore visceral cues, they lose the benefit of their own embodied knowledge. Lee Damsky's story of her recovery from an eating disorder and her rapprochement with her despised body iliustrates this problem. Along with realizing the futility of using food to express her feelings or to meet non nutritional needs, Damsky learned lito listen to feelings, intuitions and choices that also came from physical depths" (Damsky 2000, 141). Since estrangement from one's body is a cause of eating disorders, it is clear that many women would profit from training in the arcane arts of living in and trusting their bodies. Still, avoiding these ruinous pathologies is not the only reason to sensitize oneself to embodied knowledge. Women who have mastered these arts are better at making individualized decisions and suffer less self-doubt about nonconformity. For example, at the culmination of an anguished decision process, a woman who finally decided against having children reaches a psycho-corporeal resolution: "The knowing started as a kind of intellectual acceptance, then it sank down into my heart with emotional acceptance, and finally came down into my belly ... the deep knowing is a great relief" (Ireland 1993,81). For this woman, the process of deliberation is 11.0t complete until her body corroborates the decision she makes and the values it is based on. Both of these women understand that they won't solve their problems unless they treat their bodies as repositories of meaning and teach. themselves to grasp and respect embodied meanings. Individualized psychocorporeal identities emerge and evolve as values take on flesh, memories are deposited in visceral sensation, skills become second nature, and knowledge is somatically stockpiled. Because son1e of the meanings with which women's bodies are imbued recruit then1 into accepting oppressive social structures or engaging in self-subordinating behavior, it is not enough for a theory of emancipatory agency to explain how to challenge unjust institutions and envisage more equitable ones or how to neutralize derogatory stereotypes and discredit the systematic misperceptions and mistreatment they authorize. A theory of emancipatory psycho-corporeal agency must also aCCOtlnt for personal transformation, including how to purge the body of the pernicious meanings it has absorbed. Damsky's story ends on an optimistic 110te: "Now feeling beautiful, to me, is a measure of how close I am to what feels right as a way to be and live. My beauty comes from having my own style, living my own way and knowing my own mind" (Damsky 2000, 142).14 If only everyone could be so fortunate. Is

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NOTES 1. Maxine Sheets-Johnstone (1999) takes a similar position without appealing to psychoanalysis. 2. Here I adopt a usage of effeminate in which the term is a synonym for feminine (Oxford English Dictionary, entry AId). In my text and in our present cultural environment, reviving this usage serves to stress that there is no natural or tautological connection between feminine qualities and womanhood. 3. If this conjecture about the corporeal encoding of these values is correct, it would lend credence to Annette Baier's claim that trust is innate (Baier 1987, 612-13). I advance this line of thought with some misgivings, however, because I am wary of the abuses to which "naturalized" ethics frequently gives rise. 4. In calling the human body a medium, I am not implying that the mind is the separate seat of agency that expresses itself by couching its thoughts, desires, feelings, etc., in flesh, as a sculptor uses clay or marble to express ideas or feelings (for critique of this understanding of the body, see Grosz 1994,9-10). Rather, for a human psycho-corporeal being, the flesh is not an inert material awaiting a meaning producer to endow it with meaning. Corporeality is itself laden with meaning, and corporeality itself generates meaning. 5. A variant of this imperative can be found among heterosexual, female, collegiate/ and varsity athletes. Those I have spoken with tell me that it is very important to them that their boyfriends be taller than they are. Accessorized by a taller male, these women "feel feminine." 6. Also see Bordo 1997,27-65 and Meyers 2002, chs. 5 and 6. 7. It might be objected that she was an atypical, maladjusted child. However, I regard her heightened body troubles as symptomatic of all-too-common insecurities and anxieties about slin1.ness and sexiness that are widespread among women from diverse segments of U.S. society. Although streetwear featuring decolletage and bare abdomens is currently fashionable, there is no solid evidence that the young women wearing these garments have a healthier attitude toward feminine body ideals than previous generations did. 8. A recent radio report addressed the fears of flight attendants in the aftermath of Sept. 11 (NPR, Morning Edition, 12/11/2001). Unpersuaded that heightened airport security will protect them, some of these workers have takel1 up Tai Kwon Do and formed an organization to establish a network of Tai Kwon Do studios that will provide free lessons to flight attendants. One woman who was interviewed said that she felt much safer at work after mastering some self-defense techniques. 9. It might seem that intensive elementary school training in sports would be a better solution than improvisational dance, for sports participation and enthusiasm not only develop bodily skills and require cooperation with teammates but also attack gender norms. Although this seems like a good idea, I note that the U.S. epidemic of eating disorders coincided with a reduction of the stigma against girls playing sports. I cannot say whether these two phenomena are causally related, but the temporal correlation is enough to give me pause. 10. So are minds, but that's another story.

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11. You can find samples of this work at www.cicv.fr/creation_artistique/ online I orIan. 12. The Barbie block not only serves the obvious purpose of preventing white girls from auton1atically conforming to conventional beauty ideals, but also serves the purpose of disabusing Native American, Latina, Asian American, and AfricanAmerican girls of the idea that Barbie's wavy blond hair and blue eyes are enviable. Regina Williams deplores the drift away from traditional beauty standards in the African-American community: "The more we as a people try to assimilate . into the mainstream society, the more we accept the Eurocentric standard of beauty" (Williams 2000, 183). Akkida McDowell agrees and fingers Barbie: "[B]lack folks reject the Barbie image, and then end up buying it anyhow" (McDowell 2000, 128). It is troubling as well that blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery) is the most prevalent form of elective cosmetic surgery among Asian women both in the United States and in Asia. These patients never express a desire to look more Caucasian, but they do express a desire to "look prettier" or not to "look tired" where pretty and alert equal youthful Caucasian. If these women cannot yet overcome the desire to look Caucasian, perhaps they can notice how variable Caucasian eyelids are. Why don't these women identify with Charlotte Rampling's beauty, including her hooded eyes (not to mention her unsurpassable acting), in Under the Sand and Swimming Pool instead? 13. I am dismayed to learn that my proposal faces stiff competition from similar games that are already on the market-e.g., the Barbie Digital Makeover (MatteI Media). Instead of a Barbie block, of course, this game blocks every non-Barbie possibility. 14. Although Damsky's conclusion may sound like a cliche to some readers, I have characterized the skills that enable her to feel this way about herself as arcane arts precisely because so few women are adept and so many women suffer (more or less) from body hatred. Although Damsky references a form autonomy that goes beyond body-acceptance, I would urge that she is advocating a form of corporeal skillfulness that is both underused and undertheorized. 15. In various forms, I have presented this chapter to a conference honoring Sandra Lee Bartky at UIC, as the Laurie Lecture while serving as the Blanche, Edith, and Irving Laurie New Jersey Chair in the Women's and Gender Studies Department at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and at a meeting of Pacific SWIP in San Francisco. Although I have not been able to take into account all of the helpful comments I received from these audiences in this version of the chapter, I an1 grateful for all of them, and those that I haven't incorporated into this chapter will surely influence my future work on the body.

II

MORAL REFLECTION

5

+ The Socialized Individual and Individual Autonomy: An Intersection between Philosophy and Psychology utonomy is commonly taken to be incompatible with, indeed the antithesis of, socialization. People are thought to be autonomous only when they are free of social influence. Thus, autonomous people must somehow transcend the lessons that parents, teachers, religious leaders, and other authority figures instilled in them when they were children, as well as the pressures that peers and institutions continue to exert on them as adults. In the standard view, the true self is a self preserved from social taint, and autonomous conduct is action expressing the true self. This picture of autonomy has spawned an extensive philosophical literature purporting to explain how people can circumnavigate their social backgrounds, and a psychological literature purporting to document the superior ability of men to carry out these maneuvers. However, I shall take a different approach in this chapter. Instead of looking for a tear in the fabric of socialization through which a posited true self might emerge, I shall ask whether an alternative conception of autonomy can be defended. Specifically, I shall examine Carol Gilligan's recent research on the moral development of women and consider the challenge it poses to the traditional conception of moral autonomy developed by Kant and currently championed by John Rawls in philosophy and Lawrence Kohlberg in psychology. What I would like to suggest is that moral autonomy is a variegated phenomenon that depends on the exercise of a complex competency. Though the Kantian view of moral autonomy contributes to our understanding of this competency, it does not provide a complete account.

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GILLIGAN'S RESEARCH ON WOMEN'S MORALITY

Carol Gilligan is a psychologist who studies moral development using the model that Lawrence Kohlberg pioneered in this field. Kohlberg holds that, on their way to moral maturity, people go through a series of six stages that can be grouped into three levels (Kohlberg 1981, 409-12). Initially, children simply bow to the directives of external authorities, but in time, they realize that the rules they are expected to follow maintain a mutually advantageous social order. Eventually, people may advance to a postconventional, universalistic ethic of principles. People move from one stage to the next when their moral view proves inadequate to cope with novel predicaments that they are facing. Thus, cognitive dilemmas instigate progress through Kohlberg's hierarchy of stages and propel people toward increasingly comprehensive principles. Although the cognitive development model is vulnerable to serious objections, I shall set these problems aside, for my main concern is with Gilligan's and Kohlberg's alternative conceptions of moral maturity. Gilligan accepts Kohlberg's basic theoretical apparatus, but her studies have led her to question Kohlberg's substantive account of the moral views prevailing at each stage of development (Gilligan 1982, 100-105). Whereas Kohlberg contends that there is only one track leading to moral maturity and that this track terminates at a morality of justice founded on rights to noninterference, Gilligan contends that there is a parallel track with a different end point. Her data suggest that many women develop toward a morality of care and responsibility. The best way to succinctly sketch these two moral perspectives is to highlight the contrasts between them. For Kohlberg, morally mature individuals accept a system of universal rights along with their correlative duties. These rights protect people from others' interference, but, since they can conflict, they must be qualified and ranked according to their relative stringencies. Thus, morality involves discovering and complying with an ordered set of generally applicable, yet highly differentiated rules. In contrast, for Gilligan, moral maturity can be based on general injunctions to give care, to sustain interpersonal connections, and to secure one's own integrity. In this view, morally mature people are not preoccupied with articulating and refining rules, nor do they regard noninterference as morally sufficient. Rather, they concentrate on understanding other individuals and their particular circumstances in order to respond appropriately to these persons' needs and concerns. Concomitantly, they recognize and undertake to fulfill their own potential. Whereas Kohlberg's vision of moral maturity might be characterized as one of decent respect for others while pursuing one's own good, Gilligan's alternative might be characterized as a vision of concerned involvement with others while respecting oneself.

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Gilligan illustrates the difference between these two perspectives with the rather poignantly contrastive solutions that exponellts of the two perspectives give to the following problem (Gilligan 1985). A group of industrious, prudent moles have spent the summer digging a burrow where they will spend the winter. A lazy, improvident porcupine who has not prepared a winter shelter approaches the moles and pleads to share their burrow. The moles take pity on the porcupitl€ and agree to let him in. Unfortunately, the ll10les did not anticipate the problell1 the porcupine's sharp quills would pose in close quarters. Once the porcupine has moved in, the n10les are constantly being stabbed. The question is, what should the moles do? On the one hand, subjects answering according to the rights perspective point out that the moles own the shelter and are therefore entitled to throw the porcupine out. When asked what the moles should do if the porcupine refuses to leave, some of these respondents favor shooting the porcupine. On the other hand, subjects answering according to the care perspective suggest solutions like covering the porcupine with a blanket. Tl1ese respondents devise compromises that defuse conflict and secure everyone's interests. Now, it is important to recognize not only that tIle solutions proposed by exponents of the rights perspective differ from those proposed by exponents of the care perspective, but also that the reasoning leading to these divergent solutions differs. Here, I shall idealize the two reasoning processes ill order to highlight their differences. Within the rights perspective, deliberators regard moral problems as analogous to ll1athematical equations with variables to compute. Accordingly, moral reflection consists of impartial, rational choice of principles and the application of these principles. People are bearers of rights that have varyillg degrees of moral force. In general, theIL, our moral task is to ascertain which rights people have, what the relative stringencies of these rights are, and which of th.e rights that are in play ill the case at hand is the most weighty. III the process of working out a particular moral problem, the individual may find grounds for modifying prior moral conceptions or for articulating new relations between principles. By resolving tensions arising between their principles, people progress to higher stages of development. At the highest stage, they are capable of electing principles from the standpoint of a Rawlsian original position (Rawls 1971, 118-50). In short, they have become morally self-governing and hence free. The care perspective places no premium on the codification of principles. A consideration that takes precedence over a second consideration in one context may be overshadowed by that selfsame consideration in another situation with a new cast of characters. Moreover, agents may be unable to specify the relevant distinction between the two contexts; in other

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words, they may be unable to reduce their moral conclusions to general rules. The care perspective allows for the possibility that human relations can involve deep and special emotional bonds that have a moral significance but that, nonetheless, cannot be universalized. (For a related discussion, see Jonathan Adler 1987.) Subjects who think in terms of the care perspective make moral progress, not by stepping outside their social context in order to generate ever more sophisticated systems of rules, but rather by expanding the scope of the injunctions to give care and to maintain connections. This is not to say that the care perspective altogether bars adherence to moral principles. But it is to say that the sense of responsibility at the core of the care perspective neither exacts rationality to the exclusion of emotionality nor imposes impartiality at the expense of ongoing attachment. Which of these two orientations people are likely to adopt depends on their gender. Gilligan has found that, although all people are able to understand and even to use both moral approaches, the vast majority of males rely primarily on the rights-based morality; however, about one third of all females rely primarily on the care morality while another third rely primarily on the rights-based morality (Gilligan 1987). In other words, many women think in terms of rights, but almost no men think in terms of care. This cleavage demands an explanation.

SOCIALIZATION AND GENDER-DIFFERENTIATED MORALITY

Gilligan cites Nancy Chodorow's account of differential feminine-masculine socialization to explain the discrepancy between women's and men's moral perspectives (Gilligan 1982, 7-8). Using a psychoanalytic framework, Chodorow argues that the differences between feminine and masculine personalities emerge as a result of the child's need to establish a gender identity in a world in which women serve as children's primary caretakers. With regard to gender identity, there is an asymmetry between the developmental issues faced by girls and those faced by boys. Since girls are the same sex as their primary caretakers, they are not obliged to break off their emotional attachment to their mothers in order to secure their gender identity. Thus, girls' sense of themselves is compatible with a sense of embeddedness in relationships, and their capacity for empathy flourishes (Chodorow 1978, 167-69). But since boys are the opposite sex of their primary caretakers, they must decisively break away from their mothers in order to secure their gender identity. Consequently, boys' sense of themselves depends on a sense of their separation from others, and their capacity for empathy is stifled while their capacity for independence is cultivated (Chodorow 1978,165 and 181-83).

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The coincidence between Chodorow's and Gilligan's theories is striking. If rationality and impartiality are marks of independence, Chodorow's account affirms that boys would be driven to develop their rational skills and to assume an impartial stance. In contrast, Chodorow's account suggests that girls would have little or no need to gain this moral perspective, for their gender identities are not threatened by their immersion in a network of emotion-laden relationships. However, since many people have what I would agree are well-founded doubts about the empirical standing of psychoanalytic accounts like Chodorow's, I want to emphasize that studies based on a wide variety of theoretical approaches supply ample evidence that socialization plays a telling role in the evolution of moral perspectives. However, in the interest of space, I shall only sample the supporting evidence that could be adduced. No one discounts the role of parents and peers in childhood socialization. A number of recent studies specify in considerable detail the way in which girls are sensitized to others and taught to respond to others' concerns while boys are taught to forge their own paths. Studies show that adults are disposed to interact with children on the basis of gender-stereotypes. Left in a room with a baby said to be female, mothers offer the child a doll rather than a train. Told that an unknown baby is a boy, mothers offer the child the train instead of the doll (Weitzman 1984, 160). Although it is hard to assess the impact on babies of this disposition mothers have to guide their conduct on the basis of sex, one study suggests that differential treatment may have a discernible effect as early as the age of thirteen months. By that time, boys start spending less time in close proximity to their mothers, but girls continue to talk with and gaze at their mothers (Hunter College 1983, 145). These observations lend support to the contention that boys become more independent earlier than girls. Nevertheless, it is debatable why this difference appears. It may be partially due to differences in activity levels. Boys have been found to be more active than girls (Hyde 1985, 149), and greater activity would help to explain boys' more extensive forays. However, many students of development are convinced that their greater activity is stimulated, at least in part, by social forces. There is evidence that fathers' attitudes strongly influence their children's developmental trajectory. This is noteworthy because fathers' conceptions of how their children should behave are more stereotypical than mothers', and fathers impose these conceptions on their children firmly and consistently (Weitzman 1984, 164). Moreover, fathers use enforcement methods to deal with their daughters different from those they use with their sons. Fathers tend to reward their daughters for feminine behavior, but they are apt to punish their sons for "sissyish" behavior (Weitzman 1984, 164). Since studies show that children are more compliant when

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punishments are administered by people with whom they identify, there is reason to believe that this mode of paternal insistence that boys be masculine is very effective. How responsive girls are to their fathers' approbation remains an open question. Outside the home, children encounter numerous incentives to fit into gender roles. For example, it has been found that children are less tolerant of gender-inappropriate behavior than many adults are (Hyde 1985, 110-11). Moreover, girls who are attuned to social approval are likely to be popular with their peers, but boys who are other-directed in this way are likely to be unpopular (Hunter College 1983, 153). Whereas boys benefit from independence, girls pay a price for going, their own way. Thus, girls' self-interest strongly commends attending to others' wishes. Since children imitate the models available to them, the information about social expectations conveyed by various media are an important factor in childhood socialization, and the media to which children are exposedbooks and television-provide unrealistically polarized images of women and men (Weitzman 1984, 165-66). An interesting sidelight in regard to children's media concerns their presentation of reactions to female characters. Whereas male characters are commonly shown being rewarded for their activities, female characters are simply ignored (Weitzman 1984, 165-66). Female characters only elicit significant responses when they violate gender stereotypes and are punished for their transgressions (Weitzman 1984, 166). When books and television shows are not threatening girls with ostracism for gender-crossing behavior, they are instilling in girls the message that they should stay in the background and acquiesce in anonymity. It is hardly surprising, then, that many girls become reluctant to act assertively, and become, instead, willing to function only as facilitators and helpmates. Whether or not there is any biological basis for observed behavioral differences between women and men is open to dispute, but it is clear that without differential gender socialization, these behavioral differences would be much less pronounced. As it is, self-sufficiency is encouraged in boys while other-directed pliancy is encouraged in girls. This asymmetry helps to explain the discrepancy Gilligan has found between women's and men's moral perspectives. Nevertheless, it is important to recognize that feminine socialization is not monolithic. For example, despite the fact that women are not supposed to be achievers, young girls are rewarded for doing well in school (Weitzman 1984, 219). Thus, ambivalence is built into conventional feminine socialization processes. Moreover, many girls undergo unconventional socialization processes-either their mothers work and provide nontraditional role models, or their fathers actively support their nontra-

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ditional aspirations (Weitzman 1984, 217-18). For this reason, it is not surprising that Gilligan has not found uniform adherence to the ethic of care among women. What is surprising is the rarity of deviance from the ethic of rights among men. Social psychologists have noted profound tensions within the contemporary masculine role. While men are expected to be indomitably aggressive at work, they are expected to be tenderly affectionate at home (Hyde 1985, 107). Still, this split has not translated into weaker allegiance to the rights perspective among men. Perhaps, this is because the public activities of the provider and protector remain dominant in the masculine role, and the morality of rights remains dominant in the public sphere. Whatever the explanation of the virtual unanimity of men's commitment to this moral perspective, it is undeniable that socialization disposes them to neutralize the moral significance of emotional bonds and to rely instead on impartial reason.

SOCIALIZATION AND AUTONOMY The Kantian model of moral autonomy maintains that reason enables people to achieve individual autonomy without sacrificing social cooperation. To be morally autonomous is to follow rules that one has chosen for oneself. Through reason, people conceive and adopt their own moral principles. Since they have freely and rationally elected these principles, people do what they really want to do when they act on them. Yet, since reason is universal, everyone chooses the same rules, and violence and anarchy are averted. On this model of autonomy, each person can be self-governing because all people have the same benign true self-we are all rational beings. Moreover, autonomous individuals transcend the limits of their respective socialization experiences since reason is not culture bound. Given this model of autonomy, it is easy to see why women have acquired a reputation for heteronomy. Gilligan has documented many women's indifference to the project of formulating and abiding by a set of rules (Gilligan 1982, 44). Furthermore, these women acknowledge the primacy of emotional attachments in their moral deliberations, although emotional involvement is commonly regarded an inimical to rationality. Finally, notwithstanding the fact that there is no empirical support for the claim that women's reasoning ability is inferior to men's, thinkers otherwise as opposed as Aristotle and Simone de Beauvoir have retailed this prejudice (Aristotle 1946, 1260a; de Beauvoir 1953, 437, 580). Thus, the conclusion that femininity traps women in heteronomy may seem natural enough.

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I would like to cast some doubt on this conclusion by considering whether masculine patterns of moral deliberation measure up to the Kantian ideal. First, it is important to recognize that men do not transcend their upbringings when they resort to impartial reason. We have seen that the socialization to which boys are subjected instills this approach in them. Nevertheless, it might be argued that impartial reason does enable men to transcend their socialization inasmuch as the principles chosen in this way are not beholden to an.y particular cultural milieu. However, this, too, is doubtful. John Rawls has granted that the concept of the person on the basis of which people choose principles in the original position may vary from society to society, and therefore that the principles that are chosen may vary as well (Rawls 1980, 569). On Rawls's Kantian view, practical reason is not universal, though it is uniform within each cLllture. Although Rawls holds that moral conduct expresses the person's nature as a free and equal rational being, he concedes that all people may not have an identical nature. Still, he maintains that all of the members of a cultural group share the same true self that shapes their moral perspective. Thus, one way to read Gilligan's data would be to delineate two cultural groups corresponding to the two moral perspectives she has described. However, I do not consider this to be an especially promising avenue of inquiry. Perhaps, a dual culture interpretation would be warranted if Gilligan had conducted her research in a prototypically patriarchal society. But in our own society, there is such extensive contact between women and men that it is hard to believe that the feminine and masculine realms constitute separate cultural spheres. Furthermore, a dual culture interpretation would overlook one of Gilligan's most striking findings, namely, that, regardless of their basic orientations, women and men alike readily understand and can be cued to use both moral perspectives (Gilligan 1987). When the members of different cultural groups cease to baffle one another, either they have taken pains to familiarize themselves with one another's alien beliefs and practices, or their cultures have, to some extent, merged. Gilligan observes that women and men have common childhood experiences that would account for their mutual understanding (Gilligan 1987). Thus, it is unnecessary for women and men to make anthropological studies of the opposite sex, and it seems doubtful that the distinctions between Gilligan's two moral perspectives are of the magnitude of cultural divides. This is not to gainsay the possibility that women and men once constituted distinct cultural groups, but it is to deny that they still do in Western societies today. In. my estimation, a more theoretically compelling reason to reject the dual culture interpretation is that, in effect, it would ratify the assumption that for purposes of morality true selves are uniform within each culture. But I, for one, have doubts abollt the wisdom of this assumption. Although it is plain that people have no choice but to assume a common

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stock of human interests when they are deciding how to treat strangersany other assumption would be an invitation to self-aggrandizing rationalization of the sort practiced by slave-owners who denied the humanity of their chattels-it is by no means obvious why this same assumption is appropriate in all interactions amongst intimates. Limiting morality to consideration of only those interests that people have in common closes off the possibility of a more subtle, more humane morality. As I understand it, the morality of rights is primarily a morality of selfdefense. It aims to protect people from aggression and severe deprivation. Paradoxicall)T, to protect people from these woefully commonplace assaults on their individual integrity, rights must disregard individuality and concentrate on a general concept of human dignity. But hardly anyone thinks that rights exhaust morality. Even KoWberg has conceded that his studies have investigated justice, that is, the part of morality that is most accessible to abstract reason (KoWberg 1982, 515-16). Accordingly, I take it to be uncontroversial that the ethic of rights stands in need of supplementation. If the ethic of rights tells us how we must act in order to respect people's fundamental human dignity, it is left to the ethic of care (or some other ethical theory) to tell us how we must act to respect people's individuality. People can have atypical interest profiles, and I see no reason why a conscientious agent should not take solid information about such idiosyncrasies into account, provided that no one's rights are violated. Moreover, people's close personal relationships can create special needs and interdependencies, which a conscientious person cannot ignore. To honor a person's distinctive qualities, while respecting this person's rights, is to morally address the whole of that individual's true self. To attend to one's own distinctive capacities and weaknesses, while refusing to allow the standards one sets for oneself to fall below the minimum set by others' rights, is to give moral expression to the totality of one's own true self. Intimacy belies the claims that people's true selves are uniform and that morality need only address those parts of people's true selves that they share with others. How rich a moral life people have depends on their willingness and ability to look beyond common humanity and respond to others' unique personalities. That socialization differentially sensitizes women to the particularities of individuals and situations no more impugns their autonomy than the fact that socialization inclines men to reach for impartiality impugns theirs.

MORAL AUTONOMY AND MORAL COMPETENCY

I have argued that no one's ethical view is independent of socialization and that basing one's ethics entirely on the assumption that all people

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have identical true selves impoverishes one's moral life. However, I have not yet confronted the question of whether the care perspective can sustail1. a form of moral reflection that can be dubbed autonomous. Against the possibility of autonoll1y within the care perspective, it could be pointed out that the care perspective relegates rules to a minor role and comproll1ises reason with emotional attachments. Since Kantian autonomy is secured tl1.rough adherence to rationally accepted rules, it is hard to see how exponents of the care perspective could be autonomous. In approaching this issue, it is important to keep in mind that the Kantian conception of autonomy is not definitive. Moral autonomy requires that people be ll10rally self-governing. I have already argued that adherence to rationally accepted impartial rules does not always guarantee that people will give full moral expression to their true selves. It is an open question whether some other mode of deliberation can provide a moral conduit for the true self. Prelimil1.ary to defending a conception of moral autonomy based on the care perspective, I shall examine Rawls's account of autonomy in more detail, for Rawls's moral epistemology allows for the possibility that his conception of reflective equilibrium is but one method of gaining moral autonomy. Rawls's account of autonomy starts from the assumption that all people have a sense of justice that enables them to form judgments about the justice of various practices (Rawls 1971, 46). The sense of justice is not foolproof. Such factors as self-interest, fear, and haste can yield distorted judgments (Rawls 1971, 47). However, under favorable circumstances, everyone is competent to assess the justice of actions and policies. In Rawls's view, a theory of justice is a set of principles that captures a person's considered cOl1.victions, that is, those judgments that the person affirms under favorable circull1stances (Rawls 1971, 46). Broadly speaking, moral rules articulate and systematize a person's underlying moral sense. Rawls compares people's moral sense with their sense of grammaticality (Rawls 1971, 47). Although tl1.ere are many disanalogies between Rawls's moral theory and Chomsky's linguistic theory, some of the analogies are illuminating. For Rawls, morality is the expression of a competency similar to a realized lil1.guistic competency, such as the ability to speak English, and a system of moral rules comprises a theory of a moral competency just as Englisl1. syntax and semantics explicate a linguistic competency. For my preSel1.t purposes, I propose to accept Rawls's insight that moral judgment depends on the exercise of a competency. But, in order to avoid beggil1.g any questions about autonomy, I shall sever my conception of moral competency from Chomsky's conception of .an innate system of rules and instead rely on the conception of a competency that we find in ordinary usage. Let us, then, understand a competency to be a

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repertory of coordinated skills that enables a person to perform a specified task. Supposing that Rawls is correct in thinking that moral conduct stems from a competency, I shall explore the role of rules in competent moral interaction and in moral autonomy. Kohlberg identifies moral conduct with following rules and holds that advanced moral stages are distinguished by gains in the agent's critical perspective on the rules. Thus, for Kohlberg, the most morally mature people not only grasp the theory that accounts for their moral compe. tency, but they also assess the merits of this theory and alter it to meet new contingencies. In Rawlsian parlance, they achieve reflective equilibrium (Kohlberg 1981, 195-97). Their principles in harmony with their considered judgments and their conduct in harmony with their principles, these people are morally autonomous-they act in accordance with self-chosen rules. My question is whether this is the only way moral competency can give rise to moral autonomy. Now, it is clear that, in general, people can be competent without being able to state the rules that govern their performances. I long ago forgot many of the grammatical rules my elementary school teachers worked so hard to inculcate, but I did not lose my ability to speak and write standard English. And, in any event, those rules never did codify all of the legitimate moves we can make in the course of communicating in standard English. So competency does not presuppose one's ability to expound the theory of the competency. In ethics, one of Gilligan's more interesting discoveries is that, given a choice, most people regard solutions stemming from the care perspective as better (Gilligan 1985). If you recall the solutions to the problem of the moles and the porcupine, I think you will be inclined to confirm this result. Presumably, adherents of the rights perspective who make such judgments will then set about revising their principles to accommodate their beliefs, but I shall not go into the question of whether the care perspective can be successfully grafted onto the rights perspective. What I want to focus on is the status of care-based solutions. Since people consider care-based solutions satisfactory even though most people do not come up with them first, it seems doubtful that care solutions are just lucky guesses. In other words, It seems reasonable to regard them as genuinepossibly superior-exercises of moral competency. Nevertheless, since they are not produced through the mediation of rationally adopted rules, it is not clear that these solutions are produced autonomously. From the standpoint of moral competency, two reasons to insist on moral codification stand out. In contexts in which predictability is importantinteraction with strangers and childrearing, for example-rules are needed, for mutual recognition of rules can foster stability and trust. Also, rules are indispensable when improvisation would lead to opprobrius solutions, or

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would only lead to satisfactory solutions erratically. If adherents of the care perspective had recommended that the moles anesthetize the porcupine and pluck its quills, we would bemoan their indifference to the porcupine's rights, and we would want them to embrace some rules. But as long as care-based solutions do not undermine trust or violate anyone's rights, it is immaterial whether or not the agent refers to rules in the process of deliberation, and it is immaterial whether or not the agent's solutions could be captured in a system of rules. Notice, also, that rules cannot fully account for solutions within the justice perspective. Among the well-established dicta of the justice perspective is one requiring us to tell the truth. Yet, honesty is no mechanical matter. In delicate situations, people can be tactfully candid or brutally frank, and brutal frankness can be morally condemnable. Yet, there may be no formula for generating the tactfully candid expression; it is left to the individual agent to invent it. Evidently, morality can require people to use their ingenuity in complying with rules. Thus, in several respects, the role of rules in moral competency can be sharply circumscribed. But what of moral autonomy? Are rules necessary there? It is arguable that rules playa more crucial role in moral autonomy because the autonomous person must be able to monitor her conduct to make sure that it matches her true self. The process of selecting a set of principles affords an occasion for people to examine their moral convictions and to decide what they really believe. Furthermore, the coherence requiren1ent implicit in Rawls's conception of reflective equilibrium can be understood as a standard indicating when a system of rules adequately embodies a person's true self. Thus, a rationally certified set of rules tells a person what she must do if her conduct is to express her true self, and the rules that a person embraces exhibit that individual's convictions in a readily usable fashion that makes it easy for her to check up on her conduct. To decide whether her actions express her true self, the individual need only n1easure them against the list of rules she has rationally chosen. From this sketch of Rawlsian autonomy, two necessary conditions for moral autonomy can be extracted. First, autonomous people must use some procedure to discover and, perhaps, to adjust the contents of their moral sense. Second, they must act in accordance with the results obtained by using this procedure. With respect to this second condition, it is clear that rationally certified rules are nothing more than a convenience. They simplify the agent's self-monitoring activities. However, it is doubtful that anyone can bypass rationally certified rules and still fulfill the first condition. For Rawls, the procedure whereby people discover the contents of their moral sense is the process of bringing their intuitions into reflective equilibrium with the principles they deduce in the original position. Does the care perspective supply any comparable procedure?

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I believe that the care perspective does include such a procedure. Instead of asking whether she has achieved reflective equilibrium, the exponent of the care perspective asks whether she can. take responsibility for this or that action. This alternative conception of autonomy could be challenged in two main ways. First, it could be objected that taking responsibility is not a procedure at all but rather an admission of accountability. Second, it could be urged that responsibility is too elastic a concept to be .used to distinguish right from wrong. I think that both of these charges can be ans·wered. The first of these criticisms rests on a misunderstanding. What I am suggesting is not that the mere act of avowing responsibility ensures moral autonomy. Plainly, we are sometimes responsible for acts that do not express our true selves and that we wholeheartedly regret. Rather, I am suggesting that the process of determining whether or not one could avow responsibility for an act while retaining one's self-respect may well ensure autonomy. Though it n1ay not be possible to formalize this process in the way that Rawls has distilled the process of impartial reason into the decision procedure of reflective equilibrium, responsibility reasoning is a process that is sensitive to morally relevant concerns and that provides a touchstone for assessing alternative moral solutions. In regard to the charge of excessive elasticity, it is necessary to recall that precisely the same charge has been leveled against Kant's universalizability criterion as well as Rawls's reflective equilibrium. Individuals who are genuinely unconcerned with their own welfare can sincerely universalize the most despicable practices. Likewise, Adina Schwartz has persuasively argued that Rawls's risk-averse agent will achieve reflective equilibrium over principles of justice befitting a liberal welfare state, whereas a less risk-averse individual will opt for libertarian principles (Schwartz 1981, 127-43). Admittedly, what people can feature themselves taking responsibility for depends on what sort of people they are, but this liability is one t11at this mode of reasoning shares with impartial reason. At this point, it might be conceded that there are no universally compelling arguments in ethics, yet it might be urged that any acceptable conception of moral autonomy must guarantee the elimination of the abomh1able solutions. The liberals and the libertarians cal1 harmlessly continue to bicker, but the Nazis must be put out of the rUill1.ing. Here, it might be argued that Rawls's explication of impartial reason fares better than any other proposal. Behind the veil of ignorance, no one knows whether she is a member of an oppressed minority; therefore, it would be foolish to agree to principles that would institutionalize discriminatory oppression. But here, again, there does not seem to be any way to prevent people with a very high tolerance for risk from taking a chan.ce that they will

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come out 011. top. It seems a foolish risk to me, but, without introducing moral appeals, I see no way to dissuade the Russian roulette enthusiasts among us. Accordingly, if the safeguards built into responsibility reasoning are no less effective than the veil of ignorance, which curbs unbridled self-interest in the original position, it seems to me that we can reject the charge of undue elasticity. Thus, we need to consider what safeguards operate in the process of responsibility reasoning. In responsibility reasoning, the individual's moral sense gains expression through an exercise in imaginative introjection. Instead of asking what one would believe if one were not in a position to skew arrangements to one's own advantage, one asks what choices are compatible with or reinforce desirable aspects of one's personal identity. Questions like "What would it be like to have done that?" and "Could I bear to be the sort of person who can do that?" are foremost. To answer these questions satisfactorily, the individual must be able to envisage a variety of solutions, n1ust be able to examine these solutions open-mindedly, must be able to imagine the likely results of carrying out these options, must be attuned to self-referential responses like shame and pride, must be able to critically examine these responses, and must be able to compare various possibilities systematically along sundry dimensions. Each of these abilities represents a complex skill, and, together, these skills equip the individual to make a choice by consulting her self. Thus, it is plausible to say that people who deliberate in this way are self-governing. In responsibility reasoning, the moral filter is the person's sense of her own identity. (For a related view, see Taylor 1976, 289-96.) To do violence to this sense of oneself is to undermine one's self-respect. Just as the parties to the original position have the incentive of maximizing their own self-interest under the constraints of the veil of ignorance, the responsibility reasoner has the incentive of preserving or enhancing her self-respect. Tl10ugh it cannot be denied that a base individual is unlikely to be converted to high n10ral ideals through responsibility reasoning-such a person may have no self-respect and may not miss it, or this person may gain self-respect through monstrous behavior-a basically decent individual is not likely to be tempted into monstrous behavior nor to choose a worse course of action by employing this mode of deliberation rather than impartial reason. If anything, obscuring morally suspect parts of the true self under the veil of ignorance may cripple moral invention. Tapping the true self directly, then, may encourage greater innovation and thereby promote better solutions. This may explain why people tend to prefer solutions issuing fron1. the care perspective. As with all competencies, the procedures of responsibility reasoning are just as good as the practitioner is skilled. And, as with impartial reason, responsibility reasoning relies onthe honesty and humanity of the delib-

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erator. What is necessary for moral autonomy is that the agent command some procedure for obtaining the guidance of the true self. Responsibility reasoning deploys a repertory of skills that anchor moral deliberation in the agent's personal identity without excluding any potentially relevant factors from consideration.

MORAL AUTONOMY AND CARE

If I am right about the viability of responsibility reasoning as a form of autonoll1Y, it follows th.at the care perspective supports moral autonomy without denying human connectedness. Bllt this observation may bring to mind another doubt about the autonomy of responsibility reasoning. By definition, giving care reqllires attending to others' interests and demands. Thus, it would seem that giving care entails subordinating one's own self to the selves of others and abrogating self-governance. This objection may seem more powerful than it is if one forgets that any moral view must serve as a curb on self-interest. No plausible moral position holds that moral autonomy is doing what you want to do regardless of others' needs and desires. Still, it ll1ight be countered that the care perspective does not merely curb self-interest; rather, it totally submerges self-interest. This reply overlooks two crucial facts. First, mature adherents of the care perspective embrace a dual injunction to be true to themselvestheir own needs and desires-while giving care to others. Caring need not be servile (Friedman 1985, 145). Second, a person can identify with the interests of others and therefore most want to secure those interests. Caring need not be self-sacrificial. Thus, the care perspective in no way neutralizes concern with one's self. I have argued that no form of autonomy can escape the charge that it is socially conditioned-that its adherents are reared to think the way they do. Furthermore, the care perspective and the rights perspective are both expressions of moral competency. Finally, I have urged that adherents of the care perspective use responsibility reasoning to deliberate and that this form of reasoning puts the individual in touch with her true self. Since these people's moral decisions stem from their selves, they are self-governing. Accordingly, I conclude that Kantian impartial reason is only one form of moral autonomy and that Carol Gilligan's research h.as alerted us to a second, equally tenable forll1.

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Moral Reflection: Beyond Impartial Reason

ecent developments in the account of the self offered in some quarters of moral and political philosophy have paralleled ones taking place in feminist theory. In both areas of inquiry, the conception of the self has undergone a corrective naturalization. Since both. interpersonal forces and intrapersonal forces belie the unity of the self, a fragmented self has displaced the rational monolith of the Kantian tradition. However, acknowledging the fragmented nature of the individual agent generates a novel set of problems. Pulled hither and yon by disparate, possibly incoherent influences, people no longer seem capable of critical moral judgment and firm moral conviction. The power of impartial reaSOl1 to resolve moral differences has often been exaggerated. In A Theory of Justice, for example, John Rawls proclaims his interpretation of the original position to be the philosophically preferred one and maintains that the parties to the original position would decisively reject utilitarianism and perfectionisn1 al1d opt for a rights-based welfare state (Rawls 1971, 17-18, 22). B"Llt it was not long before Robert Nozick invoked impartial reason to defend a libertarian. vision of justice (Nozick 1974). Since then, the challenges to Rawls's theory have multiplied, and Rawls eventually weakened his claims about the conclusivel1ess of his earlier arguments (Rawls 1985, 224). Impartial reason's record so far hardly warrants according it exclusive sway over the problem of social justice. There is little reason to think tl1at in1partial reason will ever bring the debate over justice to an end or, for that matter,

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that controversy over the nature of justice will ever cease. Moreover, there is little reason to think th.at privileging a single moral capacity will ensure better moral judgments. As everyone who is not a professional philosopher knows, people are endowed with an array of moral capacities which they routinely bring to bear on their moral perplexities. 1 Impartial reason holds moral reflection to consistency. Asking whether you would be willing to have others treat you as you propose to treat them, impartial reason bars conscious bias in favor of yourself or YOLlr kind along with conscious bias against others. But these forms of partiality are hardly the only forms of moral pathology. People can be so insensitive to others or so oblivious to their own emotional constitution that exercises in impartial reason yield morally grotesque judgments. Two psychoanalytic feminists, Nancy Chodorow and Julia Kristeva, address distortions in moral reflection sten1ming from these deficiencies, and in this essay I propose to consider the moral capacities that their scholarship highlights. Working in the object-relations tradition, Nancy Chodorow examines the process of internalizing emotionally charged relationships and the social self to which it gives rise. In contrast, for the Lacanian psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva's unconscious drives and repressed material unsettle people's speech and action and decenter the self. My contention is that our account of moral reflection will be impoverished unless it embraces the empathic capacities that Chodorow discerns in the social self along with the dissident capacities to which Kristeva's account of the decentered self alerts us. The moral capacities that Chodorow and Kristeva identify are integral to moral reflection, but moral philosophy has by and large overlooked them. I have selected the most widely known and the richest contemporary account of impartial reason., namely, John Rawls's neo-Kantian theory of reflective equilibrium, to use as a heuristic in developing my case for this view. In my estimation, Rawls's exclusive reliance 011 impartial reason leaves his conclusions about justice superficially defended, even in the eyes of those who are sympathetic to his liberal welfare state. Specifically, I will consider two of th.e most serious objections to his theory: (1) that impartial reason does not certify the just savings principle (nor, for that matter, the difference principle); and (2) that the coherence reqLlired by reflective equilibrium can camouflage and lend credence to arbitrary prejudice. I will urge that these objections could be answered if the moral relevance of en1.pathic and dissident capacities were admitted. Since it is widely believed that a singular advance of the Kantian tradition is its purging of nonrational considerations from moral reflection and choice, showing that en1.pathic and dissident capacities are implicated in this account of moral reflection would create a presumption that any convincing

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account of moral agency would have to include them. In place of Rawls's unidimensional moral deliberator, then, I will propose an inclusive view of moral subjectivity and th.e resources available to moral reflection. Before turning to my main line of argument, however, it is necessary to clarify its aims and its relation to feminist thought. I have indicated that I will advert to Rawls's theory of justice to present my position, but in view of the telling objections feminists have leveled against social contract theory (e.g., Baier 1987; Held 1987; Minow 1990; Young 1990), this may seem a questionable approach. In in1portant ways, I concur with these critiques. I agree, for example, that impartial reason and the social contract model with which impartial reason is commonly associated do not define the moral point of view. Still, I believe they should not be disn1issed altogether, for the injunction to treat like cases alike, which is the core of impartial reason, can be (and often has been) invoked to point up inequities that stand in urgent need of rectification (Meyers 1993). My objective, therefore, is not to find reasons to repudiate impartial reason but rather to argue that it is best viewed as part of a repertory of reflective capacities that also includes empathy-based reflection and dissident speech and that each of these capacities makes a distinctive contribution to moral reflection. Another criticism of Rawls targets the project of doing ideal theorythat is, setting out and defending principles that perfectly just societies wOllld follow. I agree that ideal theory misses the social realities of entrenched domination and oppression, offers inadequate guidance for eliminating those evils, and even obstructs social change by locking in place ostensibly neutral standards that in fact disadvantage some social groups. Nevertheless, it seems to me that Rawls's work is not entirely irrelevant to feminist concerns. Though feminists would undoubtedly delineate the class of the least advantaged members of society differently from the way Rawls does, there are good feminist reasons to defend a view of justice that focuses attention on this class as well as on the ll.eeds of future generations. While Rawls is mistaken to regard this view of justice as committing one to a hard-and-fast principle of distribution that Call. only be abrogated under conditions of extreme scarcity, his view does create a presumption of responsibility for the vulnerable. In view of the economic vulnerability of many women (and often of their children) as well as women's vulnerability to violence, feminists dismiss this presumption at their peril. Likewise, feminists have every reason to take an interest in deliberative strategies design.ed to overcome irrational resistance to inclusionary social practices. Though I shall urge that reflective equilibrium is not as powerful an antidote as we need, it is undeniable that one of the aims of performing this exercise is to uncover and conquer bias. Finally, I would like to urge that feminists should be interested in demonstrating that their theoretical insights are not limited in application

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to "women's" issues or to distinctively feminist theoretical constructs. On the contrary, I believe that many of the views developed in feminist moral and political philosophy have broad application and ought to be adopted by theorists of all stripes. Partly in order to promote this dissen1ination process, I have framed my argument in terms of a prominent nonfeminist theory of justice.

EMPATHY AND MORAL REFLECTION

Chodorow sees people as social in two respects. Most fundamentally, every infant is cared for by an adult or adults, and every person is shaped for better or worse by this nonvoluntary experience. However, that people are deeply influenced by their social surroundings does not have any direct moral consequences-that I grew up imbued with certain values does not entail that I should favor them, let alone hew to them, now (Friedman 1989,280-82). Still, there is a second sense in which Chodorow regards people as social that is itself morally significant and that Chodorow attributes to adequate nurturance. Chodorow's account of this second form of sociality turns on the relationship between caregivers and their children. A caregiver who is experienced as warmly solicitous is internalized as a "good internal mother" (Chodorow 1980, 10). The "thereness" of a good caregiver, says Chodorow, becomes an "internal sense of another who is caring and affirming," a sense of "self-in-good-relationship" (Chodorow 1980, 10). Cl1i1dren gain a sense of their own identity and worthiness by internaliziI1g the nurturance they receive and directing it toward themselves. Moreover, they learn to respect and to respond to other people by internalizing their experiel1ce of nurturance and projecting it toward others (Chodorow 1980, 11). Since it is empathy that enables caregivers to provide adequate care for childrel1 (Chodorow 1978, 87), it must be empathic skills that children in.ternalize and eventually learn to use in conducting their interpersonal relationships.2 Empathic capacities are social, for they enable one to understand people who are different from oneself, and they are moral, for they prepare one to respond to people's needs. For Chodorow, to lack empathic capacities is to have had a defective upbringing. Empathy must be distinguished from shrewdly sizing people up, on the one hand, and from sympathetic fusing with people, on the other. One may size someone up out of idle curiosity or perhaps preliminary to selfishly or cruelly manipulating that person. But empathizing with another presupposes some degree of concern for that person. This presumption of concern for the other has fostered a colloquial usage of the term "empathy" that equates it with sympathy. To sympathize with another is to

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share that person's feelings and intentions, and this willingness to join in another's feelings and intentions implies accepting them as appropriate. Paradigmatically, bereavement elicits sympathy. But misplaced sympathy gives rise to sentimentality and worse. Sympathizing with a bad person aids and abets that person's aims. Empathy places a little more distance between people than does sympathy, but not as much distance as sizing people up does. To empathize with another is to construct in imagination an experience resembling that of the other person. As Adrian Piper puts it, empathy enables one to "viscerally comprehend the [other's] inner state" without being "possessed" by it (Piper 1991, 735-37). Though the vividness of empathic imaginings is often moving, empathizers do not conflate these imaginings with their own experience (Goldman 1992, 29). Now it may be that the two usages of the term "empathy" that I describe are so pervasive that it would be more accurate to say that there are two senses of this term. Still, it is important to mark the distinction between sharing another person's feelings and imaginatively reconstructing another person's feelings. 3 Rather than relying on cumbersome neologisms, I will use the term "sympathy" for the former and "empathy" for the latter. It is important to recognize that although one draws on one's stock of emotional experience to empathize with another, empathy is defeated if one simply projects one's own characteristic emotional responses onto the other. Indeed, prematurely claiming to empathize with someone can seem infuriatingly presumptuous to the misunderstood and perhaps silenced recipient of one's ostensible empathy (for related discussion of "boomerang perception," see Spelman 1988, 12). To empathize well, it is often necessary to hold one's bounteous emotions in check and to mobilize one's powers of attentive receptivity and analytic discernment. Particularly when the other's background or circumstances are very different from one's own, empathy may require protracted observation and painstaking imaginative reconstruction of the minutiae of the other's viewpoint. In imaginatively experiencing another's state of mind, one incurs a risk that one will succumb to the other's influence and come to identify with that point of view. Nevertheless, empathy by no means entails sharing the other's point of view or endorsing the other's state of mind. Still, like sympathy and unlike sizing people up, empathy is premised on concern for the other. Empathy resembles sympathy inasmuch as we usually reserve our empathic exertions for people we like and with whom we hope to maintain relationships. Nevertheless, empathy also resembles sizing others up inasmuch as nothing in principle bars one from empathizing with someone for whom one feels no affection. Psychotherapists and social workers do not always like their clients. Indeed, they may find a

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client's values or conduct repugnant. Presumably, social 'tVorkers who counsel convicted woman-batterers are repelled by their clients' mentality, yet to do their work well they must empathize with these men. Plairlly, their empathy does not condone woman-battery or the state of mind tl'lat gives rise to it. Still, such empathy would l'lOt be possible unless these professionals were capable of feeling concern for their clients. Of course, empathic experience of another could subsequently lead one to distance oneself decisively from the other or to seek communion with tIle other. But neither disinterested curiosity about l'lOr ready immersion in another's subjective life supports empathy. Empathy is grounded in a protomoral knowledge-seeking fellow feeling for other persons. Deprived of empathic capacities, not only would one be unable to discern what characteristics of a particular situation call for a moral response, but also one would be unable to discover in general what considerations are morally significant and how one ought to behave in response to acknowledged moral considerations. What one personally cares about is not a sufficient basis for moral judgment. Although a white male professor of engineering from a middle-class U.S. family may sincerely affirm that he does not mind jokes about bourgeois white men, that unflappability does not authorize him to pepper his lectures with jocular wisecracks about the high frequency with which women fail his course. Yet, no argument from impartial reason could by itself persuade him that such conduct is morally objectionable. It will not help to tell him that some of the women in his classes are crushed by his remarks and that refraining from such humor follows from the higher order principle forbidding us to harm others-a principle that he presumably does accept. For without empathic understanding of these students, he may reasonably question whether these insecurities are the sort of vulnerabilities that a conscientious moral agent ought to be shielding. He may dismiss norms of sensitivity and supportiveness as reinforcing needless and undesirable weaknesses. But further, without empathic understanding of the students, the professor could never discover whether his behavior is proving counter~ productive as measured by his own values. His students may not be getting any tougher, though they may be doing poorly in l'lis course; or they may be toughening up, but at the cost of losing desirable qualities in the process. 4 If morality is not reducible to consistently imposing on others one's personality, its ins·ularity or disorders notwithstanding, empathy is indispensable to il'loral reflection. People cannot act morally without understandiI'lg the impact of their conduct on others. 5 One may believe that others should l'lOt feel as they do. Nevertheless, one cannot make recognizably moral choices unless one takes people's actual feelings into account. It is one thing to seek by morally acceptable means to change people's feelings; it is another to

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trample on them with abandon. Furthermore, without empathic familiarity with a wide range of human experience, one is hardly in a position to determine how people ought or ought not to feel. But the role of empathic understanding is not limited to anticipating how one's actions will affect others. People need empathy in order to conceive moral ideals for themselves, for empathy furnishes opportunities to learn from exemplary people. By empathizing with their feelings and desires in difficult situations, one may encounter superior ways of responding, and one may set about trying to emulate them.

THE ROLE OF EMPATHY IN RAWLS'S DEFENSE OF THE JUST SAVINGS PRINCIPLE

At one point in A Theory ofJustice, Rawls flirts with an empathic approach to moral reflection. In his exposition of the motivation for the just savings principle-the requirement that each generation set aside some of its resources in order to furnish the next generation with sufficient wealth to maintain the institutions of a just society-Rawls rejects the suggestion that people have natural obligations to their children (Rawls 1971, 128). But he goes on to say that the parties to the original position should be construed as "heads of families" who want "to further the welfare of their nearest descendants" (Rawls 1971, 128). In this way, Rawls notes, a series of overlapping generational interests is established, or, as I would prefer to put it, parents sympathize with their children, who in turn sympathize with their children, and so forth. Elsewhere, however, Rawls entertains a formulation more in keeping with his monistic commitment to impartial reason. Since the veil of ignorance prevents the parties from knowing what generation they belong to, they must choose a savings principle that would be acceptable to them-whether as savers or as beneficiaries of previous savings-wherever in history they find themselves (Rawls 1971, 287). The second formulation, I contend, will not necessarily yield a unanimous verdict regarding a savings principle. But the first formulation is only tenable if impartial reason yields to empathy. An empathic response on the part of all deliberators to the members of future generations must supplant the sympathetic parent-child bond. Moreover, an empathybased alternative to impartial reason must replace the deduction from the original position. With regard to savings, the best possible situation for self-interested people is to inherit far more wealth than is needed for a decent existence and to be free to use all of it. The only way Rawls contemplates to bring about this outcome is to shun any savings principle, that is, to take one's

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chances that one will live during an affluent period and to be prepared to endure wretched poverty without resentment should that prove to be one's lot. Though this is a highly risky position to adopt-if others share it, it seems likely that people will seldom live commodiously-there is no reason why a person with a high tolerance for risk could not elect this option. After all, your progerlitors might have voluntarily bequeathed great wealth to you, and you would be absolved of any responsibilities to subsequent generations. Still, Rawls maintains that high-rolling gambling is not rational in the original position, and perhaps no one would finally hold out against all savings principles. But now it is important to recognize that Rawls's just savings principle is not the sole remaining alternative. There is an intermediate principle that I will call the trigger savings principle. The trigger savings principle obliges people who procreate to contribute a fair portion of their earnings to a fund set aside for future generations. This principle is designed to allay both the fears of the current generation that their life prospects will be seriously diminished by their responsibilities to future generations and also the fears of future generations that their lives will be impoverished by th.e profligacy of earlier ones. Since no one knows when he or she will live, th.e parties to the origin.al position are motivated to protect the interests of all generations. The trigger savings principle strikes a compromise. People who now choose to have children do so knowing that they must bear the burden of providing for the welfare of their progeny; people who will be born later are assured that they will not inh.erit a world of extremely depleted resources. But since saving for future generations is contingent on voluntary choices about reproduction, no one will be forced to pay for future people whom they do not care about. If one prefers, one is free to spend all of one's wealth on self-interested projects or on charitable enterprises that will OI1.ly benefit contemporaries. It might be urged that the trigger savings principle is ruled out by the formal constraints Rawls imposes on choice in the original position. In particular, Rawls requires that principles be general, that is, tl1.at they be formulated without "proper names or rigged definite descriptions," and that they be universal in application, that is, that they constrain people "in virtue of their being moral persons" (Rawls 1971, 131-32). It is not altogether clear what these criteria exclude. Rawls explicitly states that generality eliminates forms of egoism that single out one person to don1.inate otl1.ers or to take advantage of others (Rawls 1971, 136). Also, Rawls explains that universality eliminates principles that classify people according to such nonoptional categories as hair color or class situation (Rawls 1971, 132).6 But there is no reason to believe that principles, especially Sllbsidiary principles like the one governing savings, that classify people in

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ways that are under their control would be incompatible with generality or universality. Indeed, Rawls maintains that the principle of fairness dictates that people who have assumed closer ties to the political system and who have as a result obtained greater benefits from it have an obligation to obey their society's laws, as opposed to a mere duty to uphold just institutions wherever they may be found (Rawls 1971, 344, 376). Similarly, it might be argued that in a society that n1akes contraception and abortion available to all, parenthood is a voluntary state and that the principle of fairness commits parents-the people who reap the primary benefits of the institution of parenthood-to investing in the welfare of future generations. It seems, then, that generality and universality would countenance the trigger savings principle. Neither rationality under the veil of ignorance nor any formal constraint on the principles of justice compels the parties to the original position to adopt Rawls's just savings principle. Rawls is right, then, to think that his savings principle requires an intergenerational conception of the moral agent. Unless deliberators are connected to future generations and have reason to invest in their welfare, no n10ral mandate for just savings can be secured. Yet it is not readily apparent what an intergen.erational conception of the agent involves. Rawls, I think, obscures what is at stake by characteriziI1g the parties to the original position as "heads of families." Despite Rawls's talk of what fathers would want to provide for their sons, it is plainly not customary practices of passing on wealth to one's children that support his just savings principle (Rawls 1971, 289).7 Moreover, in the absence of a claim that having children is natural, normal, or obligatory and therefore that it is reasonable to cast all of the parties to the original position in the role of parents, Rawls's formulation betokens the voluntarist latitude of the trigger savings principle rather than the universal compulsion of the just savings principle. If Rawls is to defend his just savings principle, he must maintain that all of the parties to the original position would empathize with future people-they would be concerned about and would seek to comprehend the interests of future generations. s Susan Moller Okin argues that Rawls must rely on empathy and benevolence to justify religious liberty and the difference principle (Okin 1989, 244-46). Her arguments demonstrating the deficie11cies of Rawls's use of rational choice theory under the veil of ignorance are equally telling against his defense of the just savings principle and lend additional support to the arguments I have given here. It seems, however, that Okin does not appreciate how radical the metath.eoretical implications of her argument are. Okin denies that we must choose between an eth.ic of justice and an ethic of care (Okin 1989, 238). In one respect, she is right. It is a mistake for an ethic of care to jettison the value of justice, and it is a mistake for an

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ethic of justice to jettison feelings of care (for a reconceptualization of justice in the context of an ethic of care, see Ruddick 1992; for an account of the compatibility of Kantianism and affection, see Herman 1990). As Carol Gilligan puts it, U[J]ustice and care ... are not opposites or mirror-images of one all0tl1er, with justice llncaring and care llnjust" (Gilligan 1987, 22). But none of this entails that there is no real difference between an ethic of justice and an ethic of care or that these two ethics can be smoothly blended into a single unified approach to moral reflection. In fact, what Okin's argument shows is how completely the introduction of empathy into moral reflection eclipses impartial reason.. Okin's strategy is to retain Rawls's conception of the original position but to purge rational choice theory from it. Once this is done, what is left of impartial reason? Gone is the claim that the principles of justice are mandates of reason. Okin replaces rational choice theory with empathy and benevolence. Gone is the subject of justice who desires only primary social goods. Okin stresses that empathy is sensitive to the diversity of human desires (Okin 1989, 245). Gone is the fiction that the parties to the original position do not know what matters to them or where they stand socially and economically (Okin 1989, 248). Okin construes the veil of ignorance as a representation of the value of impartiality, and she interprets the value of impartiality as the requirement that the parties to the original position empathize in turn with each person to whom the principles of justice will apply (Okin 1989, 244). Okin's reconstruction shrinks the grand abstractions and breathtaking deductions of Rawls's neo-Kantian apparatus to the truism that justice requires equal consideration of each. The method of impartial reason has been vacated and sllpplanted by an empathy-based alternative. This empathy-based method of moral reflection is a method that is alien. to the ethic of justice but strongly associated with the ethic of care. 9 Thu.s OkiI1 does not succeed in synthesizing the ethic of justice with the ethic of care. Rather she rejects the ethic of justice in favor of a version of the eth.ic of care that includes a commitment to equal consideration of each witl1 respect to issues of distributive justice. Now it is important to be clear that empathy is not by itself a method of moral reflection. Empathy furnishes information about other people. Moreover, the attitude of concern that undergirds empathy ensures that our imaginative reconstructions of others' sllbjectivity will be charitable, not hostile, in. spirit, and this concern undoubtedly disposes empathizers to heed moral considerations in decidh'lg how to treat those they empathize with. Indeed, I would conjecture that the concern that motivates empathy al'ld the vividness of imaginative reconstructions are mutually reinforcing and that the resulting synergy renders empathy particularly well adapted to the purposes of moral reflection. Still, understanding

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other people and being concerned about their well-being does not tell one what principles to adopt or how one ought to act. If it is true th.at some issues of justice, such as the problem of justice between generations, cannot be resolved without relying on empathy, and if it is also true that relying on empathy to justify principles displaces impartial reason, some other moral filter must be found. There is not room here to present an alternative approach to moral reflection (for an account of the alternative I endorse, Meyers 1994).10 But let me sketch a framework for developing an empathy-based approach to moral reflection that is capable of selectin.g the just savings principle over the trigger savings principle. Plainly, an empathy-based approach to moral reflection must not betray insights gained through empathy. Despite appearances, this is not a trivial requirement, for it follows both that the deliberator's own profile of needs and desires must not be ensconced as a model of personhood and also that preferences do not have moral authority simply because large numbers of people share them. Taking one's own needs and desires to be universal and to define personhood cancels out empathy with people who are different from oneself. Taking the preferences of the majority of people to delimit the range of morally permissible conduct cancels out empathy with exceptional individuals. In a more positive vein, making empathy central to moral inquiry implies a responsibility to be alert to others' needs an.d to fashion responses informed by one's empathic understanding of those needs. It would seem, then, that empathy-based moral reflection would militate against diluting or delegating personal responsibility. As Martha C. Nussbaum puts the point, quoting Henry James, this is an. approach to moral reflection that prompts moral subjects to be "finely aware and richly responsible" (Nussbaum 1990, 37). It seems doubtful, then, that deliberators who are endowed with empathjc capacities would be drawn to a voluntarist principle like the trigger savings principle. They would be concerned about the well-being of future generations, an.d they would appreciate what it would be like barely to survive and to live "tInder the constant threat of economic collapse an.d ecological disaster. In addition, they would be concerned about the well-being of their own generation, and they would understand how painful it is to want to have children but to be unable to do so. Thus they would 11.0t be disposed to adopt a principle that would exempt them from helping to prevent these doleful eventualities. ll If not, introducing empathic capacities into his account of moral subjectivity would en.able Rawls to defend the just savings principle more persuasively against various libertarian challenges. The defense of the just savings principle and, I might add, the defense of the difference principle require that people who are disposed to gamble

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with their lives and who are disinclined to depend on others be convinced that their attitudes should not prevail. Without empathy, it is difficult to see how the universalized self-interest of a reckless individualist psychology could be countered. Thus, commitment to the redistributive tenets of Rawlsian justice cannot rest solely on impartial reason. More generally, I would urge that Rawls's assumption that a just society is one in which people cooperate for their mutual benefit implies that empathy makes an important contribution to moral reflection. Only througll empathy can one ascertain whether a conception of justice ll1eets this standard.

PREJUDICE, IMPARTIAL REASON, AND CONFLICTS BETWEEN PRINCIPLES AND CONSIDERED CONVICTIONS

I now turn to another objection that has been lodged against Rawls's theory of justice-the charge of excessive plasticity in his conception of reflective equilibriull1. Rawls assumes that unconscious prejudices often cloud our moral judgment and that we can combat these pernicious influences by subjecting them to the scrutiny of impartial reason-that is, by performing the thought experiment of the deduction from the original position. Yet Rawls maintains that when one generates principles that fail to coincide with one's considered convictions-the moral judgments one accepts after pondering them under favorable conditions-one must either modify one's principles or adjust one's considered convictions in order to bring them into alignment. But since Rawls gives us no criteria or procedure for deciding which strategy to adopt, his advice has led to the charge that reflective equilibrium allows us to doctor our principles to suit our prejudices. If we are allowed to resurrect unconscious prejudices under the guise of considered convictions, it is plain that impartial reason cannot extirpate them. It seems, then, that the exercise of reflective equilibrium serves merely to rationalize and reinforce people's preconceptions, odious though they may be. By analyzing considered convictions exclusively in terms of impartial reason, I will urge, Rawls deprives himself of a satisfactory account of how to address conflicts between principles and considered convictions and also of how an established reflective equilibrium can be propitiously destabilized. For Rawls, considered convictions are those judgments that most reliably reveal a person's sense of justice; they are judgments that are untainted by distorting conditions, such as haste, fear, or conflict of interest (Rawls 1971, 47). In other words, they are moral judgments that meet traditional standards of impartiality and rationality. Yet Rawls acknowledges that intuitions that are confidently affirmed after calm and careful reflection can l1.evertheless prove to be ll1.isguided. Indeed, Rawls thinks - - - - - - - - - _ . _ - -

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that people may be moved to modify their considered convictions in light of the principles they obtain in the original position (Rawls 1971, 48). Again, impartial reason constrains untutored moral judgment. Still, since Rawls also recognizes that people can err in deducing principles from the original position, he does not maintain that considered convictions tl1at conflict with those principles should always yield. Yet Rawls appears to thirlk that once we have derived a set of principles from the original position and checked our intuitions for disqualifying factors, we have no further moral recourse (Rawls 1971, 51). Thus, when principles fail to mesh with considered convictions, it is often arbitrary whether one alters one's principles to suit one's considered convictions or transforms one's considered convictions to fit one's principles (Rawls 1971,20). Rawls's repertory of moral concepts and reasoning skills allows people to enla.rge the purview of their principles, to qualify their principles with exceptions, or to arrange their values hierarchically. But it is sometimes baffling whether an adjustment is called for or which sort of adjustment is in order. Consider the problem of gender. With the benefit of hindsight, the contradiction between universal human rights and the disenfranchisement of women seems obvious. Yet I imagine that in the nineteenth century many people found the thought of women voters preposterous. Wl1at might rattle a person's considered conviction that women do not belong in politics and enable a person to perceive that the principle of universal suffrage sl10uld be extended to women? It goes without saying that the publicity surrounding the suffrage movement helped to disengage people from their habitual ways of thinking about gender. Moreover, once the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, most people gradually became inured to the practices it authorized. But while it is undeniable that social and political developments influence people's moral beliefs, what is at issue is moral justification. Thus the question is how we are to test the considered convictions we bring to bear on questions of gender. Rawls's theory offers three possible approaches: an argument from the formal constraint of llniversality, an argull1ent from ll1aximiI1, and an argument from the difference principle. Since Rawls maintains tl1at the formal constraint of universality rules out classification according to special biological characteristics (Rawls 1971, 132), the considered conviction that voting is unseemly for women might be rejected on the grounds that it violates universality. But it seems improbable that people who sincerely believed in the propriety of women's confinement to the domestic sphere would have been dissuaded from opposing women's suffrage on purely formal grounds; it seems more likely that they would have questioned this application of the requirement of llniversality. On an issue of this mOll1ent, a substantive argull1ent seems

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to be in order. Thus one might expect Rawls to dispose of classification by sex by adverting to maximin. Not knowing whether they will turn out to be female or male, the argument would go, the parties to the original position would protect their interests by rejecting discriminatory classification by sex and endorsing equal rights for women and men. 12 However, this argument fails to address the antisuffragist's conviction that women and men are different and will not find satisfaction in identical roles. Apparently Rawls finds these lines of argument no more persuasive than I have claimed the opponent of women's suffrage would, for he does not unequivocally reject sex-based inequalities. Discussing the problem of identifying relevant social positions for purposes of implementing the difference principle, he suggests that fixed, nonvoluntary characteristics, such as sex, race, and culture, might demarcate social positions that this principle should take into account. Though he contends that multiplying relevant social positions in this way is ill advised, he maintains that if there are to be any institutionalized sex inequalities, they must be certified by the difference principle-that is, they must redound to the benefit of the disadvantaged, namely, women (Rawls 1971, 99). Unfortunately, where controversy is alive, but tradition is strong, this requirement is not sufficient to pick out reliable considered convictions. During the suffrage debate, both sides fielded arguments conforming to the approach Rawls recommends (Kraditor 1965). Proponents of women's suffrage urged that women needed a voice in governmel1t for the same reasons as men-so that their status as rational subjects would be respected and so that their wisdom would infuse public policy. Opponents of the suffrage initiative argued that the fair sex with its precious and distinctive virtues was best served by being shielded from the vulgarity and htlrly-burly of politics. Women remain divided on the issue of protectionism to this day. While some welcome the opportunity to join the fray of public life, others relish the cosseting of the traditional feminine role. 13 Similarly, before gaining the vote, some women regarded their disenfranchisement as a crippling limitation, but many others, along with the legions of men who scorned women's suffrage, regarded equal rights as a calamity from which women would never recover. It seems, then, that deliberations about how to apply the difference principle to women's voting rights would have proved inconclusive. Moreover, it is doubtful that people's considered convictions would have settled the matter in favor of equal rights. Many of those inclined to see benefits for women in unequal rights believed, and believed adamantly, that politicking and voting were irredeemably unbecoming to womel1. Likewise, I suspect that many of the early proponents of women's full political participation initially shared this considered conviction and had to struggle with themselves to overcome it. As Rawls

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would put it, they faced an inconsistency between their principles and their considered convictions. Why should they resolve the inconsistency by eschewing their considered convictions about femininity? Those suffragists whose considered convictions did not clash with their principles had aberrant considered convictions. Why not cede these newfangled ideas about women's rights and acquiesce in the status quo? Accepted principles and values could not be adduced to decide which route to take, for the scope of th.ese very precepts was at issue. Kathryn Pyne Addelson understands such impasses as revolutionary moments, . and she likens moral revolution to the paradigm shifts that Thomas Kuhn invoked to explain scientific revolutions. Moral revolutionaries, such as the proponents of women's suffrage, can call for change, but they cannot justify the changes they advocate because the vision of social relations they are advancing is incommensurable with accepted principles and accepted interpretations of those principles (Addelson 1991,21-24). For Addelson, then, moral revolutionaries must create values by re-creating themselves (Addelson 1991, 29-31). They must conceive anew what it is to be a person, and their judgments of value and their choices nlust be filtered through that conception. Addelson is right not to underestimate the profundity and the difficulty of transforming moral perception. I think, however, that her view of moral justification is unduly narrow and that the narrowness of her view causes her to overlook an approach to justification that is available to moral revolLltionaries. Apparently, Addelson subscribes to what Margaret Walker calls the "theoretical-juridical model" of moral theory (Walker 1992, 28). Stressing codification and application of general principles, this model certifies a proposition as morally justified if it can be deduced from an accepted action-guiding principle or set of principles in conjunction with noncontroversial interpretations of relevant facts. Clearly, this is not a model of moral justification that can accommodate radical moral innovation. Yet Addelson herself speaks of the role of human need in shaping facts and the role of reconstituted facts in shaping theory (Addelson 1991, 26). In the next section, I shall follow up Addelson's cue and suggest that intinlations of unrecognized and unmet needs provide a point of departure for moral reflection and a check on deficient considered convictions.

FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE AND CRITICAL MORAL REFLECTION

According to Julia Kristeva, political and economic arrangements dictate patterns of repression-children are customarily brought up to deny some of their experience, while institutions withhold outlets for certain

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types of desire. 14 Repression walls off certain needs and renders them inaccessible to consciousness except in disguised forms. On the one hand, repression channels behavior in ways that make social cooperation possible. But on the other hand, it gives rise to compulsions that limit people's possibilities for fulfillment and to animus toward others that sometimes erupts abusively. In moral reflection, these compulsions can surface in the form of complicity in one's own oppression, and these animosities can surface in the form of staunch support for the oppression of others. Bigoted preconceptions can infect well-intentioned attempts to empathize with others, and, as I have argued, impartial reason is not a reliable antidote for the corruption of emotionally entrenched prejudice. Since neither impartial reason nor empathy is secure until the effects of social repression have been addressed, Kristeva turns inward and directs our attention to the need for intrapersonal insight. Since repressed needs are deeply disturbing and potentially dangerous, she recommends the medium of figurative language to decode and subdue them. In Strangers to Ourselves, Kristeva explicates the psychological dynamic underlying the phenomenon of xenophobia: [T]hat which is strangely uncanny would be that which was (the past tense is important) familiar and, under certain conditions (which ones?), emerges. A first step was taken that removed the uncanny strangeness from the outside, where fright anchored it, to locate it inside, not inside the familiar considered as one's own and proper, but the familiar potentially tainted with strangeness and referred (beyond its imaginative origin) to an improper past. The other is my ("own and proper") unconscious. (Kristeva 1991, 183)

Here the reference of the term "other" is double: (1) it is that part of one's infantile experience that one is obliged to repudiate and repress in order to demarcate psychic and corporeal boundaries, and (2) it is the foreigner to one's social group who demands admission to one's society but who refuses to assimilate. One hates foreigners, according to Kristeva, because they remind one of the unassimilable material that must remain expelled from one's conscious subjectivity if one's sense of identity is to remain intact and also of the permeability of the borders between conscious and unconscious life and therefore the fragility of one's precious sense of identity. A baleful defense mechanism, prejudice converts anguish about the "stranger within" into attacks on the members of "strange" social groups. Repressed needs are transformed into hate. To counteract virulent prejudice, Kristeva recommends a "cosmopolitanism of a new sort that ... might work for a mankind whose solidarity is founded on the consciousness of its unconscious" (Kristeva 1991, 192). Following Kristeva, Iris Young advocates becoming "more comfortable with the heterogeneity within ourselves" (Young 1990, 153).15 But need-

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less to say, people cannot just decide to accept that they are not masters in their own houses, to echo Freud's classic turn of phrase. Not only is a substantial degree of unity necessary if one is to function successfully in society, but also one cannot easily abdicate coherent subjectivity and enjoy heterogeneity, for the defenses that protect coherent subjectivity are deeply ingrained. Still, that vague but persistent discontent often precipitates innovative and fruitful moral reflection suggests that such reflection is often rooted in nonconscious materials and that it would be a mistake to dismiss Kristeva's approach. On Kristeva's view, everyday disruptions of identity and intentionality signal the intrusion of nonconscious materials into conscious life and constitute an implicit critique of the repression society enforces as well as the social norms that presuppose this repression. It is the task of social dissidents to confront these intrusions and to offset their deleterious moral ramifications. Calling on dissidents to "give voice to each individual form of the unconscious, to every desire and need," Kristeva attributes a vital progressive potential to nonconscious materials (Kristeva 1986, 295-96). Tapping the unconscious not only enhances self-understanding but also sparks moral and political regeneration, for it is possible to uncover and come to terms with repressed material, and doing so neutralizes its harmful effects. Of course, Kristeva denies that nonconscious materials can simply be released from repression. If these materials are to serve as moral resources, their sexual determinants, especially the cruel and violent ones, must be dissolved, usually, in her view, through psychoanalysis (Kristeva 1980, 145). Thus Kristeva characterizes psychoanalytic therapy and the exploration of transference love that takes place there as a journey toward an "ethics of respect for the irreconcilable" (Kristeva 1991, 182). For Kristeva, the aim is not to relinquish coherent subjectivity altogether but rather to become a "questionable subject-in-process"-a subject capable of alternating between the indispensable illusion of unified, agentic subjectivity, on the one hand, and attending to the outcroppings of nonconscious material that bedevil conscious life, on the other (Kristeva 1980, 135-37, 1987a 380; 1987b, 9). On Kristeva's view, psychoanalytic interpretation facilitates coming to terms with nonconscious materials by fashioning new metaphors for them (Kristeva 1987a, 10,276). For this reason, psychoanalysis numbers among the "aesthetic practices"-practices through which nonconscious materials are figuratively articulated (Kristeva 1986, 210; 1991, 189-90). Although psychoanalytic refigurations seek to free analysands from the stultifying meanings that have become annexed to their experiences, nonconscious materials and the tropes that give expression to them still resonate with desires that must remain unfathomable for a coherent subject. Psychoanalysis never domesticates the unconscious. What aesthetic practices can accomplish is to articulate these

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nonconscious materials in a form amenable to pleasurable contemplation. Sustaining the "questionable subject-in-process" in this way, aesthetic practices defuse threats to the individual that become the pretext for prejudice when they are deflected onto others. Elsewhere, Kristeva identifies aesthetic practices with cultural dissidence, and she co·unts rebels, psychoan.alysts, writers, exiles, and, surprisingly, women as dissidents (Kristeva 1986, 295-98, 300; for discussion of Kristeva's views about women as dissidents, see Meyers 1992, 146-51). To stress the role of aesthetic practices in critical moral reflection a.l1.d to do so in terms that are in keeping with Kristeva's account, I will call the activity of giving benign figurative expression to nonconscious materials that would otherwise distort moral judgment "dissident speecl1.." Now I want to emphasize that one need not embrace tl1.e psychoanalytic interpretive schema-that is, one need not renounce one's skepticism about penis envy or the Oedipus complex-to appreciate the role of repressed desire in motivatiI1g social dissent and the potential of psychoanalysis to extend our "understanding of moral reflection. Almost from the inception of psychoanalysis, its adherents have been generating variants, and these variants are perennially and often stridently contested. In calling attention to the way in which nonconscious materials subvert moral reflection, I am not endorsing any of these interpretive systems. Nor, for that matter, am I advocating universal psychoanalytic therapy or pop autoanalysis. The privatization and elitism implicit in Kristeva's psychoanalytic conception of dissidence must be resisted. Endorsing the idea of "social therapy" bllt dismissing mass psychoanalysis as impractical, Iris Young calls for creating public forums and accessible media in which this "therapy" can be conducted, and she points to consciousness-raising as an egalitarian practice that anticipates the sort of context needed to develop and assess novel social interpretations (YOUl1.g 1990, 153).16 Young's proposals for politicizing and democratizing cultural interpretation are promising. However, it is important not to neglect Kristeva's suggestions about the rhetoric of interpretation. Figurative narrative-a rhetorical mode that psychoanalysts have used evocatively and incisively-suggests a n10del wortl1. adapting for purposes of grappling with nonconscious materials. The legacy of contempt for and hatred of "different" social groups does not vanish wl1.en people become consciously committed to principles of equality and fairness. As Young observes, this legacy survives in people's reflexive aversive responses to members of these groups (Young 1990, 142). In addition, it is encoded in imagery that outlasts the political doctriI1.es that the imagery originally served. The liberalization of avowed political beliefs notwithstanding, this figurative residue continues to struc-

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ture perceptions and expectations and hence moral judgment. Dissident speech prompts people to discard inveterate ways of framing issues and introduces counterimagery designed to rid moral reflection of the vestiges of prejudiceY Consider again the case of the gender issues first raised by the women's suffrage movement and still under discussion today. What are generally taken to be the facts about gender within a given culture are encoded in captivating systems of imagery. In individual figures of speech-e.g., women as babes, dolls, or chicks. And also in myths and cautionary tales populated by protagonists who represent ideals of womanhoode.g., the beatific mother-or who express prevalent attitudes toward womanhood-e.g., the sinister witch. These images and narratives condense complex behavioral and psychological imperatives into memorable, emotionally compelling figures. As such, they function as a kind of shorthand in which gender norms are crystallized and through which gender norms are embedded in the "geology of desire" (I borrow a phrase from Barbara Herman 1990, 787). Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that these figures fossilize these norms, for they integrate gender norms into the corpus of common sense, shield them from criticism, and render them highly resistant to change (de Beauvoir 1989, ch. 9; Kittay 1988). A danger of figurative language, warns William Carlos Williams, is that it can make up minds like beds. What strikes me about culturally entrenched figurations of gender, however, is that they violate everything that literature teachers ever taught me about the value of figurative language. I learned and I still believe that great poetry cannot be adequately paraphrased, for the richness of its imagery supports multiple interpretations that can be elaborated indefinitely. Though one must be cautious about romanticizing figurative language, it seems clear that among its virtues is the capacity to rupture familiar cognitive and emotional templates. Dissident speech capitalizes on this virtue. Whereas culturally entrenched figurations of gender lock perception and feeling into reflexive, standardized patterns, dissident speech refigures gender. In so doing, it displays properties of people that have gone unremarked, and it projects possible constellations of their relationships that have not heretofore been appreciated. In short, dissident speech baffles routinized thinking and bestirs improvisational thinkingreceptive, generous attention to oneself or others; probing yet playful imagination; acute yet synthetic interpretation. Many feminist theorists have embraced dissident speech and featured counterimagery in their writing. The psychoanalytic feminist work of Luce Irigaray and Jessica Benjamin as well as that of Chodorow and Kristeva represents a sustained and variegated attempt to deploy the figurative rhetoric that Freud pioneered in the service of emancipatory ends.

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Likewise, Judith Butler's treatment of female impersonation as guerilla theater (Butler 1990, 137), Kathryn Morgan's satirical proposals for disfiguring plastic surgery (Morgan 1991,46-47), and Drucilla Cornell's call for reclaiming mythic feminine figures (Cornell 1991, 146-47) reflect a recogrlition on the part of feminists of just how deeply ingrained gender is, how hard it is to combat these categories, and how powerful an ally dissident speech is in this battle. Here it might be objected that dissident speech presents alternative figurations bllt there is no way of assessing their relative merits. Chacun a son gout. It seems to me, however, that this view transfers an exceedingly simplistic aesthetics to dissident speech. Figurative language is subject to evaluation. Is it apt? Is it revealing? Is it moving? These are not unanswerable questions, nor are the issues they raise immune to critical discussion. Moreover, figurative language can be tested experientially (for discussion of moral experience and its role in moral reflection, see Held 1989, 272; Held 1993, ch. 2). Does a novel figuration help to reduce occluded perception of and wasteful anxiety aboLlt oneself and others? Does it support the expansion of well-placed trust and fruitful collaboration? These questions can only be answered by "trying on" alternative figurations-that is, provisionally adopting them, letting them order one's experience, and seeing what the results are. But again, these are not unanswerable questions, nor are the issues they raise immLme to critical discussion. To respond to these questions in the affirmative is, I would urge, to justify reconfiguring social relations; to respond in the negative is to disqualify a proposed reconfiguration. Consider tILe extended debate that ensued after feminists introduced the trope of androgyny as an alternative to stereotypes of femininity and masculinity (see Beardsley 1982). The failings of this image were articulatedsuch as its perpetuation of gender polarities in the very attempt to transcelLd them and its naive assumption that a genuine human ideal could be cobbled together from traditionally feminine and masculine qualities. Moreover, apart from its influence in clothing and hairstyle fashions, this inlage has enjoyed little popular appeal. If my undergraduate students are at all typical, women, many of whom are electing careers that are conventionally associated with masculinity, still want to be perceived as fem.inine. Despite their goals, they are not self-described androgynes. It is doubtful, then, that this image has contributed much to women's emancipation, and, in light of this experience, many feminists have discarded it. The image of androgyny did not survive critical discussion, nor did it gain support from the test of experience. If Kristeva is right that some form of social repression is necessary but that much social repression is excessive, it follows that all of our moral intuitions are formed under suspect conditions and that moral reflection is

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incomplete, if not seriously warped, unless the power of nonconscious materials is brought to heel through dissident speech. Rawls is right, then, to den.y that considered convictions are the final check on principlessome considered convictions are nothing more than prejudices. As we have seen, culturally entrenched figurations of gender express prevalent, often pernicious, nonconscious meallings attaching to gender, and they galvanize fervent, though largely unacknowledged, emotional commitment to conventional gender norms. In exposing and reflecting on the figurative trappings of one's considered convictions, one il1.ay well find those convictions shaken. Still, Rawls and Addelson are wrong to conclude that skepticism about established figurations of gender leaves a moral vacuum. Though nothing can ensure that people will take advantage of the opportunities to dislodge prejudice that dissident speech affords, it is clear that dissident speech provides conscientious moral stlbjects with an invaluable safeguard against seductive, yet morally suspect, social ortl1.odoxy. I would urge, then, that whether the reflective equilibrium one settles on is fair to all or is in the grip of a moral blindspot cannot be decided without relying on dissident speech to scrutinize the considered convictions that sustain it. Indeed, when one reaches an. impasse between one's principles and one's considered convictions, it may be a bad idea to stick with eitl1.er of them. Likewise, when the equilibrium one has reached seems all too pat and rigid, it may be a good idea to tl1.row it into question. In both cases, one might do well to explore the possibility that there are needs at issue that have not been articulated and that will confound one's judgment as long as they remain suppressed but th.at could enrich one's il1.oral understanding if they were exan1.ined through dissident speech. TI1.e fundamental reason Rawls is vulnerable to the charge of excessive plasticity is that he limits moral reflection to impartial reason. But the consequences of this restriction are compounded by his static view of reflective equilibrium. CI1.aracterizing the agreement struck in. the original position as "final and made in perpetuity," he in effect insists that people can make themselves transparent at will and once and for all (Rawls 1971, 176). As a result, he obliges moral deliberators to embrace principles prematurely-that is, to tinker arbitrarily with their principles and considered convictions rather than suspending definitive judgment in order to reconceptualize the issues they face and to experiment with novel moral views. Thus he severely constrains creative moral reflection.. Elsewhere in A Theory of Justice, however, Rawls claims that no reflective equilibrium should be regarded as in1.pervious to revision (Rawls 1971,20-21). Allowing that moral self-examination is an ongoing process, this dynamic picture of reflective equilibrium need not exclude the dissident capacities associated

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with Kristeva's decentered self. I8 Impartial reason does not provide an adequate corrective for tenacious and virulent prejudice. In light of the suffering such prejudice inflicts on marginalized social groups and the potential for moral insight that dissident speech opens up, an adequate account of moral reflection must countenance dissident speech.

MORAL SUBJECTIVITY

If I am correct in claiming that Rawls's views would be liable to serious objections without the introduction of empathy-based reflection and dissident speech, there is reason to reject the unidimensional rational deliberator whom Rawls places at the center of his theory.19 The subject of moral reflection is best construed as a self that draws on empathic and dissident capacities, as well as on impartial rational ones. Equipped in this way, the moral subject is capable of bringing disparate moral themes to bear on a single issue and is capable of profiting from tensions between the moral conclusions these themes suggest. This tolerance for ambiguity has two salutary COI1.Sequences. Moral judgments do not calcify into absolute principles, and the prospects of moral reform are enhanced. Complicating our account of the moral deliberator as I suggest would defeat two of Rawls's stated aims, namely, to rely on minimal empirical assumptions and to establish a single overriding constraint on moral reflection. However, it seems to me that neither loss seriously damages the case for reconceptualizing the moral subject as I have proposed. Since moral reflection is mainly concerned with how we should treat other people, it should neither surprise nor trouble us that moral reflection reqLlires attunement to other people through empathy. Just as people who lack the ability to abstract fron1. tl1.eir immediate preferences and engage in reversibility exercises lack a crucial moral capacity, so people who are oblivious to or indifferent to others are il1.orally impaired. Likewise, since our considered convictions amalgamate diverse inputs over long periods of time, and since these convictions become emotionally entrenched often in n1Ysterious ways, it should neither surprise nor trouble us that sortiI1.g out these moral intuitions requires the ministrations of dissident speech. Moreover, in view of the complexity of the psychological systems tI1.at generate and sustain considered convictions as well as the variety of tl1.e social situations· that morality is supposed to guide us through, it would surely be astonishing if there were an ultimate moral arbiter. Moral reflection is, I'm afraid, messier than many philosophers have heretofore thought. Finally, I think that by privileging impartial reason and considered convictions while sideliILing or ignoring other moral capacities, Rawls fosters a curious moral illusion-the illusion of the homogeneity of moral subjects. In-

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sofar as we are moral subjects, we are all the same, for we have the same rational faculty. But the considerations I have adduced, not to mention everyday experience, belie this homogeneity. Moral subjects are unique. They arrive at similar moral conclusions by different routes, and they disagree over moral conclusions. By replacing the monistic moral subject with a complex moral subject capable of empathy-based reflection and dissident speech, we can capture this uniqueness in the distinctive blend of an individual's moral capacities and resources. Though it is necessary, of course, to set parameters of toleration for individuality, it is a mistake to seek a universal moral calculus. Not only is moral reflection messier, it is also more vital and more fascinating than many philosophers have heretofore thought.

NOTES I read early drafts of this chapter at the University of Dayton's conference on Moral Agency and the Fragmented Self, York University, Wesleyan University, the University of Washington, and the University of Connecticut, and I am grateful to the many participants in these colloquia who offered helpful comments. I am also indebted to Jonathan Adler, Susan Brison, Eva Feder Kittay, Joel Kupperman, and Hypatia's anonymous reviewers for their detailed and valuable comments. 1. For a helpful discussion of the role of interpersonal skills in moral reflection, see Walker 1989 and 1991. For an account of autonomy competency, see Meyers 1987. 2. On the topic of empathy, Chodorow's work on psychoanalytic clinical practice is also worth noting, especially Chodorow 1989, 154-62. 3. According to my dictionary this distinction is also marked by two senses of the term "vicarious"-vicarious experience can take the form of sharing another's feelings and intentions or the form of imagining these feelings and intentions. To avoid confusion, therefore, I have not employed the term "vicarious" to characterize sympathy or empathy. 4. Patricia Williams recounts a disturbing parallel case. A Stanford University student descended from German Jews (called Fred in the university's official report) became embroiled in an argument with an African-American student (called Q.c. in the report) over whether Beethoven had black blood. The following night Fred and some friends drew stereotypical African-American features on a poster of Beethoven and tacked it outside Q.C.'s room. Williams cites further details from the report regarding Fred's understanding of his own conduct: [Fred] described incidents that he called "teasing"-I would call them humiliation, even torture-by his schoolmates [in England, where he was educated] about his being Jewish. They called him miserly, and his being a Jew was referred to as a weakness. Fred said that he learned not to mind it and indicated that the poster defacement at Ujaama House had been in the spirit of this teaching. He wondered why the black students couldn't respond to it in the spirit in which it was meant: "nothing serious," just "humor as a release." (Williams 1991, 111)

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It seems to me that despite (or, perhaps, because of) his own experience of perse-

cution, Fred is unable to empathize with Q.c. and shares the moral obtuseness of the professor I have described. 5. Many of the most insightful moral philosophers currently working in the Kantian tradition acknowledge the importance of empathy in moral judgment. See, for example, Piper (1991); Herman (1985,424); Hill (1987, 137). 6. I repeat Rawls's rather odd choice of categories here because I want to stress that he does not seem to think that universality rules out classification by sex or race. I shall discuss Rawls's views about sex in more detail in section 3. 7. For discussion of the androcentric drift of Rawls's formulation, see Baier (1987,51). 8. It might seem that empathic capacities have no bearing on the problem of justice to future generations since justice concerns our treatment of strangerspeople we do not or cannot know much about-but empathic capacities mediate our interaction with acquaintances and intimates. In Rawls's terms, this objection would amount to the claim that empathic capacities cannot contribute to a theory of justice since they cannot function behind the veil of ignorance. However, this claim seems overdrawn. While it is undeniable that people first begin to acquire empathic capacities in family settings where they learn to empathize with and come to the assistance of loved ones, this use of empathic capacities is just one point on a continuum (see Okin 1989, 237). The scope of empathic capacities is readily enlarged to encompass, for example, hearing news of an acquaintance's misfortune and taking steps to ameliorate it. Thus empathy shapes people's responses to individuals to whom they have slight attachment and whose troubles they are not experiencing directly. Moreover, it is common for people to apply empathic capacities to more remote cases. They read newspaper reports about the woes of people they have never encountered and may even regard as enemies, and they respond to this information with compassion. The abstraction that the veil of ignorance imposes on deliberations in the original position-Le., ignorance of any personal ties one might have to the beneficiaries of the savings principle and exclusion of all but the most rudimentary facts about these people's needs and goals-strains empathic capacities no more than this last type of case. If anything, Rawls's exercise makes weaker demands on empathic capacities, for it is at least possible-indeed, it is quite probable-that one will care about some future people. In what follows, I will argue that introducing empathy into Rawls's account of impartial reason necessitates abandoning impartial reason and putting moral reflection about certain issues of justice on an entirely different footing. But at this point I want to stress that empathy with future generations is intelligible and that calling for empathy with future generations is not question-begging. 9. Of course, the model of an omniempathic, impartial observer who uses knowledge of everyone's subjective state to make judgments is associated with the utilitarian version of impartial reason. But since Okin does not address issues raised by utilitarianism, and since Rawls opposes utilitarianism, I shall leave this complication aside. 10. Okin seems to expect benevolence to substitute for a method of moral reflection (Okin 1989, 246). But surely it is not enough to invoke benevolence with-

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out supplying an explanation of how one benevolently adjudicates conflicts. How is one to be benevolent to people who do not have children and do not want to contribute to the just savings account, to people who want to have children but cannot afford to fund adequately the trigger savings account, and to future generations? 11. This line of thought raises issues about the relations between empathybased moral reflection and impartial reason. It seems that impartial reason could be invoked as part of an argument for the just savings principle. Since many parents and people who want to become parents are not affluent enough to provide for future generations, and since restricting procreation to those wealthy enough to fund the trigger savings account would severely impinge on personal liberty, moral deliberators could not satisfy their empathically based judgments about the needs of future generations as well as the determinations of impartial reason regarding liberty without assigning responsibility for future generations to everyone. Still, impartial reason need not always complement empathy. How impartial reason might come into conflict with empathy-based moral reflection and how such conflicts are to be resolved are important questions that I cannot adequately address here. However, it is perhaps worth observing that there is little reason to think that introducing empathy-based thinking into deliberations about justice would undermine a deep commitment to liberty. For example, empathy with people who want to have children would support a right to procreate. Still, it does seem possible that balancing empathic considerations with those of impartial reason might undermine an absolutist commitment to liberty. For example, if empathic considerations were made equally salient, there might be more receptivity to trying to discover when and how pornography contributes to violence against women and more imagination and legal acumen expended on finding a statutory formulation that would control harmful communications without unacceptably limiting political debate and artistic expression. But I leave detailed exploration of these questions for another occasion. 12. It is, perhaps, worth noting that many feminists today would not be satisfied with this argument. In regard to pregnancy-leave policy, for example, it is debatable whether women's reproductive difference should be acknowledged and special provisions enacted to protect their interests or whether women's needs should be assimilated to the gender-neutral category of disabilities and the principle of equality thus be saved. The maximin argument would rule out the former position, but it seems to be a position that is worth considering on its merits. For a helpful discussion of this issue, see Minow (1990, 58-59). 13. Phyllis Schlafly spoke for many opponents of the ERA when she penned "The Right to Be a Woman," a tract in which she argued that equal rights would destroy women's "right" to be supported and their freedom to stay home and keep house (Schlafly 1972). Although I find it hard to believe that a woman informed both of the current probability that her marriage will end in divorce and also of current statistics regarding fathers' failure to make child support payments after divorce could prefer Schlafly's "right to be a woman" over equal rights, it seems that even today many women continue to find the illusionistic pedestal of femininity attractive. Furthermore, it is worth noting that Schlafly's argument conforms to the form Rawls prescribes for defending limitations of liberty-she advocates limiting women's liberty for the sake of their liberty.

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14. Chodorow holds similar views about social repression. However, since she does not develop them into a theory of social criticism but rather recommends changes in childrearing practices as a remedy, I have appealed to Kristeva's theory. 15. Young's discussion of Kristeva is particularly valuable in that Young distinguishes the social and economic mechanisms though which some groups become defined as other from the psychic mechanisms that link groups defined as other to powerful aversive emotions (Young 1990, 145). 16. Richard Brandt also invokes a therapeutic approach to moral reflection; however, Brandt characterizes the form of therapy he advocates as "cognitive psychotherapy" and confines the project to exorcising false beliefs through reconditioning (Brandt 1979, ch. 6). Brandt's account assumes that people can readily identify which of their beliefs are false and that their emotional commitments need only the simplest causal interpretation. But experience with ingrained moral pathology or with deep moral perplexity suggests that this view does not do justice to the complexity or the intractability of the problem. 17. It is important to bear in mind that figurative language is by no means alien to the philosophical tradition. Plato frequently resorts to metaphor in the Republic, and the image of the social contract has long dominated liberal political thought. 18. It might be objected that to supplement Rawls's account of reflective equilibriun1 with dissident speech would be to violate one of his key stipulations, namely, that people deliberate about justice under the veil of ignorance. If people are ignorant of who they are, they must be ignorant of their nonconscious dispositions, and they may not pursue the project I have proposed. But it is important to keep in mind that the conditions Rawls imposes on the deduction from the original position do not apply to the process of achieving reflective equilibrium between the principles deduced and one's considered convictions. After all, one cannot inventory one's considered convictions without knowing a good deal about who one is. Thus the veil of ignorance does not rule out testing one's considered convictions against alternative figurations. 19. It is worth mentioning that Chodorow and Kristeva are guilty of similarly unidimensional thinking. Captivated by a maternal model of moral reflection, Chodorow stresses nurturance to the exclusion of other moral capacities, while Kristeva stresses aesthetic practices to the exclusion of other moral capacities (Meyers 1992).

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+ Emotion and Heterodox Moral Perception: An Essay in Moral Social Psychology number of moral philosophers not only distinguish moral perception from moral judgment and critical moral reflection but also valorize moral perception (e.g., see Sherman 1989; Nussballm 1990; Blum 1991; and McFall 1991).1 The importance of moral perception seems indisputable, for h.ow one sees other people, their relations, and one's relations to them has a profound impact on choice and action. Defective moral perception throws moral deliberation and thus moral judgment off course. Moreover, it camouflages social ills and thwarts critical moral reflection. Yet, insightful moral perception is no mean task. One sees others from one's somewhat idiosyncratic point of view, using the concepts at one's disposal, giving priority to the values one prizes, and averting one's gaze from (or possibly magnifying) the disvalues one abhors (for related discussion, see Walker 1987, 181; Kekes 1989, 143-44). One is never fully conscious of all the forces influencing one's perception. Nor are other people transparent-they reveal some of their thoughts an.d feelings; they keep others to themselves; they are themselves unaware of still others. A dense and complex phenomenon, moral perception depends on a vast array of disposition.8, capacities, and skills. Thus, there are countless sources of distortion in moral perception, and it is very difficult to pinpoint what contributes to insightful moral perception in a wide range of situations. Now, it seems natural to think of sensitivity as safeguarding moral perception. According to Joel Kupperman, sensitivity entails "feeling the weight of various factors (including fine gradations) as well as being

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perceptive enough to note their presence" (1991, 147). Sensitive people are attuned to their surroundings, and their interpretations of their experience are canny, judicious, subtle, and to the point. But the asset of sensitivity is as mysterious as the result of insightful moral perception. To focus my inquiry, I have chosen to examine the problem of heterodox moral perception. Through heterodox moral perception, one sees sociallife in ways that challenge established cultural values and norms; one sees suffering or harm that others do not notice, beauty or wisdom that others regard as ugliness or folly, live options where others feel constraint, and so forth. Obviously, much heterodox moral perception is misguided. Some is delusional. Yet, heterodox moral perception is indispensable to social and political reform. Unless some people discern injustice and oppression that others deny, there will be no impetus for change. Orthodox moral perception is not always structured in politically significant ways. But it often is, and this is so in an important class of cases. The cases I have in mind are those in which the perceived individual's group membership is salient to the perceiver and in which membership in that group has historically been viewed as undesirable and as a reason for the lower social status of members of the group. In these cases, the prejudicial structure of moral perception militates in favor of moral judgments and actions that are unfair to those individuals and that are inimical to social justice. My question is how moral perception can be configured to expose these wrongs. I assume that every person has a moral outlook that frames that individual's moral perception, and I consider two dimensions of moral outlook. On the one hand, a moral subject commands a repertory of moral concepts-that is, a set of concepts that enables one to generate interpretations of the moral significance of situations. 2 On the other hand, perceptual receptivity is conditioned by the moral SUbject's emotional attitudethat is, by the affective stance (or stances) through which one meets the world and that shapes one's interpersonal encounters. It may seem artificial to separate the cognitive dimension from the emotional dimension of a moral outlook. Since repertories of moral concepts are imbued with emotion, and since emotions are inextricable from beliefs, it is clear that these two dimensions are intertwined. Nevertheless, since people's emotional attitudes and emotional responses can outstrip their cognitive capacities and thus their ability to interpret their experience, and since this possibility is crucial to understanding insightful heterodox moral perception, it would be a mistake to collapse emotional attitudes into repertories of moral concepts. In this chapter, I argue that several emotional attitudes ordinarily considered to be epistemic vices can be feminist epistemic virtues, but that recognizing these virtues entails giving up a purely individualistic view

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of moral perception and moral identity. Culturally entrenched gender prejudice is encoded in unconscious schemas that shape moral perception. Counteracting these perceptual distortions requires strong medicine. I am sure that no single emotional formula or discursive protocol can account for all cases of insightful heterodox moral perception. But, in my view, philosophers tend to overestimate the efficacy of an outgoing, receptive emotional attitude and dispassionate critical reason as antidotes to these distortions. My suggestion is that a selection of generally disparaged emotional attitudes-namely, hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness-can be seen to facilitate moral insight into culturally and institutionally entrenched practices of domination and subordination. However, to understand cases in which hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness contribute to insightful heterodox moral perception, we must inquire into the moral economies of dissident political communities. In short, a tenable feminist account of the subject of moral perception must construe the individual as emotionally engaged and politically situated.

PREJUDICIAL COGNITIVE SCHEMAS AND MORAL PERCEPTION

"Seeing as," observes Nancy Sherman, "is a necessary prerequisite for action" (1989,40). A prerequisite, I would add, that presupposes mastery of a repertory of moral concepts. Barbara Herman dubs these concepts "rules of moral salience," and she contends that these rules "make up the substantive core of the agent's conception of himself as a moral agent" (1985,428-29; also see Herman 1990,318-19). John Kekes terms these concepts "moral idioms," and he claims that our moral idioms furnish "approving and disapproving descriptions" of people's character (1989, 135, 136, 137). Despite their differences, Herman and Kekes agree that one's repertory of moral concepts is part of one's cultural heritage and that cultures and the moral endowments they confer are not an unalloyed blessing (Herman 1985, 425; Kekes 1989, 136). On the one hand, moral traditions are salutary-they restrain many malign impulses, they elicit many kinds of decent and generous conduct, and they furnish interpretations of the meaning of human life. Yet, on the other hand, the repertory of moral concepts one's culture supplies is likely to be pernicious as well, for cultures are riddled with xenophobic and misogynist prejudice. Even when cultures explicitly embrace the doctrines of universal personhood and equal rights, they frequently continue to purvey stories and images that implicitly perpetuate residual doctrines of group inferiority and social exclusion. The legends of heroic and noble deeds and the cautionary tales about vices through which cultures convey moral concepts

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often cast the society's dominant men in the admirable roles while casting the "outsiders" and women in the contemptible roles. Indeed, women and members of minority social groups are often conceptualized in ways that enforce their "difference" and that confine them to lives of moral deficiency, as judged by the standards of the dominant group. For those steeped in this lore, this moral stratification serves to naturalize and to rationalize systematic relations of domination and subordination in the family, in the economy, and in political institutions. 3 This information coalesces in cognitive schemas that function in moral perception as minitheories about "different" social groups (Valian 1998). Although the subliminal cultural message and the cognitive schemas that encode it compete with the culture's declared commitment to equal justice for all, these subconscious, prejudicial minitheories about social groups organize perception of individuals who belong to these groups. Whereas the culture's official moral beliefs stand at a remove from moral perception, for they are expressed in abstract principles or values awaiting interpretation and implementation, the cognitive schemas in which the subliminal cultural messages are encoded bear immediately on moral perception, for they specify the moral meanings attaching to membership in this or that social group. Thus, the subliminal message gains the upper hand in moral perception. Repertories of moral concepts that are provided by traditional cultures typically pack a potent political punch. The paradigm of a moral agent that is articulated in a culture's rules of moral salience may in fact reproduce a dominant group's mode of moral agency. As Eva Kittay argues, the prevailing conception of moral personhood in contemporary social contract theory assumes that individuals are neither dependent on others for care nor encumbered by responsibilities to care for dependents (see Kittay 1997; also see Held 1987, 116; Baier 1987,52-53). Yet, viewing such independence as a universal norm becomes suspect once one takes women into account, for women have traditionally borne responsibility for the care of the young, the sick, and the frail elderly. Women's traditional role reminds us not only that many adults do not fit the regnant model of personhood but also that all of us spend a lengthy childhood dependent on others and that many of us will return to a condition of dependency in old age. Insofar as a culture's rules of moral salience occlude dependency, many women's moral concerns will be denigrated, and the needs of dependents will be marginalized. Similarly, the conventions of usage for moral idioms may in fact differentiate among and disadvantage some social groups. As Ronald de Sousa observes, "An angry man is a 'manly man,' but an angry woman is a 'fury' or a 'bitch.' Or worse, she is called 'hysterical,' which denies her 'real' anger altogether" (1987, 259). To the extent, then, that a traditional repertory of moral concepts structures one's

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moral outlook, and to the extent that one's moral outlook structures one's moral perception, one will see people from different social groups differently. In Adrian Piper's terms, one will see the members of certain social groups through honorific stereotypes and the members of other social groups through derogatory stereotypes (1992-1993, 217-18). In either case, one's moral perception of these individuals will frequently be grievously distorted. When a xenophobic or misogynist schema is structuring perception but is not consciously avowed (or is consciously repudiated), it subverts moral judgment. If one does not really see women as full-fledged persons, or if one cannot see a woman's anger as warranted, one is not likely to enact one's commitment to gender equality. Since relevantly different cases should be treated differently, and since one perceives gender difference as pervasively relevant, one's responses to women (and to oneself, if one is a woman) will violate one's egalitarian convictions. The "innocence" of such moral perception is particularly insidious, for the individual is not motivated to take corrective measures. Is there any way to circumnavigate a defective cultural repertory of moral concepts?

EMOTIONAL ATTITUDES AND MORAL PERCEPTION

According to Martha Nussbaum, "perception is not merely aided by emotion but it is also in part constituted by the appropriate [emotional] response" (1990, 79). Thus, to perceive well, one's emotions must be congruent with the state of affairs one is confronting. Presumably, this does not mean that the perceiver must share the other's feelings, although sharing the other's feelings is sometimes called for (the distinction between imagining another's state of mind and sharing the other's subjective viewpoint is discussed in Piper 1991, 737, and Meyers 1994,32-33). Rather, one must emotionally register the other's subjectivity and circumstances in a manner befitting that subjectivity and those circumstances. For example, compassion is a suitable response to another's dejection and neediness. Since the emotional component of one's moral outlook can facilitate or hinder this kind of situation-specific emotional engagement, maintaining an appropriate emotional attitude might enhance sensitivity, mitigate the effects of prejudice-infected moral concepts, and reduce distortion in moral perception. Emotions, says Nussbaum, "can lead or guide the perceiving agent" (1990,78; also see Sherman 1989, 45). Thus, for example, feelings of friendship may alert a person to a friend's need for help before the intellect grasps this need (Nussbaum 1990, 79). Although this observation seems correct, Nussbaum appears to be making her point by adverting to the

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easiest sort of case. It is obvious to most people what emotional attitude is appropriate in various kinds of intimate relationships. But what about relationships with strangers or acquaintances to whom one is not close? Nussbaum advises cultivating "emotional openness and responsiveness" in approaching a new situation-that is, readiness to experience a wide range of emotions (1990, 79). It is not obvious, however, what emotional attitude secures emotional openness and responsiveness. Nussbaum seems to be advocating the emotional equivalent of what a consultant at the WordPerfect hotline dubbed a "vanilla boot"-a computer set up to run as few disk operating programs as possible in order to minimize interference between these programs and the word processor. A vanilla boot, though not empty, has no more content than is necessary to run your application. program. Likewise, an emotional attitude, as opposed to emotional vacancy, is necessary to prime moral perception, but this emotional attitude must not be so strongly directive that it overwhelms moral perception. To clarify Nussbaum's views about which emotional attitude heightens sensitivity and reliably guides moral perception with respect to people whom Ol1.e does not know or does not know well, I propose that we consider what would constitute "emotional vanilla." Just as vanilla ice cream has flavor, so emotional vanilla must have feeling. But just as vanilla ice cream goes well with lots of other flavors, so too emotional vanilla must be plain enough to be compatible with a wide variety of superadded emotions. Presumably, the subjective states that make up emotional vanilla are not ones that are experienced as disagreeable or upsetting, for unpleasant subjective states would distract the individual from other people and interfere with moral perception. Rather, emotional vanilla is unobtrusive and agreeable. Neither agitation nor callousness promotes openness and responsiveness to others. Serenity seems better adapted to this purpose. Neither defensiveness nor defenselessness secures openness and responsiveness to others. Trust seems more appropriate. Love is too much to expect from strangers; hate is unwarranted and disruptive. Geniality seems more fitting. A temperament that is serene, trusting, and genial-a nice temperament-seen1s to embody a generosity of spirit and a sense of personal security that are conducive to insightful moral perception. Before continuing, I must digress briefly to comment on a terminological question raised by the preceding remarks. Two expressions I have used-"emotional vanilla" and emotional attitude"-may appear paradoxical. Insofar as we link emotions to passions, emotions betoken states of subjective arousal that are often associated with intense feelings. Emotions take center stage and command one's attention. They are not recessive vanilla. Emotions come and go. They are not abiding attitudes. Still, II

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there is another familiar model of emotion. Although the ongoing love we feel for our friends, family members, and lovers may have its fervent, even tumultuous moments, such love does not throw one into a state of incessant emotional commotion. Some emotions are standing emotions, and it does not seem altogether wrong to think of them as emotional attitudes. Yet, unlike the emotional attitude I have sketched, our standing emotions are personalized. They are directed at particular individuals; they are not orientations to people in general. Nevertheless, emotional attitudes are not mere moods, for emotional attitudes are more lasting and stable. This gap between emotional vanilla and our core conceptions of emotion may well explain why Nussbaum and others who hold that emotion guides moral perception illustrate their point with examples of moral perception in close interpersonal relationships. The attitudes that seem appropriate when approaching strangers or acquaintances who are not intimates do not seem to fit comfortably in the category of emotion. They are generalized, and they lack intense occurrent forms. No one is ever flooded with serenity, trust, or geniality. Thus, these attitudes may seem more like traits of character or personality traits. Still, they resemble emotions since they are associated with feelings. In the hope of capturing the wisdom of Nussbaum's view, I have taken the liberty of stretching our concept of emotion a bit by coining the trope of emotional vanilla and counting emotional vanilla as an emotional attitude. There may be other recipes for emotional vanilla, but the one I have outlined seems tenable as an emotional background for moral perception of nonintimate acquaintances and strangers. Moreover, I think it is undeniable that serenity, trust, and geniality often work well together to promote emotional receptivity and thus to secure insightful moral perception. Nevertheless, I doubt that emotional vanilla always ensures insightful moral perception. In fact, I shall urge that, when coupled with a prejudicial repertory of moral concepts, this emotional attitude establishes a moral outlook that renders moral perception virtually impervious to culturally unacknowledged, yet pervasive forms of injustice and oppression. Heterodox, yet insightful moral perception is obstructed. That this is so is most evident in the case of moral perception of injustice to oneself. People who are serene, trusting, and genial in their relations to nonintimate associates are hardly predisposed to notice that they are being exploited, discriminated against, or otherwise mistreated. For that matter, people in general are reluctant to accept that they are not in control of their lives (Taylor and Brown 1988, 196). Despite the widespread belief that the members of some social groups positively enjoy wallowing in their own oppression, most people in fact resist acknowledging that they are victims and that they are in no way responsible for

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their victimization (Brison n.d.). If this is so, and if emotional vanilla compounds these tendencies by making individuals kindly disposed to others, many people will find it nearly impossible to see that employers, teachers, or peers at work or at school are oppressing them. 4 It is sometimes necessary, in Marfa Lugones's words, "to fight our own niceness because it clouds our minds and hearts" (Lugones and Spelman 1993, 21). When people are immersed in oppressive conditions, emotional vanilla renders this oppression invisible. This blindspot will be all the more difficult to dispel if their political culture and, hence, their repertory of moral concepts denies the existence of the kind (or kinds) of oppression they are suffering. A parallel argument could be developed regarding one's perception of wrongs that others are suffering, especially wrongs for which one is to some degree responsible; however, I shall not pause to pursue this point here. Although an unsuitable moral outlook severely compromises sensitivity and can lead one to grossly misread a situation, it is sometimes difficult to gauge which moral outlook is suitable. What seems a generally serviceable emotional attitude toward nonintimate acquaintances and strangers is unlikely to overcome the strictures of a retrograde repertory of moral concepts. Emotional vanilla can secure complacency about conventional moral beliefs and unwitting complicity in maintaining a morally objectionable status quo. Unconscious prejudice may then persist with impunity, and deplorable practices may go unchallenged. Plainly, adopting the wrong moral outlook imperils moral perception. Of course, philosophers are mindful that traditional moralities need to be critically scrutinized and occasionally modified. Kekes, for instance, notes that it may be necessary to subtract from or to augment a culture's inventory of moral idioms, and he urges that decisions about whether to alter these inventories should rest on "intelligent and sensitive discussion of contested cases" (1989, 136). Likewise, Herman holds that a culture's rules of moral salience are susceptible to criticism on the grounds that they are inconsistent or that they presuppose errors of fact (1985,429-30). And Nussbaum stresses the role of love, including civic love and compassion, in catalyzing innovative moral reflection (1990, 83, 157,160, 193, 210). Although these recommendations for reshaping our moral outlook are certainly not without merit, they nonetheless strike me as somewhat naive. Kekes and Herman embrace a moral rationalism that fails to take into account just how deeply entrenched our repertories of moral concepts are and thus how immune our moral outlooks are to rational criticism and willed change. s In appealing to the creative and healing power of love, Nussbaum prescribes an emotional attitude that one cannot realistically expect people to adopt in a world of competing interests and his-

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torical animosities between social groups. Finally, since members of subordinated social groups often suffer from alienation from self and from self-hatred, extolling self-love seems somewhat quixotic, too. In what follows, I shall propose a politicized account of the pivotal role of emotional attitudes in shaping moral perception.

RANCOROUS EMOTIONAL ATTITUDES AND OUTLAW EMOTIONS A number of feminist thinkers argue that, l.lnder some circumstances, emotions generally regarded as detrimental can be moral and political achievements. Audre Lorde affirms that "an.ger between peers births change"; Marilyn Frye and Elizabeth Spelman show that getting angry constitutes a claim of equality and can be an act of insubordination; Naomi Scheman explicates the role of consciousness-raising in recognizing women's anger; Lynne McFall maintains that the bitterness of people who are homeless, poor, or assigned to despised social groups is justifiable (Lorde 1984, 131; Frye 1983,90; Spelman 1989, 266-67; Scheman 1993, 24-25; McFall 1991, 153). Although superficially these authors are all pursuing the same project of reclaiming women's emotional lives, a careful examination of this literature reveals that these authors are making a number of distinct claims about the relation between emotion and moral perception. In their discussions of women's anger, Frye and Spelman are concerned with. occurrent emotional responses to particular incidents or particular states of affairs. They are concerned with what Alison Jaggar terms "outlaw emotions" (1989, 144; for related discussion, see Narayan 1988). Outlaw emotions are "inappropriate" emotions-that is, emotions that are considered disproportionate to the circumstances or that are occasioned by stimuli that do not normally elicit those responses. A woman might be humiliated, saddened, or infuriated, not flattered, by leers and whistles on the street. Her boss's or clients' bawdy jokes might prompt her to retreat into her shell or arouse indignation instead of the laughter and camaraderie that these humorists expect. The prevailing norms and values that govern interpretations of subjective experience classify these ostensibly misdirected or overblown emotions as aberrations and make it impossible for people to see them for what they are. 6 Interpretive conventions furnish three mutually reinforcing strategies for coping with such anomalies. One strategy simply ascribes a different emotion to the woman. Anger is labeled hysterical rage; humiliation is labeled deference to male prerogatives; indignation is labeled snootiness. The second strategy explaiI1s away the emotion by ascribing a defective

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personality to the individual. Such a woman is insecure, nasty, charmless, humorless, and/ or prudish. If all else falls, ascriptions of pathology"She's crazy"-are sure to close the discussion. Needless to say, some of women's anomalous emotions (like men's) are disproportionate or misdirected. Still, Frye, Spelman, and Jaggar maintain that some are in fact reasonable responses that others refuse to credit and instead mislabel or misexplain. Such failures of comprehension are not due exclusively to the perceiver's lack of empathy with the particular woman, though that may be part of the problem. Rather, such failures are dictated by, and empathy is blocked by, conventions of interpretation. According to these conventions, women's anger or other emotions are unwarranted in certain situations. So, if the women appear to be experiencing anger or some other unwarranted emotion, either they are really experiencing something else or their flawed personalities or psychological disorders are causing them to experience unwarranted emotions. In the face of such conventions, then, respecting women's emotional lives requires adopting feminist conventions of interpretation-oppositional norms and values that authorize women and men to experience the same range of emotions in the same range of circumstances and that render some of women's outlaw emotions intelligible as signs of unfair practices or oppressive conditions. Without such alternative interpretive conventions, no one will perceive women accurately. I agree with this conclusion, but I also believe there is a dimension of the topic of women's emotions that it does not adequately address and that points to an unnoticed aspect of heterodox moral perception. So far as I can tell, Frye, Spelman, and Jaggar assume that the second and third strategies of dismissal (ascribing personality faults or psychological pathology to the individual) are variants of the first (misidentifying the individual's occurrent emotion). When accusations of the former sort are leveled, the accusers are simply wrong about the subjectivity of the accused. However, I suspect that the matter is more complicated than this analysis suggests. When people are accused of committing a wrong that is to some extent controversial-say, sexual harassment or acquaintance rape-they often try to disarm their critics by deflecting attention from the issue and attacking the victim. Prominent among these diversionary strategies is the tactic of dismissing the complaints as products of a warped emotional attitude. "You're [they'rel hypersensitive [or paranoid or angry or bitter or what have youl," spoken authoritatively and in a tone dripping with scorn, is often the first line of defense against unwelcome charges of unfair practices or oppressive conditions. It may also be the last line of defense, for this move often succeeds in shaming the victims and silencing protest.

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That these rancorous emotional attitudes, as I shall call them, figure so conspicuously in the aspersions cast on defiant members of subordinated social groups is itself reason to regard such attitudes as candidates for revaluation. Now, it is obvious that charges of hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness are often fabricated for ulterior and nefarious purposes. Women are sometimes called hypersensitive when they are no n10re sensitive than anyone else. To th.is extent, the analysis of the systen1atic mislabeling of women's occurrent emotions under consideration here applies to these emotional attitudes as well. However, Audre Lorde (1984) owns up to chronic anger, and Lynne McFall (1991) argues that chronic bitterness can be justified. Although I object to the accusatory, disn1issive tenor of ascriptions of hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness, I want to allow that such. ascriptions are sometimes warranted. Despite an element of hyperbole embedded in these ascriptions, they are not always distortions arising from patriarchal conventions of interpretation. This concession may strike some as collaboration with a culture of male dominance. Plainly, rancorous en10tion.al attitudes are not inherently desirable. And, strictly speaking, hypersensitivity and paranoia are by definition pathologies. Hypersensitivity is abnormal or excessive sensitivity, and paranoia brings delusions of persecution. In colloquial speech, however, a hypersensitive person is someone who is characteristically bristly or querulous, and a paranoid person is someone who is characteristically wary and suspiciou.s. Neither of these latter usages designates a clinically recognized diagnosis. Still, these colloquialisms are, in a sense, parasitic on the technical usages, for both terms retain connotations of pathology th.at give them their cutting rhetorical force. Anger and bitterness also carry the taint of pathology. Although an.ger and bitterness may be condoned as responses to specific injuries, they are considered abnormal and harmful if they come to define a person's outlook? The angry or bitter person is commonly viewed as emotionally unbalanced. At the very least, these emotional attitudes are deemed unseemly, for they are thought to unleash promiscuous hostility and disgraceful self-pity. Even if the people whom we call hypersensitive, paranoid, angry, and bitter are not victims of any true psychopathology, and even if their emotional attitudes memorialize grave and perhaps insuperable wrongs, there is ample reason to be skeptical about the desirability of these emotional attitudes. Hypersensitivity, paranoia, and chronic anger and bitterness can be emotional prisons. People who have these emotional attitudes can be obsessed with their misfortunes. They may be driven to dwell on the wrongs they have suffered, and this monomaniacal preoccupation is confining, sometimes incapacitating. Opportunities for personal fulfillment and pleasure may be overlooked and missed. Those rewards that

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come may not be fully appreciated and may not enhance self-esteem. Ill-at-ease with other people, rancorous individuals can have trouble forming lasting relationships. Indeed, their emotional attitudes may interfere with their ability to grasp others' needs, and this insensitivity in turn may interfere with their ability to be good friends or, for that matter, decent or bearable associates. Moreover, rancorous emotional attitudes can fuel inflated, counterproductive political analyses. They may dispose people to exaggerate lack of opportunity, discriminatory impact, constraint, hardship, and the like, to absolve themselves of responsibility for their setbacks and other ll1isfortunes, and to harshly blame anyone who seems even remotely implicated in briI1ging about the perceived wrong. In sum, succumbing to hypersensitivity, paranoia, chronic anger, or bitterness may give one's torll1enters the upper hand-they may take possession of one's very consciousness and gain the satisfaction of knowing that the pain they have inflicted has redoubled and reverberates throughout one's entire life. Indeed, to succumb to these emotions may be to sink to their level, for they can be morally poisonous, politically calamitous, and interpersonally ruinous. What could possibly be said in defense of such horrible afflictions? Can a feminist in good conscience ell1brace charges that women, especially women who are pressing feminist demands, are beset by hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness? I believe that one can, and I shall argue that doing so yields provocative results regarding the question of how to theorize the subject of moral perception. Still, I take comfort from the fact that I am not the only feminist who does not repudiate rancorous emotional attitudes.

RANCOROUS EMOTIONAL ATTITUDES AND HETERODOX MORAL PERCEPTION

Lynne McFall fastens on a very important POiI1t when sllelitlks bitterness to our emotional responsibility to feel things as they really are" and thus to fidelity to truth (1991, 153, 156; original emphasis). In emotionally registering iI1justice or oppression in its full measure, bitterness bears witness to that wrong (McFall 1991, 155). McFall's point dovetails neatly with Audre Lorde's account of her anger as a black woman. Lorde tells us that her anger is her response to racism (1984, 124). But Lorde is not talking about an apt emotional response to racist incidents that occur at intervals-she is not talking about episodes of anger. Ubiquitous as racism is, Lorde figures her anger as a molten pond at the core of me" and as an electric thread woven into every emotional tapestry upon wl1ich I set the essentials of my life" (1984, 145). Lorde does not shirk the "emotiOl'lal responII

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sibility" that McFall delineates, for Lorde's subjectivity in no way palliates the terrible reality of unrelenting, invidious racism. Anger is a defining constituent of her moral outlook-that is, her moral identity. Lorde certainly does not romanticize her anger: "I have lived with that anger, ignoring it, feeding upon it, learning to use it before it laid my visions to waste, for most of my life" (1984, 124). Anger like hers can be dangerous and damaging. Rancorous emotional attitudes divide women against themselves. They set women against one another (Lorde 1984, 125-26). Worst of all, they set African-American women against one another (Lorde 1984, 145-47). If such emotional attitudes are desirable at all, then, they are desirable only for the dispossessed and their allies, and they are desirable only if they can be channeled in morally and politically productive ways. "When we turn from anger," contends Lorde, "we turn from insight, saying we will accept only the designs already known, deadly and safely familiar" (1984, 131). Both Frye's and Spelman's acco'unt of why women must claim their anger and Jaggar's insistence that feminists attend to an.d interpret outlaw emotions rest on this very point. B'ut again~ unlike Frye, Spelman, and Jaggar, Lorde is not speaking of discrete occurrent emotions. Her anger is a global, consuming response to racisn1. If such anger is "loaded with information and energy," as Lorde (1984, 127) clain1s it is, is this information retrievable, and can the energy be harnessed for emancipatory purposes? To judge by Lorde's essays, the answer to both of these question.s is a resounding YES. But it remains necessary to explore how this can be so. My conjecture is that, when people have become hypersensitive, paranoid, angry, or bitter as a result of beingsubjected to a devastating injustice (or series of injustices) or to disabling systemic oppression, they become preternaturally sensitive to unjust practices and oppressive conditions. One reason for this uncommon and heightened sensitivity is that rancorous emotional attitudes provide rich mediums for outlaw emotions. Rancorous emotional attitudes lead people to be apprehensive, indignant, truculent, disappointed, incredulous, tearful, dismayed, irritated, tremulous, anxious, touchy, sullen, fretful, disen.chanted, disgusted, outraged, vehement, distraught, and so forth, for no "good" reason and at the most "inopportune" moments. Moreover, individuals beset by such attitudes are highly motivated to interpret their outlaw emotions. A paranoid individual is not likely to dismiss her feelings of professional isolation and loneliness as figments of her imagination. Instead, she will try to figure out why she feels frozen out. Coupled with the disposition to experience outlaw emotions, this disposition to account for them increases the likelihood that such individuals will discern patterns of harm where nicer, milder types see only disconnected incidents or notice nothing the least untoward.

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The trouble with emotional vanilla is that it insulates people from awareness of certain kinds of wrongful treatment, in part by indiscriminately quashing outlaw emotions. Likewise, a stoical, detached, or cynical person is not susceptible to experiencing and crediting outlaw emotions. In contrast, "emotional vindaloo" (to continue the flavor metaphor) nurtures outlaw emotions; and, when astutely decoded, many outlaw emotions debunk a society's self-congratulatory illusions abo·ut its own fairness and beneficence. Here it might be objected that, however motivated they may be, hypersensitive, paranoid, angry, and bitter people are poorly equipped to interpret their anomalous emotions. They are prone to overestimate the frequency and gravity of the wrongs they suffer, and they leap at the worst possible construction that can be put on others' behavior. In short, their emotional attitudes bias them toward"discovering" injustice and oppression where none exists. Obviously, there is something to this objection. Still, I think it is not as telling as it n1ay initially seem. Although I am concerned with rancorous emotional attitudes that are central to a person's moral outlook, not merely with occasional attacks of rancor, the centrality of these attitudes does not render them absolutely sovereign. Except perhaps in cases of bona fide psychopathology, no one's moral outlook is composed solely of these rancorous emotional attitudes. Thus, their influence is tempered by other en10tional attitudes, not to mention values, principles, interpersonal bonds, and so forth. Rancorous emotional attitudes structure moral perception, but not in a ham-fisted, uninflected, indiscrimiI1ate way. Thus, I believe that the critique of these attitudes that I sketched at the end of the preceding section is actually something of a caricature and that the objection now under consideration is something of a red herring, for it rests on a false polarization of the vanilla-vindaloo contrast. Still, when rancorous emotional attitudes are central to a person's moral outlook, they often overshadow its other components. These attitudes strongly influence a person's style of relating to others and markedly slant that person's moral perception. In light of the liabilities associated with emotional vindaloo, then, it might seem advisable to approach other people in emotional val1illa and to switch to emotional vindaloo only if the circumstances call for doing so. This strategy makes a great deal of sense for purposes of what might be termed dissident moral perception. In dissident moral perception, the members of a subordinated group 11ave identified an unjust practice or oppressive condition, and they share an understanding of what counts as a standard instance of it. However, many people have not been exposed to their analysis, have not assimilated it, or disagree with it. Sexual harassment is a case in point. For fen1inists and many other women, sexual

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harassment is part of their repertory of moral concepts. But many men either conflate sexual harassment with office romance or believe that women's definition of sexual harassment is overinclusive. With respect to sexual harassment, then, n1any women are members of a feminist community that validates moral perceptions that are at odds with the unreconstructed moral perceptions of some men.. Such perception is heterodox relative to traditional patriarchal norn1S and values, but it is not heterodox relative to feminist norn1S and values that are now in wide circulation. It is dissident moral perception. In'dissident moral perception, an individual already commands the moral concepts necessary to see a particular kind of wrong. But if these concepts are to be deployed in n10ral perception, it is important that the individual's emotional attitude not interfere. Here, the self-protective practices of residents of major U.S. cities provide the relevant paradigm. These urban dwellers n1ay spend a long evening at a pleasant social gathering in emotional vanilla, but far be it from them to remain in emotional vanilla when negotiating desolate city streets alone late at night. Theyautomatically become vigilant-that is, they go into paranoia overdrive-as they leave the party. Similarly, a woman who is familiar with the concept of sexual harassment can approach her work environment in emotional vanilla but sh.ift into vindaloo if she begins to notice objectionable behavior. The sort of heterodox moral perception of most interest to me is different. I want to un.derstand how people discover heretofore unacknowledged kinds of wrong. In this connection, the relevant paradigm is that of an interplanetary explorer who looks exactly like a human, has just landed on earth for the first time, has no prior intelligence about the habits of earthlings, and is taking a midnight stroll in Central Park on a balmy SlImmer night. The visitor has no idea what to expect from the denizens of th.e park al1d, therefore, no basis for adopting one emotional attitude rather than another. With respect to heterodox moral perception that discloses novel wrongs-wrongs that are 11.0t recognized within any moral community to which one has access-modulating one's emotional attitude to suit the different situations in which one finds oneself is not an option. Emotional suppleness al1.d flexibility cannot solve the problem of how to enter situations of unknown moral character since making appropriate emotional adjustments requires that one already has a reliable impression of the sort of situation one is in. Unfortunately, taking the measure of a situation requires insightful moral perception, and insightful moral perception depends in part on having the right emotional attitude. Once one grasps a situation, one can and should modulate 011.e'S emotional attitude, but one has no basis for modulating one's emotional attitude until one has

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grasped the situation. Thus, in an important sense, one's initial emotional attitude is arbitrary. It depends on the sort of person one happens to be, not on the moral features of any particular situation. One can deliberately cultivate this attitude or that, but one cannot know in advance that the attitudes one has acquired will be maximally conducive to insightful moral perception. There is no emotional attitude that is appropriate in all conceivable circumstances. Inevitably, any moral outlook-in both its cognitive and emotional dimensions-highlights some features of social experience and obscures others. For everyday purposes, moral perception, selective and somewhat skewed though it may be, suffices since it does not induce people to do anything blatantly culpable. In the ordinary course of events, many people take for granted the trustworthiness and goodwill of other people and the basic fairness of the institutions that order their lives, and they blithely proceed in vanilla mode. But as the history of feminism and other emancipatory movements has proven, these benign assumptions are often unsound: Emotional vanilla can indeed conceal self-serving conduct on the part of individuals, unjust policies and practices, and oppressive institutional structures. Just as emotional vindaloo would probably help protect the interplanetary visitors in Central Park from mishap, emotional vindaloo can help women uncover the multifarious forms that male dominance takes. 8 I regard the idea that there is some ideal moral outlook that ensures insightful moral perception in all kinds of situations as an ignis fatuus. Since individuals can have only one moral outlook at a time, it follows that their moral perception will sometimes be seriously distorted and misleading. For this reason, it seems to me imperative to rethink the question of how we model the subject of moral perception. I have been speaking of individuals and their moral outlooks, and we cannot dispense with individuals. But I think we should not stop there. Heterodox moral perception obliges us to look at the moral economies of groups as well.

AN ALTERNATIVE CONCEPTION OF THE SUBJECT OF MORAL PERCEPTION What my discussion is leading up to is a larger project-one that I can only adumbrate here-concerning the unit of moral perception. My thought is that we must turn to group dynamics if we are to understand the contribution of hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness to reliable heterodox moral perception. Here I am taking a cue from Audre Lorde's plea to white women that they confront her anger. Lorde is not pretending that it is pleasant to listen to an angry person, and she is not

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terribly sanguine about her prospects of being heard. Lorde's prose is so eloquent that it is hard to imagine her coming across as belligerent. But we know what angry people can be like. They can be harping, carping, grim, spiteful killjoys. Far from endearing or winning, they can be tiresome, irritating, alienating-in a word, insufferable. Lousy team players, they often put otiler people off, and it is not unusual for them to attack their natural allies. But it seems to me that, if people with cooperative vanilla dispositions do not find ways to avail themselves of their rancorous friends' perceptions, they will miss a great deal, or they will discover it only after needless delay. Although I am generally skeptical of analogies that liken groups to individuals, let me, with considerable reluctance and all due trepidation, offer the following analogy in the hope of making the program of inqlliry I am proposing seem plausible, and also in the hope of helping readers see the contribution that hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness can make to the moral economy of a group. In my experience, we are all proll.e to psychological inertia, but nagging frustration, dissatisfaction, or anxiety sometimes grabs our attention and moves us to seek relief all.d change our lives. Sometimes we realize in retrospect that if we had not so resolutely confined those disagreeable feelings to the periphery of consciousness, we could have avoided a great deal of s·uffering by acting much sooner and for the better. I think that hypersensitive, paranoid, angry, and bitter people can play a role in a group moral economy similar to that of rectlrrent, low-intensity distress in an individual psychic economy. Most people experience some outlaw emotions, and they harbor some suspicions about the virtue of their associates and the rectitude of their society's institutions. But for the most part, they set these feelings aside and do not bother to articulate a critique. By contrast, the kvetch (sometimes too stridently) cOLlnterbalances the homeostatic tendency that favors the perpetuation of the status quo and indefinitely postpones reform. If social groups were organized to seize upon claims kindled by hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness and to give them a good airing and a fair hearing, insightful moral perception might be greatly increased, and emancipation might be hastened. I am not advocating universal rancor, nor do I suggest that rancor be instilled in a few miserable souls so that they can benefit subordinated socialgroups. It is a fact that rancorous individuals already exist, and some of them are ahead of their vanilla peers. If they are ostracized, their prescient insights will be suppressed. The underlying point here is indisputable, but easily forgotten: Social diversity is good; homogeneity within a group is harmful. If everyone in a subordinated social group shares the same rancorous emotional attitudes,

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moral perception may collapse into mass delusion. Arguably, then, there is a place for emotional vanilla in the group process of interpreting outlaw emotions. Serene, trusting, genial individuals who are sympathetic to rancorous group members may playa moderating role in this process. Their solidarity with group members who evince outlaw emotions ensures that they will take these feelings seriously, yet their niceness ensures that they will not automatically dismiss the viewpoints of unconvinced group members and outsiders. People whose moral outlook is characterized by emotional vanilla should not be regarded as arbiters of the reliability of more rancorous group members' perceptions; however, their sympathetic misgivings may provide needed perspective on the deliverances of rancorous emotional attitudes and thus help to dissuade the group from endorsing a defective repertory of moral concepts and from pursuing counterproductive political initiatives. My attempt to reclaim hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness is in effect an attempt to cue a gestalt shift in thinking about moral subjectivity and agency-especially where it concerns heterodox moral perception. In this regard, the irrepressible Thomas Pynchon captured something of what I have in mind when he wrote: "Creative paranoia means developing at least as thorough a We-system as a They-system" (1973, 638). The probing of our rules of moral salience for inconsistencies or errors of fact that Barbara Herman (1985) advocates, and the careful examination of contested applications of moral idioms that John Kekes (1989) advocates, must take place in a community where the possibility that a culture's repertory of moral concepts ill serves some social groups is a prime concern. Feminist philosophers often stress the role of alternative discursive communities with respect to redefining norms and values (e.g., Frye 1983, 103, 105-7; Bartky 1990, 43; Jaggar 1997, 144; Friedman 1993, part 3). The idea is to create enclaves in which heterodox perceptions are given their due. In advocating a group model of heterodox moral perception, I have followed their lead. To reclaim hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness and to understand heterodox moral perception, we must politicize moral perception. I am not claiming that no conscientious, reflective individual could possibly discern the wrongs that hypersensitivity, paranoia, anger, and bitterness disclose. Both Kekes and Nussbaum discuss fictional characters who are so "finely aware and richly responsible" (to echo Nussbaum's appropriation of Henry James's phrase) that they are able to engage fruitfully with novel repertories of moral concepts. Indeed, I myself have argued elsewhere that an individual's moral outlook can be enriched through empathy with different others (Meyers 1994, 36-38). Although I think childrearing and educational practices should be designed to cultivate capacities that enhance individual sensitivity, I also think it is in-

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cumbent on us to realize how rare such sensitivity is and to acknowledge that our cognitive apparatus may disfavor the openness to new people and l'leW ideas that such sensitivity requires (Goldman 1992, 35). The solitary individual who is deeply imn'lersed in a rich moral tradition but who is an inquisitive observer an.d an independent thinker should not be viewed as the sale prototype of moral sensitivity and as the only sort of person who is capable of insightful heterodox moral perception. On the contrary, we must also recognize a cluster prototype-a group of individuals some of whom have rancorous emotional attitudes that prime them to experience outlaw emotions, and whose outlaw emotions estrange them from their culture's repertory of moral concepts; a group of individuals whose solidarity provides an emotional and intellectual context conducive to developing an emancipatory repertory of moral concepts, and whose commitment to overcoming their subordination gives them the courage of their oppositional, sometimes audaciously oppositional, convictions. I would venture that the alternative I have sketched represents a more egalitarian view of moral sensitivity and, for many members of subordinated social groups, a more attainable conception of insightful heterodox moral perception. 9 NOTES 1. In the literature on these topics, there is little agreement about the distinctions among moral perception, moral judgment, and moral reflection, and inevitably there is an element of stipulation in how one demarcates these concepts. Some (e.g., Larmore 1987, 14) regard moral judgment as involving the application of principles to situations; others (e.g., Kekes 1989, 143) regard moral judgment as an interpretive process that is independent of moral principles. Larmore and Kekes seen1 to agree however, that moral judgment issues in a decision about what one ought to do. My own view is that moral judgment need not appeal to principles (Meyers 1994, 128-35). But the line of thought I shall develop here does not depend on this view. Thus, I shall use the expression "moral judgment" to refer to a process through which one reaches a conclusion about what one ought to do. Although moral perception is sometimes phenomenologically indistinguishable from moral judgment, it is always necessary to moral judgment, and it may not be sufficient for moral judgment. Also, I shall reserve the expression "moral reflection" for those processes through which one critically examines one's moral convictions and commitments. 2. I prefer the expressions "repertory of moral concepts" and "emancipatory repertory of moral concepts" over "moral theory" and "critical social theory" because the former do not imply that moral perception and judgment must be theory-driven (for related discussion, see Walker 1992). 3. There is a rich literature examining the ways in which derogatory conceptions of gender and race are figuratively encoded in Western culture (e.g., see

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Lloyd 1993a, 1993b; Rooney 1991; Kittay 1988; Crenshaw 1993; and Gilman 1985; for related discussion, see Morgan 1987). That sexism and other forms of bigotry are transmitted through figurations that outlast explicit doctrines of gender and racial inferiority suggests that the scope of the project of developing an emancipatory repertory of moral concepts is broader than it is usually assumed to be. We may possess the concepts of marital rape and acquaintance rape, but if women are figured as devious, vengeful Harpies and are perceived through this figuration, these moral concepts will have little or no practical moral force. If taking a woman's word that she has been raped seems crazy, hardly anyone will ever be convicted-in conscience or in courts of law-of marital or acquaintance rape. Thus, an emancipatory repertory of moral concepts n1ust not only provide interpretations of injustice and oppression that articulate the moral experience of subordinated social groups, but it must also furnish counterfigurations to replace prejudicial figurations of subordinated social groups (Meyers 1994,58-61). In this spirit, Iris Young calls for social theory that functions as "social therapy" (1990, 153). 4. Critics of Carol Gilligan's ethic of care who maintain that it is an ethic that makes women complicit in their own oppression by yoking them to exploitative lovers, husbands, children, and other family members make an argument regarding the sphere of intimates that parallels the one I have given regarding the sphere of nonintimate associates. They claim that the loving, altruistic emotional attitude that shapes moral perception within the care framework often prevents women from seeing how those they love oppress and take advantage of them (Houston 1987, 253). Although I think it would be a mistake to dismiss the ethic of care on the strength of this argument, I agree that feminists must be wary of moral attitudes that shield oppressive norms and practices from view. 5. For discussion of the metaphorical structure of moral concepts and their resulting resistance to change, see Johnson (1993, 194). But also note the existence of organized social resistance to critical moral reflection and n10ral change. In an interview, Reverend Lou Sheldon, a leader of the evangelical right in the United States, declared, "We were here first. You don't take our shared common values and say they are biased and bigoted.... We are the keepers of what is right and what is wrong" (quoted in "Christian Soldiers" by Sidney Blumenthal, New Yorker, July 18, 1994, 35). 6. In my discussion, I focus on negative outlaw emotions; however, it is worth pointing out that there can be positive outlaw emotions, too. For example, in some strata of U.S. society, compassion for the plight of the poor is an outlaw emotion. Compassion of this kind is viewed as bleeding-heart liberalism and dismissed as sentimentality. Similarly, many men consider a man's sympathy with female rape victims or his disgust with the predatory sexual behavior of many male heterosexuals to be effeminate. Positive outlaw emotions are important to moral perception, for they can provide the basis for members of relatively privileged social groups to identify with and stand in solidarity with members of subordinated social groups. 7. A graduate student once told me that she did not want to get involved with feminist philosophy because she did not want to be "angry all the time." Although I do not think that all feminist philosophers are angry people, her worry is perfectly understandable.

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8. At this point, a reader might object that the attitude with which one enters a situation affects the way in which one will be treated. If one is combative, for example, one is more likely to be attacked. In some cases, people do bring harm upon themselves. However, in many cases, this objection amounts to nothing more than blaming the victim. Gender discrimination in hiring and promotion, sexual harassment, and sexual assault are not reserved for rancorous women. Nice women, too, are victimized by these practices. 9. I am grateful to Barbara Andrew, Alison Jaggar, Eva Feder Kittay, Elise Springer, and Margaret Urban Walker for their helpful COll1ll1ents on an earlier draft of this chapter.

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he last two decades of the millennillm saw a surge of philosophical inquiry into the role of narrative il'l moral life. Why narrative? Why now? The obvious answer to the first questiOI'l is that people tell lots of stories-stories about themselves and their own experiences, about people they know and their experiences, about people, past, and present, whose lives they know of second-hand, and about people whom they imagine. Intentional agency-schematically, a purpose moves someone to act in order to bring about an outcome-coincides with the most familiar, barebones narrative template-beginning/purpose, middle/act, end/outcome. It is hardly surprising, then, tl'lat people's lives are so full of stories. Personal narratives track and articulate social encounters as well as the eddies of subjectivity. An individual's past experience may recur in the form of flashbacks, but more often people recollect their experience in narrative form. Moral relations also capitalize on narrative, for assigning responsibility al'ld excusing misdeeds depend on identifying protagonists, characterizing their state of mind, and specifying their actiOI'lS and the consequences of their actions. Phenomenologically, the answer to the question "Why narrative?" seems to be "Because it's so pervasive and ineliminable." Since narrative is such a prominent feature of human life, ignoring narrative-making, narrative-telling, and narrative-understanding would seem to be a case of philosophical ineptitude, if not malpractice. Yet,

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narration and narrativity have hardly been central topics in twentiethcentury Anglo-American philosophy. Only since Charles Taylor, Martha Nussbaum, Richard Rorty, Alastair Macintyre, and Alexander Nehamas cast narrative in a leading role in their moral and political theories has it gained sustained attention. 1 Building on this work, narrativity theorists have recently advanced a number of intriguing claims about the philosophical significance of narrative. According to Marya Schechtman, those individuals who "weave stories of their lives" are persons. 2 A person's identity, she adds, "is constituted by the content of her self-narrative, and the traits, actions, and experiences included in it are, by virtue of that inclusion, hers."3 Margaret Walker makes narrative pivotal to morality. "A story," in her view, "is the basic form of representation for moral problems."4 Leading a morally creditable life that is distinctively one's own requires developing and enacting narratives of "identity, relationship, and value."s Seyla Benhabib accents the relation between narrative and agency: "Our agency consists of our capacity to weave out of those [socially furnished] narratives and fragments of narratives a life story that makes sense for us, as unique individual selves."6 Likewise, Hilde Nelson claims that identities are "complex narrative constructions consisting of a fluid interaction of the many stories and fragments of stories surrounding the things that seem most important, from one's own point of view and the point of view of others, about a person over time."7 Moreover, because demeaning, culturally transmitted narratives can damage the identities and agency of members of systematically subordinated social groups, respectful counternarratives are necessary to repair these individuals' identities and to secure their agency. 8 Is human reality (or some especially important dimension of it) itself narrative in nature? Is human reality (or some especially important dimension of it) impossible to understand except through narrative devices? Or do narratives provide a particularly felicitous and easily communicated vehicle, but by no means the primary, only, or best vehicle, for representing human reality (or some especially important dimension of it)? There is reason to be cautious about overplaying the narrativity card in metaphysics or epistemology. A variety of nonnarrative modes of representation-pictorial imagery, poetic tropes, and dance gesture, not to mention theoretical analysis-can be expressively powerful and revealing of human reality. I would stress, moreover, that people avail themselves of all of these modes of representation collectively as well as individually-that is, at the level of cultural production and consumption and at the level of personal utterance and communication. In this respect, narrative is not privileged. In addition, the huge assortment of narrative forms available to Western narrators together with the possibil-

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ity that acquaintance with other cultures might reveal an even vaster array of narrative templates raises doubts about what is being asserted when this or that is said to be narrative in structure or structured by narrative. Although I think I know a story "when I see one," I am not at all confident that anyone can distinguish narratives from theories, sequential listings of events, and other forms of representation with enough clarity to grasp what is being denied when narrativity is affirmed. 9 Many narrativity theorists implicitly acknowledge these points by adopting very capacious views of narrative. They include story fragments and pictorial imagery in their conception of narrative; they do not exclude giving reasons from self-narratives; and they allow that autobiographical narratives need not be thematically unified or characterologically consistent, and that they need not cohere as a single plotline.1° Others mute their metaphysical claims by treating narrativity as an "organizing principle" of the lives persons lead or by treating personal identities as discursive constructions while distinguishing personal identities from persons or selves.u When fully spelled out, affirmations of narrativity sometimes prove to be less contentious than they initially sound. I set these matters aside, however, for my purpose is not to debate the merits of particular accounts of narrative and narrativity, nor is it to assess the tenability of basing metaphysics or epistemology on narrative. Rather, I wish to pose the question, "Why narrative now?" Thus, the first three sections explore the philosophical confusions, disappointments, and yearnings that motivate the turn to narrative. Philosophers invoke narrativity to underwrite conceptions of the moral subject, moral knowledge, and moral agency. I shall consider why these proposals are as attractive as they are. Although I think there is much to be learned from this approach to moral philosophy, I believe there are two disturbing omissions in narrativity theory. The first section concludes by pointing out the failure of narrativity theory to account for the richness of the moral subject's constitutive experience-the material that the narrator's stories relate. The last section argues that excessive attention to narrative leads philosophers to overlook the capacities that make narration possible and valuable.

THE MORAL SUBJECT

Moral subjects are members of moral communities. They regard themselves and one another as intentional agents, and they hold themselves and one another responsible for what they do. To those who lead this kind of life, nothing could seem more ordinary and natural. Yet, characterizing the creatures who engage in this form of interaction sparks heated controversy. An adequate account of the constitution of moral subjectivity

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must explain what enables people to reflect on moral problems and participate in moral relations, and there are quite a few accounts that have demonstrated their usefulness in explaining people's moral powers. I shall consider five of the most widely espoused and widely debated con- ' ceptions of the moral subject. Some theorists advocate the Kantian unitary self. Others embrace the communitarian social self, the psychoanalytic di- ; vided self, or the feminist relational self. The embodied self seems all but orphaned in these debates, but it seems to me that slighting the embodied self slights important forms of moral experience. Rationality is both the essence and the triumph of the unitary self. Proponents of this conception of the moral subject hold that reason enables individuals to discover and justify moral principles for themselves. By ensuring the mutual consistency of those principles, reason ensures unity within the individual's action-guiding system and thus unity of purpose for the moral subject. Furthermore, since the unitary subject's rationally mandated desires and actions express its essential nature, those desires and actions are most genuinely its own. Equally importantly, rationality endows individuals with critical powers. When unitary subjects detect conflicts within their system of principles or between their principles and their conduct, they seek to resolve these conflicts by amending their principles or reforming their conduct. They may apply the same critical skills to their society's institutions, policies, and practices. The unitary self appeals to moral theorists, then, because it makes sense of people's capacity for independent judgment and also because it underwrites a life of integrity. The unitary self leaves many moral theorists dissatisfied, though. Not only does this conception screen out all of the work (largely done by women) of nurturance and training in the "arts of personhood," as Annette Baier calls them, but also it assumes a universality of moral rationality that even a superficial acquaintance with comparative cultural studies belies. 12 The communitarian social self addresses these concerns by underscoring the fact that moral subjects are socialized or enculturated. To become competent moral subjects, individuals must acquire a stock of cultural values, attitudes, and interpretive frameworks and learn how to use these resources to understand and negotiate social relations. They must assimilate social norms and master appropriate ways to speak and act. Internalized, this material is constitutive of the individual's identity. This cultural enmeshment of the social self injects a welcome note of realism into discussions of moral subjectivity. It demystifies the source of people's moral values and dispositions. It offers an explanation of the development of moral subjectivity that acknowledges cultural diversity and that makes sense of people's loyalty to their communities and cultures of origin. However, opponents of this view worry that, conceived as a social

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self, the moral subject becomes a virtual captive of her or his social context. Their critical leverage minimized, people are limited to tinkering with the norms they inherit, if they are not destined to reproduce culturally transmitted norms. Undeniable though it is that individuals cannot create their own value systems and styles of conduct ex nihilo and that individuality is parasitic on socialization and enculturation, it is also undeniable that these normalizing processes threaten independent judgment and free choice. The psychoanalytic divided self is the psychodynamic self. Advocates of the divided self find fault with both the unitary self and the social self because these conceptions oversimplify moral subjectivity. Split between consciousness and self-awareness, on the one hand, and elusive unconscious affect and desire, on the other, the divided self is characterized by inner depth, complexity, and enigma. The distinctive, but open-ended psychic economy of the divided self is manifest in a unique subjectivity and personality. There is no universal core humanity, but individuals do not merely sponge up their cultural environment. Since individuals process cultural inputs, and since this processing is not constrained by universal rational standards, the divided self undermines moral theory's most reliable stanchions-tradition and reason. The psychodynamic conception also complicates moral subjectivity by curtailing self-supervision. As Freud memorably remarked, the ego "is not even master in its own house."13 Beset by unconscious drive and repressed desire, people are not transparent to themselves, nor can they exert complete control over their conduct. For this reason, the divided self is the natural locus of a major species of excuses-"I couldn't help it"; "1 don't know what came over me";"I lost it"; and the like. Because unconscious motivation can account for moral fecklessness without accusing the agent of malice, the divided self explains why many of our excuse-making and excuse-accepting practices are warranted forms of moral leniency. The feminist relational self is the interpersonally bonded self. This view seeks to respond to several criticisms of the preceding conceptions. Like proponents of the social self and the divided self, proponents of the relational self deny that critical reason can or should fully determine the moral subject's deliberations and decisions. But proponents of the relational self object to the social self on the grounds that it abstracts and reifies society and to the divided self on the grounds that it overestimates the importance of biology. The relational self personalizes society by emphasizing the influence of interpersonal relations throughout life, including but not limited to the formative interaction between children and their caregivers. The relational self interpersonalizes biology by insisting that children take their developmental cues from their caregivers and by denying that anatomy is intrinsically meaningfuL14 As relational selves with lasting emotional

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attachments to others, people share in one another's joys and sorrows, give and receive care, and, generally, profit from the many rewards and cope with the many aggravations of friendship, family membership, religious or ethnic affiliation, and the like. These relationships are sources of moral identity, for people become committed to their intimates and to others whom they care about, and these commitments become central moral concerns. Invested in a circle of family, friends, or other close personal connections, the relational self anchors the patterns of moral partiality that most people regard as justified and routinely enact. Yet, morally crediting these ties poses a problem for ethical theory. Since responding to others' needs can become so consuming that the individual is deprived of any opportunity to pursue personal goals and projects, valued relationships can morph into a "plague of commitments," to borrow Margaret Walker's striking phrase.1 5 Thus, proponents of the unitary self and the divided self may counter that the relational self is insufficiently separated from others-too entangled in its relational web to achieve a distinctive moral identity. The embodied self is often ignored in discussions of the moral subject. This is strange, for people can neither take action nor partake in sensuous pleasure unless they are embodied. Also, that so much childrearing effort is aimed at regulating the body and so much cultural machinery is dedicated to enforcing canons of physical appearance attests to society's preoccupation with bodies and their comportment. This concentration of attention heightens people's investment in their body image-their sense of what they look like and what their physical capabilities are. Since attacks on bodily integrity can be traumatic even when they are not life-threatening, prohibitions on physical aggression are among the most stringent moral norms. Still, it would be a mistake to reduce the embodied self to its manipulability and vulnerability. To be sure, ingrained bodily skillfulness is crucial to personal safety, but it is also crucial to social engagement. Body language-facial and gestural expressivity-eonveys much of the meaning of people's speech as well as their nonverbal behavior. The embodied self is also a repository of memory. Experiences of well-being as well as experiences of suffering are viscerally encoded and shape subsequent conduct.16 Physical misery, such as chronic hunger and backbreaking labor, often signals injustice and may catalyze social critique. Thus, the embodied self is a wellspring of moral insight and innovation as well as a vehicle of moral enactment and self-revelation. Each of the preceding conceptions of the self captures a significant dimension of moral subjectivity-of what it's like and what it means to be a participant in a moral community. Yet, these conceptions are usually presented as mutually exclusive. A theory of moral subjectivity, it is assumed, must take a stand on which kind of self the moral subject really is and must somehow subsume the other four phenomenal selves within that concep-

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tion. Indeed, because familiar theories of the self endeavor to incorporate the strengths of the five conceptions sketched above, my discussion may seem to artificially pry them apart. In my view, however, the move to synthesize these conceptions has two unfortunate consequences: 1) Each conception must be stretched and twisted to accommodate dimensions of moral subjectivity that fit far more easily into alternative conceptions, and 2) dimensions of moral subjectivity that cannot be crammed into one's preferred conception must be dismissed as peripheral or illusory. In light of these problems, it would be better to drop the synthetic imperative and to regard the five conceptions of the self as articulating five faces of the moral subject-five dimensions of subjective experience, five loci of value, five schemas for understanding oneself and others, and five foci of moral concern. Alas, this suggestion seems to amount to recommending a cumbersome, perhaps incoherent, account of the moral subject. Yet, if my dissatisfaction with theories that embrace the synthetic imperative is well grounded, parsimony and completeness may not be jointly attainable. Here, I would urge, is where narrativity gets its purchase. In selfnarratives, people effortlessly weave together the disparate themes that the unitary self, the social self, the divided self, the relational self, and the embodied self highlight. Consider, for example, Lynne Taetzsch's autobiographical essay, "Fighting Natural," which chronicles her odyssey from poverty and unpopularity in a New Jersey high school to dissociating from herself at USC after trying to masquerade as a California coed and finally to donning a professional getup and teaching writing at George Washington University. The pivotal motif in Taetzsch's story is dying her hair. Blatantly at odds with her general indifference to her appearance-she doesn't bother to wear makeup and prefers casual clothes-her dedication to this ritual baffles herP In addition, it conflicts with her principles. Preparing to teach bell hooks's critique of Madonna's Blonde Ambition performances, she reproaches herself for betraying the cause of gender and racial equality and also for forsaking her students who need her to model an alternative to the beauty codes promulgated in the mass media. 18 With an assist from her divided self, however, she represses the contradictions her rational, unitary self descries and blithely opts for a blonder-than-blond frosting the very next day. At home after the treatment, inspecting the results, she is appalled by what she's done but loves the way she looks anyway.19 How could she have come to be so ambivalent about and alienated from herself? That's partly a story about her relational self-the father who agreed with the high school counselor who condemned her for thinking she was "smarter than everyone else" and the first boyfriend who dated her only to "make his old girlfriend jealous."zo It's also a story about her social self and the stereotypes that frame perception and social

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positioning. At USC, men read her "California-girl look-alike attempt" as a sexual come-on, and later at Cooper Union, fellow students and faculty members read her no-holds-barred sex-object pastiche as slutty.21 Not surprisingly, the embodied self figures prominently too: 'Tm fifty-one years old and can't remember a day when I felt at home in my body. "22 Near the end of her story, the divided self resurfaces: I had nowhere to put my rage. So I took it out on my hair. What I've done most to my hair is torture it. I've bleached it, permed it, burned it, cut it, tied it, and dyed it with a vengeance to disfigure, not enhance my appearance. The Clairol home treatment-whether silver blond or blue-black-has been a kind of purging for me, a tearing out of myoId life so that I might look in the mirror and see a new person, find a new life, a way to be in the world that worked this time. 23

Reacting to a gender system that identifies women with their looks, that demands that women fight their "natural" looks, and that condemns them for looking unnatural, Taetzsch turns her aggression on herself. Without ever naming the five conceptions of the self that I have identified Taetzsch tells a succinct, coherent story that includes everyone of them. I realize that her story is an artfully crafted memoir, not an ordinary self-narrative. Still, I do not think her inclusion of these five dimensions of selfhood is atypical of the latter. It is troubling, however, that narrative accounts of the moral subject do not so much resolve as dissolve the tensions among the five conceptions. The themes remain, and they are articulated. But the disparate origins of these identity-constituting experiences remain implicit. Because selfstories do not distinguish the respective roles of reasoning, enculturation, interpersonal relations, bodily processes, and intrapsychic dynamics in the constitution of moral subjects, the analytical incompatibilities and incongruities of the corresponding conceptions of the self disappear. Thus, narrativity theory provides the sought-after synthesis, but at the cost of explanatory power. Taetzsch's story depicts the experiences of a remarkably complex individual, but it does not purport to explain what kind of being is capable of undergoing the many kinds of experience she describes. If "a story-telling being" is not an informative characterization of such individuals, it seems to me that narrativity theory must retain the five conceptions of the self I have sketched.

MORAL KNOWLEDGE

Twentieth century Anglo-American philosophy puts a premium on codifying moral knowledge. According to Margaret Walker, however, this

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epistemological demand has not always held sway. She traces its assent to iHenry Sidgwick's monumental survey, The Methods of Ethics. 24 Subsequent to Sidgwick's schematization of ethical thought, the approach to moral philosophy that Walker dubs the "theoretical-juridical model" came into currency.25 Henceforth, moral philosoph.y's foremost tasks include articulating a finite set of action-guiding principles, organizing them into a hierarchical system, and defending this system. Correlatively, possessi.on of a rationally justified system of principles is conceived as the key to moral deliberation. To figure out how they should act, moral subjects must distill morally significant information from their circumstances and identify relevant moral principles. Using these materials as premises, they must then construct deductive argulnents that yield judgments about what they ought (or ought not) to do. Thus, th.e theoretical-juridical model aspires to bring theory and practice into alignment. No moral theory has fulfilled this promise, however, for the project of codifying moral knowledge is fraught with peril. First, no simple principle is determinate and absolute. Any credible principle must be interpreted to clarify the meaning of the terms in which it is couched and qualified to COllntenance various generally recognized exceptions. Fully explicit statements of moral principles turn out to be lengthy, complicated, and unwieldy-a far cry from the succinct Thou shalts and Thou shalt nots of the Decalogue. In addition, it is doubtful that a fully explicit statement of any moral principle could ever be finalized. 26 New circumstances-brought about, for exan1ple, by scientific discoveries, demographic upheaval, unprecedented technology, or political or economic transformation-might point up the need for further amendment. Worse, even supposing that fully explicit and final statements of our moral principles could be obtain.ed, these philosophical behemoths would be of little practical use to real-world moral subjects whose cognitive capacities and time for deliberation are limited. Second, no hierarchical ordering of principles is universal and absolute. Every principle can be trumped by another principle under some conceivable circumstances. Indeed, one reason why no single instantiation of the theoretical-juridical model has ever commanded wide assent among professional philosophers is that they are trained to dream up clever situations in which a seemingly inviolable principle would have to yield to more compelling moral considerations. This strategy casts doubt on the most enduring systems of rank-ordered principles. To defend their views against such challenges, some theorists limit the scope of applicability of their prioritized principles. John Rawls, for example, confines his theory of justice to pluralistic societies with democratic political traditions. 27 Rawls is vague about justice in other types of society. Other theorists give up on assessing the relative stringency of principles and assigning them

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fixed rankings. W. D. Ross, for instance, affirms that all principles hold prima facie-that is, each is binding unless some other principle overrides it-and that individuals must rely on intuition to determine which principle is binding in a given situation. 28 For n10ral theory, definitive systematization of principles is as elusive a goal as complete articulation of principles. The rigidity of tIle theoretical-jllridical model portends its downfall. But the deindividualization of moral life that moral codificatiol1 entails is no less troubling. Intuitionism seen1S to furnish a more flexible alternative. However, its epistemology is unpersuasive. Intuitionists typically maintain that people share a common faculty of moral apprehension and that people whose faculties are not impaired by self-interest, bias, or some other distorting influence will reach the same moral conclusions. Not orLly does tl1is claim rule out moral individuality, it also flies in the face of abul1dant evidence that many reasonable and conscientious people profoundly disagree about morality. Different people prioritize different values and h.ave different styles of moral el1actment. Yet most of these diverse individuals lead morally decent lives. A theory of moral knowledge should be able to explain how this is possible. Plainly, these individuals are not con1plying with a universal moral code, nor are they following the dictates of a universal faculty of moral intuition. But neither are they impulsively doing whatever they happen to feel like doing or shrewdly calculating how to get whatever they happen to want most. They have values and interpersonal commitments; they n1ake judgments about what they ought to do; they reproach themselves when they fall short of their ideals. Narrativity theorists maintain that tl1ese individuals are telling certain sorts of stories to themselves and to the people they associate with. They are anticipating what sort of story they will be able to tell if they do this or that;29 they are recalling the story of a particular relationship in order to ascertain what the other person can legitimately expect of them;30 they are crafting counterstories designed to resist a master narrative that depicts them in demeaning ways.31 Th~y are improvising, to be sure, but th.eir creativity is constrained by narrative conventions as well as by other people's willingness to accept their stories. Thus, narrative accounts offer an explanation of how moral knowledge can be both individualized and well justified, and this explanation positions these accounts to repudiate pernicious individual relativism along with the theoretical-juridical model. Since serious deficiencies have been found in every moral theory based on the theoretical-juridical model, and since glaring disparities separate this model's conception of moral deliberation from the ways in which moral subjects actually thiI1k as they go about their lives, it is no wonder that narrative accounts of moral knowledge are steadily attracting converts.

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MORAL AGENCY

The problem of moral agency is traditionally construed as a problem about free will and responsibility. Exercising moral agency requires free will. People can be held responsible for their conduct and for its foreseeable consequences provided that it arises from free will. Many philosophers take this much for granted. Where they differ is over the nature of free will. Followers of Kant nlaintain that persons are endowed with rea.son, a faculty said to transcend the nexus of causal determinism. Provided that reason can steer volition, the will is free. Followers of Hume contend that such transcendence is a fiction. According to this view, people have free will when no external force prevents them from doing what they want to do or compels them to do what they do not want to do. As long as the cause of an action is internal to the agent, that individual is free. The dispute between Humean and Kantian accounts of moral agency has never been resolved. But in the twentieth century, Marxist insights into the impact of dominant ideologies on individuals' lives have complicated discussion of this topic. Specifically, it has become clear that a tenable theory of moral agency must contend with internalized oppression, for internalized oppression compromises self-determination. Internalized oppression afflicts many members of systematically subordinated social groups. To internalize oppression is to incorporate the experience of occupying a subordinate social position into the structure of the self. Cramping norms and humiliating attitudes become embedded in the cognitive, emotional, al1d volitional capacities of affected individuals. As a result, tlleir self-perception, their grasp of opportunities, their hopes for the future, and their choices comport with the social position to which they have been relegated rather than with their real abilities and rightful ambitions. People who have internalized oppression "voluntarily" replicate derogatory stereotypes and reproduce disadvantageous behavior patterns. They are acting on "their own" values and preferences, but they are also perpetuating their own oppression. This paradox. poses formidable problems for both the Kantian and the Humean approach to moral agency. Rationally willed transcendence is hardly an option for those who find themselves in the grip of internalized oppression. Yet they rationally gauge how best to cope with their lot in life. External coercion does not compel them to act as they do. Yet they are by no means self-determining agents. Holding members of subordinated social groups responsible for complicity in th.eir own oppression would (literally) add insult to injury. Plainly, the problem of responsibility and agency must be reframed to take account of the menace of internalized oppression. Claudia Card's approach accents the temporality of responsibility and displaces the issue of free will. In h.er view, an exclusively backward-looking

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conception of responsibility-one that focuses on imputing praise or blame for past actions-overlooks a more fundamental form of responsibility.32 While acknowledging the need to place blame where it belongs, Card stresses how practices of taking responsibility-assuming the burdens of meeting needs or grappling with problen1s-pervade interpersonal relations and social life. 33 Many of these undertakings enact subordinating norms and may result from internalized oppression. However, some of these undertakings defy wrongful social norms and resist ll1ternalized oppression. One of Card's examples is her own refusal of her culturally sanctioned sexual identity and her taking responsibility for redefining her erotic identity as a lesbian. 34 As she points out, people who are not responsible for inflicting injustice may l1evertheless need to take responsibility for ending it. 35 If those who are harmed do not band together and resist, no one else will. Neither the Kantian nor the Humean conception of agency adequately addresses Card's forward-looking form of responsibility. Although taking responsibility need not involve overcoming internalized oppression, the kinds of responsibility-taking that particularly interest feminists and other progressive philosophers often do. What is needed, then, is a theory of moral agency that appreciates the power of internalized oppression to subvert self-determination and that also explains how resistance is possible and why it is necessary. For Kantians, internalized oppression can have only a superficial impact on moral agency, for it cannot penetrate to and corrupt tl1e individual's core rational capacity. For Humeans, internalized oppression may (perver~ely) reduce the urgency of resistance. Since people wl10 have internalized oppression do not want to do anything that would challenge social norms and provoke an antagonistic response, individuals can be acting freely (doing as they want without external interference) in virtue of having internalized oppressive norms. An adequate theory of moral agency must distinguish genuine self-determination from choice dictated by internalized oppression, and it must explain resistance to injustice without underestimating the damage to agency that internalized oppression causes. Autobiographical narrative provides a way to finesse philosophical impasses on the topic of free will and doubts about hyperindividualistic accounts of moral agency. Likewise, it provides a way to counteract philosophical worries that anti-individualistic accounts of moral agency, which emphasize enculturation and institutional constraints, gut self-determination. For purposes of explicating innovative moral thought and resistance to oppressive norms, narrative theories of moral agency invoke linguistic competence. To be a fluel1t speaker is to be capable of generating an indefinite number of different sentences. Since the potential for creativity is built into a commonplace human capability that also empowers people to tell their own life stories, it is to be expected that

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some people will project futures for themselves or for their society that overturn established values and conventions. People do not need a pure rational capacity that is insulated from social influence to conceive new options, for internalized oppression does not neutralize linguistic competence. Still, people need to be able to distinguish novel options that they really want to pursue from novel options that would be no more satisfying or worthwhile than those that subordinating norms prescribe. Here narrativity theorists often point to dissident discursive communities, such as friendships, political organizations, and support groups, that encourage people to revise their self-narratives and that facilitate critical scrutiny of unorthodox plotlines. 36 Although others' acceptance of one's self-narrative cannot serve as the sole criterion of its credibility, exchanging stories often helps people refine a basically convincing story or discard implausible ones. Linking moral agency to autobiographical narrative renders taking responsibility for one's identity and resistance to internalized oppression intelligible. Not only can a modified self-narrative resignify the meaning of the protagonist's inveterate feelings, attitudes, desires, and behavior, but also it can project a continuation of the story that keeps faith with the protagonist but breaks with the past. The settings of the story may change and prompt different behavior, or the protagonist's changed interpretation of the same settings may lead to fresh ways of engaging with them. By tracking the protagonist's subjective responses along with her or his conduct, self-narratives expose moments of self-alienation and habits of self-betrayal. By envisioning alternative episodes in which the protagonist feels different, acts differently, or both, self-narratives can bring behavior into accord with subjectivity. The device of self-narrative can free up individuals' imaginations without cutting them off from reality. Thus, narrativity clarifies how people can be profoundly influenced by their social context and yet retain their capacity to shape self-determined moral lives-to transvalue values, reroute their own pathways, and reconfigure their social ideals.

WHAT'S MISSING FROM NARRATIVE ACCOUNTS? Recent philosophical treatments of narrativity are enormously edifying. They bring out serious weaknesses in traditional philosophical formulations of the moral subject, moral knowledge, and moral agency. They impart density, nuance, and dynamism to these concepts. Too often, philosophical abstraction and analysis squeeze the life out of moral experience. Narrativity theory successfully resists this tendency. Still, narrative accounts retain their critical edge, for moral experience includes reflexivity, exchanging

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rebukes as well as reassurances, and negotiating ways to reconcile or live with moral disagreements. Narrativity theory preserves this richness and vitality. However, I shall argue that, in explicating the epistemology of narrativity, narrativity theory has paid insufficient heed to the processes through which people generate and certify moral self-narratives. Narrativity theory's perilous proximity to poststructuralism is one reason why this oversight concerns me. The poststructuralist subject is a discursively constructed and reconstructed "nodal point" in the continual, sometimes turbulent interplay of discursive currents. 37 This conception of subjectivity meshes well with the sheer rush of experience, the transience of impulses, the effervescence of feelings, and the fissures in consciousness. The splintering and instability that this conception enshrines make it a good antidote to conceptions that exaggerate coherence and wholeness to the point of falsifying moral experience. However, these very strengths concomitantly undercut its viability as an account of moral subjects, their knowledge, and their agency. Moral subjects must be capable of taking responsibility; moral knowledge must schematize perception and shape action; moral agency must express commitments (at a minimum, the commitment to refrain from committing). If so, there must be limits to the extent and frequency of change that moral subjects, moral knowledge, and moral agency can undergo. But continuity is anathema to poststructuralism, for it can only be achieved through repression of difference. My reading of narrativity theory suggests that it can accommodate substantial moral change without succumbing to the unfettered volatility that is fatal to the poststructuralist model. To avoid the pitfalls of poststructuralism, narrativity theory must posit 1) a narrator who is adept at using a set of skills that for the most part generate accurate memory stories and plausible anticipatory stories, and 2) an independent interpersonal and institutional world in which narrators site their stories. Neither the narrator's autobiographical competence nor the narrator's world can be reducible to discursive formations. Many narrativity theorists insist on the distinctions between narrators and their autobiographies and between the worlds narrators inhabit and their stories about them. 38 They believe, as I do, that narrators can be deceived about themselves, suffer memory lapses, misread other people, acquiesce in the workings of unjust social structures, err in their moral judgments, and act badly. Consequently, these theorists seek to characterize credible stories. Although epistemologies of narrativity differ in specifics, two criteria recur in these accounts-coherence within self narratives and consensus between oneself and others regarding one's selfnarrative. As Hilde Nelson maintains, vetting self-narratives often depends on assessing their coherence. To decide between conflicting stories of a partic-

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ular relationship, for instance, it is useful to determine which coheres better with other Llncontested stories about the individua1. 39 Also, a story's correlation to past action and structuring of future action-that is, its coherence with personal recollections and with. anticipatory self-narrativesadds to its credibility.4o But an additional check on self-narratives is needed, for it is possible to produce a coherent self-narrative that C011tains more fantasy than reality. Thus, Margaret Walker caLltions, individuals do not have the final say in assessing the merits of their self-narratives. Since moral values and justifications are "shared understandings," moral selfnarratives are subject to others' challenges and sometimes their outright dismissa1. 41 Yet, because auditors can be ill informed or biased, consensus can be misleading too. Neither consensus nor coheren.ce suffices as an epistemic standard for self-narratives. They complement and correct one another. I am well aware that it would be preposterous to den1and an epistemic metric to rule on the credibility of self-narratives. Moreover, I have no doubt that coherence and consensus are reasonable bases for evaluating self-narratives. They are so deeply rooted in everyday practices of selfreflection and interpersonal arbitration that it is hard to imagine what it would be like to do without them. Yet, these criteria do not sit well with two insights regarding the self and social reality that narrativity theorists have helped to make philosophically salient. Moral subjectivity, moral knowledge, and moral agency are never altogether coherent. Narrativity theorists accent the multiplicity within moral subjects. Their metaphors include "ensemble subjectivity" and a "small squad of Possible Selves."42 Moreover, individuals rightly consider disparate values and behaviors appropriate to the widely divergent contexts in which they function, and there is no alchemy that can transmute their situated judgments into a consistent set of precepts. Since close observation of moral subjects, moral knowledge, and moral agency demonstrates that no strictly coherent, overarching narrative could credibly depict them, individuals must deploy th.e coherence criterion judiciously. It can alert them to confusion, rationalization, and other sources of distortion in their stories. But if it is applied indiscrhninately and rigorously, it requires narrators to omit significant material that does not fit neatly with predominarLt autobiographical themes, motifs, tonalities, and so forth. 43 Unless people take the coherence criterion with a grain of salt, they will edit the unruly, disruptive incidents out of their self-narratives. A major problem with the consensus criterion stems fron1 the fact that auditors occupy social positions which are defined by multiple vectors of domination and subordination. 44 Because differently positioned auditors are equipped with an.d, perforce, listen through different interpretive frameworks, some are more likely to confirm, whereas others are more

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likely to dispute the same self-narrative. Obtaining consensus for an episodic self-narrative involving people from different social spheres is seldom possible; obtaining intergroup consensus for a synoptic autobiographical narrative is virtually impossible. Nevertheless, like coherence, consensus seen1S indispensable to and inextricable from everyday practices of self-reflection and interpersonal arbitration. Just as people routinely ask then1selves "Does this make sense?" and mean "Is this story coherent?" so too th.ey routinely do "reality checks" to solicit feedback and establish consensus. But successfully wielding the consensus criterion presupposes n1akin.g wise decisions about whose feedback to trust, and these decisions are tricky. Auditors who hold power over the narrator often seem authoritative and command more deference than they deserve. Also the narrator's own self-destructive or self-aggrandizing proclivities are liable to skew perceptions of listeners' trustworthiness. Thus, many self-narratives that satisfy the consensus criterion encode internalized oppression or internalized privilege. The intuitive plausibility of the coherence and consensus criteria rests on assumptions about the quality of narrators' discernment and judgment. Individuals need to select materials that can be organized into intelligible stories, but they also need to register the significance of anomalous information and to keep tabs on branching, parallel, and colliding plotlines. Narrators need social recognition for their stories. Still, they must filter out ignorant or hostile reactions while factoring in "hard truths." Although people need to compile facts and recollect the past accurately, they must not neglect the future, which enlists them in composing aspirational self-l1.arratives that express their ideals and hopes for themselves and for their societies. Seyla Benhabib alludes to the skills that enable individuals to juggle coherence, consensus, and the facts both as they believe them to 11.ave been and as they want them to become when she writes of the "ability to keep telling a story about who one is that makes sense to oneself and to others."45 In my view, this utterly marvelous, extremely recondite, and blithely taken-for-granted ability is crucial to the epistemology of narrativity. Narrativity is the output of processes that mobilize a wide range of human capacities-skills that enrich human experience and provide material for stories and skills that enable people to compose insightful stories and to revise stories that prove to misrepresent their experience and understandings. The followll1.g are among the skills that contribute to self-narrativity: 1) Introspection skills that sensitize individuals to their own feelings

and desires, that enable them to interpret their subjective experience, and that help them judge how well a narrative conveys their sense of themselves.

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2) Communication and listening skills that enable individuals to get the benefit of others' perceptions, background knowledge, insights, advice, and support and that also enable them to expose flattery, bigotry, schadenfreude, and other sources of misleading feedback. 3) Memory skills that enable individuals to recall relevant experiences and apposite narrative devices-not only from their own lives, but also from stories that associates have told or that they have encountered in literature or other art forms. 4) Imagination skills that enable individuals to envisage feasible options-to preview a variety of plotlines their lives might follow and to consider what it would mean to be the protagonist of those stories. 5) Analytical and reasoning skills that enable individuals to identify the advantages and disadvantages of different projections of the possible turns their life stories could take. 6) Self-nurturing skills that enable individuals to secure their physical and psychological equilibrium despite missteps and setbacks-that enable them to appreciate the overall worthiness of their self-portraits and their self-narratives, to assure themselves of their capacity to carry on when they find their self-portraits wanting or their self-narratives misguided, and to sustain their self-respect if they need to correct their self-portraits or revise their self-narratives. 7) Volition skills that enable individuals to resist pressure to capitulate to convention and that enable them to maintain their commitment to the continuations of their autobiographies that they consider genuinely their own. 8) Interpersonal skills that enable individuals to join forces to challenge and change cultural regimes and institutional arrangements that pathologize or marginalize their priorities and projects, that deprive them of accredited discursive means to represent themselves to themselves and to others as flourishing, self-respecting, valuable individuals, and that close off their opportunities to enact their selfnarratives. 46 It is important to bear in mind that people's competence with respect to this

repertoire of self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction skills varies. Individuals are more or less proficient with respect to each skill, and they are more or less adept at coordinating the skills they possess. My claim is that profiting from using the coherence and consensus criteria is contingent on one's overall level of competence with respect to these skills and therefore that one's confidence in one's self-narrative is justified provided that it is commensurate with one's overall level of competence and provided that one has made good use of one's competence in developing this narrative.

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It is tempting to look for properties that all credible self-narratives share, for narratives are entities that can be inspected. Likewise, it is tempting to look for interpersonal tests that credible self-narratives must pass, for stories are articulated in the nledium of language, and language is a medium of social intercourse. However, neither coherence nor consensus can be made sufficiently precise to obviate the need for judgment on the part of narrators, and good judgment hinges on good self-discovery, self-definition, and selfdirection skills. There can be no foolproof method for vindicating self-narratives. But this is no cause for regret. On the contrary, it builds respect for individuality into narrativity epistemology. It is advisable to give narrators plenty of discretion by leaving the coherence and consensus criteria ambiguous, for putting teeth in them would unduly regiment people's lives. Construed narrowly, coherence valorizes caution, control, and regularity. Thus, fidelity to this criterion could suppress spontaneity, experimentation, and yielding to lucky happenstance. Consensus can impose similar strictures. On the assumption that many of one's prospective interlocutors accept prevailing social norms and oppose radical change, consensus militates against dissent and nonconforn1ity. To avoid capitulating to these convention enforcing, opportunity foreclosing subtexts, individuals must adapt coherence to their own values and styles of enactment, and they must seek consensus within communities of kindred but thoughtful and candid spirits. In other words, to apply these criteria well, narrators must individualize them, and they can only individualize them by exercising the self-discovery, self-definition, al1d self-direction skills I have sketched. To ensure respect for the diversity of morally decent lives, narrativity theory must explicate the credibility of self-narratives in terms of this repertoire of skills. Self-narratives are not all equally valid, revealing, and conducive to flourishing, but there is no property internal to selfnarratives nor any interpersonal test that can rank them. The best gauge of a self-narrative's credibility, then, is the narrator's overall degree of mastery of the self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction skill repertoire and the extent to which the narrator made use of this competency in constructing a particular self-narrative. Generic storytelling skills cannot be the sole resources that narratives laying claim to articulating moral subjectivity, moral knowledge, and moral agency draw on. Generic storytelling skills produce all sorts of fictions-fairytales, negative utopias, science fiction, romances, and horror stories-as well as autobiographical narratives.. Some superb storytellers are poor autobiographers. Notoriously, Ernest Hemingway's deficient self-discovery skills mar his autobiographical writing. A Moveable Feast, which contains some appallingly self-serving and arguably

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delusional passages, illustrates this failing. With the assistance of selfdiscovery, self-definition, and self-direction skills, though, storytelling skills become tools of moral individuality, moral in.5ight, and moral selfdetermination. In many cases, it may be true, as Jerome Bruner claims, that "adventures happen to people who know l'loW to tell it that way."47 But it is also true that people can pad their self-narratives with adventures that did not happen and that people can suffer for want of tIle right words or framework in which to articulate h.ow something actually transpired. To curb overactive imaginations, to overcome isolating silence, and to secure the credibility of self-narratives, the competency that keeps people attuned to themselves and alive to life's possibilities nlust underwrite the processes of self-narrating. 48

NOTES 1. Charles Taylor, Sources of the Self (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1989); Martha Nussbaum, Love's Knowledge (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); Richard Rorty, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984); and Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche, Life as Literature (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1985). 2. Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 94. 3. Ibid. 4. Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998), 110. 5. Ibid., 111. 6. Seyla Benhabib, "Sexual Difference and Collective Identities: The New Global Constellation," Signs 24 (1999): 335-61, 344. See also J. David Velleman, "The Self as Narrator," unpublished manuscript. 7. I-Iilde Lindemann Nelson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 20. 8. Ibid., 9. 9. John Christman, "Narrative Unity as a Condition of Personhood," unpublished manuscript. 10. Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998), 112-14, 129; Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 158; and Seyla Benhabib, "Sexual Difference and Collective Identities: The New Global Constellation," Signs 24 (1999): 348. 11. Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 113, 116; and Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 20. 12. Annette Baier, Postures of the Mind (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1985), 84.

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13. Sigmund Freud, "Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis," in The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (Vol. 16), ed. James Strachey (London: The Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1915-1916),285. 14. Here I am contrasting the classic biologistic conception of the divided self

that Freud propounded with the relational self. However, it should be noted that the object relations school of psychoanalysis develops a nonbiologistic synthesis of the divided self and the relational self. 15. Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998), 108. 16. Susan Brison, "Outliving Oneself: Trauma, Memory, and Personal Identity,"

in Feminists Rethink the Self, ed. Diana Tietjens Meyers (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997),17-18. 17. Lynn Taetzsch, "Fighting Natural," in Minding the Body: Women Writers on Body and Soul, ed. Patricia Foster (New York: Anchor Books, 1995),233. 18. Ibid., 234. 19. Ibid., 235. 20. Ibid., 237, 239. 21. Ibid., 242--45. 22. Ibid., 242. 23. Ibid., 245--46. 24. Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998),

ch.2. 25. Ibid., 36. 26. Neo-Kantian Christine Korsgaard concedes this point by distinguishing

provisional universality from absolute universality and by acknowledging that it is advisable to regard moral principles as provisionally universal, Le., to be prepared to add qualifications to them as need be (Christine Korsgaard, "Self-Constitution in the Ethics of Plato and Kant," Journal of Ethics 3 [1999]: 1-29,24-25). However, under this interpretation, as I argue below, the universality criterion ceases to be a practical guide to acting well and becomes a formal requirement of interest mainly to philosophers. 27. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993),13-15. 28. David W. Ross, The Right and the Good (London: Clarendon Press, 1930), 19, 41--42. 29. Richard Rorty, "Freud and Moral Reflection," in Pragmatism's Freud, eds.

William Kerrigan and Joseph Smith (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986), 18. 30. Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998), 111. 31. Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 6-9. 32. Claudia Card, The Unnatural Lottery (Philadephia, Pa.: Temple University Press, 1996),29. 33. Ibid., 28-29. 34. Ibid., ch. 7.

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35. Ibid., 41. 36. For example, Hilde Lindemann elson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 1-6. 37. Chantal Mouffe, "Feminism, Citizenship, and Radical Democratic Politics," in Feminist Social Thought: A Reader, ed. Diana Tietjens Meyers (New York: Routledge, 1997), 534. 38. Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998), 120; Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 102; and Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996), 119. 39. Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 94. 40. Hilde Lindemann elson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 95. For related lines of thought, see Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996),97-98; and Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings ( ew York: Routledge, 1998), 75, 114. 41. Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998), 106,113-14,119-20. See also Marya Schechtman, The Constitution of Selves (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996),95; and Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001), 81. 42. Ibid., 119; and Jerome Bruner, "The 'Remembered' Self," in The Remembering Self, eds. Ulric Neisser and Robyn Fivush (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 46. 43. Ibid., 144-48 and Hilde Lindemann elson, Damaged Identities: Narrative Repair (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), 190. 44. Margaret Urban Walker, Ibid., chs. 7 and 8; and Hilde Lindemann Nelson, Ibid., 92, 97. 45. Seyla Benhabib, "Sexual Difference and Collective Identities: The New Global Constellation," Signs 24 (1999): 335-61, 346---47. Also see Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings (New York: Routledge, 1998), 10, 66. 46. I have discussed these skills in some other works, including my Self, Society, and Personal Choice (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), 78-84, 87, and my Gender in the Mirror (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 18-21. 47. Jerome Bruner, "The 'Remembered' Self," in The Remembering Self, eds. Ulric Neisser and Robyn Fivush (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994),48. 48. I am indebted, as usual, to several colleagues' astute comments on earlier drafts. Thanks to Sally Ruddick, Hilde Nelson, and Cheshire Calhoun.

III

AGENCY IN HOSTILE SOCIAL CONTEXTS

9

+ Cultural Diversity: Rights, Goals, and Competing Values

he struggles of peoples to preserve their own cultures against the onslaughts of alien cultures number among the constants of human history, and cultural perpetuation persists today as an issue in various forms. Israel has denied automatic immigration rights to Jews who believe in Christ. The People's Republic of China makes it a matter of policy whether to sell decadent Western products, and much of the Islamic world is actively engaged in expelling Western social and political practices. The French Academy worries about Americanisms creeping into colloquial French. And members of u.s. society with histories as different as those of Hassidic Jews, Native Americans, and refugee Cubans are striving to keep their cultures from being overwhelmed. This essay addresses the problem of cultural perpetuation in culturally pluralistic societies, leaving aside the complications of international relations but stressing moral and political concerns. Before considering whether there is some sort of moral warrant for cultural perpetuation, I briefly examine the nature and function of culture as well as the value of cultural diversity. Then I turn to the question of how moral and political theory might seek to realize that value. Though I urge that there is neither an individually held right to perpetuate one's culture nor a right held by cultural groups to perpetuate their cultures, I argue that in culturally pluralistic societies cultural diversity should be regarded as a social goal.

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CULTURE AND CULTURAL PERPETUATION

The accounts of culture advanced by anthropologists vary in their emphasis.l Some stress conduct-a way of life-while others focus on experiencea set of rules for interpreting the world. But wherever the accent falls, the account lands us in a tangled nexus of ideas and activities. Transmitted to each new member of sundry social groups, these intricate ideational-behavioral systems enable fellow cultural initiates to recognize one another and endow them with a powerful social bond. Yet cultural identification is not a straightforward matter of credentials similar to nationality. Cultural markers are sometimes definite and obvious, but they are commonly subtle and distinguished by degrees. Different cultural groups may speak wholly different languages, or they may speak dialects of a single linguistic stock. Characteristic comportment may be codified in rules that are taught to children, but children also assimilate certain cultural proprieties unconsciously as they grow up. Furthermore, these countless elements, some overt and others submerged, do not stand alone but rather mesh to form complex, evolving patterns. The subtlety, mutability, and diversity of cultural traditions and cultural groups explain why the mechanisms and institutions of cultural affiliation resist schematization into a few paradigmatic modes. The concept of a culture compasses both the idea of a group of interconnected individuals and the idea of a heritage that unites them. Moreover, all cultures must supply solutions for the basic problems confronting human beings-how to obtain nourishment and shelter, how to interact with other persons, how to procreate, how to dispose of corpses, and the like. Still, this universal cultural function does not entail a universal infrastructure for all cultures. It is doubtful, then, that anyone set of categories can comprehend the elements of all cultures and that anyone ordering of these categories can represent the relations among these elements in all cultures. Consequently, little more can be said about cultures in general than that they consist of shared systems of beliefs and practices that handle, but are not limited to handling, the inescapable problems of human existence. One consequence of understanding culture this way is that the borders between cultures are acknowledged to be somewhat indeterminate. The claim that cultures are delineated by the sharing of beliefs and practices makes cultural membership a matter of individual attestation matched by social confirmation. Since there can be disparities between self-perception and group perception, controversy is bound to arise over the precise limits of cultural groups, as in my example of Israel's need to reach a decision about the status of Jews for Jesus. Likewise, since there can be disagreements about the orthodoxy of some individuals' beliefs and practices, controversy is bound to arise over the contents of cultures. Some Jews re-

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gard turning on electric lights on the Sabbath as permissible; others do not. This indefiniteness seems appropriate, however, under conditions of cultural pluralism where cultures may come to overlap and where there may be a national heritage that ll1embers of otherwise distinct cultural groups nevertheless have in common. 2 Cultures are not sharply dell1arcated, nor are they static. Succeeding generations face new circumstances and adjust their culture to n1eet unanticipated personal and collective needs. Whereas women were once restricted to the balconies of synagogues, the Reform branch. now permits women in the main auditorium. If cultures were not sufficiently pliable to admit intracultural innovation in response to changing circumstances, cultural groups would be obliged to abandon their heritages so often that cultural continuity would be a rare ph.enomenon., lasting a few decades at most, and new cultures would spring up at every historical turn. Similarly, cultural fixity would entail that no culture could survive borrowings resulting from intercultural contact, regardless of how beneficial they might be. To avoid multiplying cultures fantastically while acknowledging that cultures can be enriched from within and without, cultures must be viewed as evolving systems. Since cultures are at once plastic and vulnerable, it is necessary to distinguish between cultural evolution and cultural destruction in order to grasp cultural perpetuation. The autonomy of a cultural group and the survival of its original stock of beliefs and practices are both germane to the question of cultural perpetuation. Yet neith.er of these considerations is decisive. Here it is important to realize th.at cultural isolation or other protection froll1 alien intervention does not guarantee cultural autonomy. Just as senility is an autogenous form of personal debilitation that compromises the individual sufferer's capacity for self-direction, such events as a stunning technical breakthrough within a cultural group or a disastrous military campaign initiated by the group can precipitate development too rapid and profoun.d for the culture to absorb. Convulsive cultural change can originate within a culture an.d impair the cultural group's autonomy. Furthermore, a cultural group's autonomy does not guarantee the integrity of its culture. If a cultural group were to decide unanimously and freely to discard its traditional beliefs and practices in order to adopt an altogether new system of beliefs and practices, no one would claim that the original culture had evolved into its replacement. Evidently, neither a cultural group's freedom from external direction nor its control over its course is a sufficient condition for cultLlral evolution. 3 If the dynamics of cultLlral groups calIDot account for cultural perpetuation, it seems the question of whether cultural change is evolutionary or destructive can be settled only by its extent. To assess the amount of

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cultural change taking place, criteria tailored to individual cultural systems and capable of gauging departures from customary beliefs and practices are needed. One way to generate such criteria would be to extract from the culture a controlling idea (or set of ideas) constituting the culture's worldview. Once a culture's worldview has been established, any changes in shared beliefs and practices compatible with this worldview could be styled evolutionary, and any changes implying another worldview could be tagged destructive. But extrapolating from particular beliefs and practices to overarching worldviews is hardly a ll1echanical or uncontroversial process. Trouble arises because worldviews can be formulated with more or less specificity. A culture might, for example, be said to regard the West Bank as its ancestral homeland, in which case it would fit Jewish culture as well as Palestinian culture. Or this belief could be described as a Biblically based belief in a divine promise of this homeland, in which case it would pertain exclusively to religious Zionists. In short, accounts of worldviews can be so detailed that no two people, let alone cultures, would share the same worldview, or so general that many ostensibly different cultures would share the same one. But since the level of generality at which accounts of cultural worldviews are pitched will determine whether a given ch.ange counts as evollltionary or destructive, it is critical that ch.oices among worldview formulations be well grounded. Unfortunately, arbitrariness is inevitable in the absence of independent criteria of cultural evolution. Eviden.ce that a cultural group's autonomy has not beel1 compromised or that changes in a cultllre are neither pervasive nor profound lend support to the claill1 that the culture is evolving. Nevertheless, neither type of eviden.ce suffices to show that a culture is evolving, nor would evidence to the contrary by itself warrant the conclusion that the culture is defunct. Cultures are not reducible to sets of beliefs and practices froll1 which de~ partures can be quantified, and they are not reducible to the insular operations of self-regulating organizations whose symptoms of derangement can be diagnosed. The weakness of both cultural autonomy and cultural cogency as indicators of cultural evolution is their insensitivity to th.e social dimension of culture. Beliefs and practices, it should be stressed, must be shared or must once have been shared by the members of a cultural unit to qualify as elements of a culture. Because the two criteria I have been considering abstract changes in cultures from collective adherence to a cultLlral heritage, these criteria illuminate the mechanics of cultural change without distinguishing evolutionary from destructive results. Giving the requirell1ent that adherents share a culture's beliefs and practices its proper weight suggests that cultural change would count as evolutionary pro-

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vided that it did not impair the culture's ability to sustain a cultural group-that is, provided that the culture's adherents were not prevented from recognizing one another and also provided that they continued to understand themselves as participants in a tradition that preceded them and that would survive them. 4 Questions about this sort of viability can be answered only through field research on particular cultures. Cultures must be stable, and cultural change must be within the ken of the members of the cultural group. Otherwise, these individuals would experience no cultural bonds linking them to one another and would lack any awareness of cultural continuity over extended periods. Still, questions about which changes, how much change, and what rate of change a cultural group can tolerate are answerable only through documentation and analysis of actual cultural developments, for cultures differ in their adaptive capabilities, as well as in the content of their beliefs and practices. What is clear, however, is that cultural evolution is highly unlikely to issue in cultural homogeneity. Cultures are distinguished not only by their current beliefs and practices but also by their histories. A culture's history serves to inspire respect for its traditions, and, by furnishing interpretations of novel events and options for coming to grips with such events, it guides the course of future development. For two cultures to merge, their distinct histories must recede so far into the past as to be beyond recovery. Of course, the line between evolution and destruction, that is, between cultural interaction and assimilation, is not always easy to discern since destruction can proceed glacially through the cumulative free choices of adherents. Nevertheless, cultural evolution underpins cultural diversity.

WHY CULTURES ARE WORTH PRESERVING

An often-voiced instrumental justification for cultural perpetuation is precautionary self-defense. Peoples that have been colonized or otherwise persecuted may come to believe that integration with the dominant culture is always superficial and never rules out the possibility of future attacks. If this is so, assimilation only induces a false sense of security-such as that of many German Jews during Hitler's rise to power-whereas cultural unity maintains social structures that can be adapted to purposes of self-defense should circumstances require it. The recent resurgence of neo-Nazi groups in Germany and anti-Semitic groups in Russia lends force to this position. One advantage of this reasoning is that it does not rule out cultural pluralism. Each of a society's constituent cultural groups can consistently adopt the view that it must ensure that it is able to protect its members

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without proceeding to claim that it must achieve superiority over other cultural groups. Various cultural groups, each of which is sufficiently organized for purposes of self-defense, can coexist, balancing one another's strengths. s Nevertheless, justifying cultural perpetuation as a defense strategy is unsatisfying both because this justification presupposes inalterably bellicose relations among cultural groups and also because it fails to pinpoint anything about cultures qua cultures that should not be destroyed. Here the support cultures lend to personal identity might be adduced to explain their value. Having been molded by their cultural milieus as children, adults cannot make sense of themselves without reflecting on this aspect of their upbringing in conjunction with their present cultural expectations and roles. Though one's place in a culture accounts only partially for personal identity, its contribution is substantial. Accordingly, it can be argued that cultures ought to be preserved, for they help to make people intelligible to themselves. Unfortunately, this justification argues convincingly for the maintenance of some culture but not necessarily for the perpetuation of existing cultures. Consistent with this view, a campaign to consolidate all cultures could be deemed warranted, despite the deracination of a few transitional generations. After all, the unification of peoples thereby achieved would rid the world of a powerful and tenacious source of antagonism, and a unified culture would sustain personal identity just as well. While conceding a culture to be necessary, this position condemns cultural diversity. Accordingly, if opposition to cultural homogenization is to be defended, claims about the roots of personal identity in culture must be supplemented with an account of the value of each culture or the value of cultural pluralism. To justify their defiance of assimilationist forces, traditionalist cultural adherents commonly advert to religious beliefs. When a religion assigns special temporal duties or a singular supernatural destiny to a cultural group, cultural perpetuation may seem self-evidently good. But this view of the matter runs into difficulties when cultures with competing beliefs and practices intermingle. In these situations it becomes evident that religions sanction the preservation of the culture (or cultures) that espouse them without endorsing cultural perpetuation in general. Indeed, this ethnocentrism explains why intercultural rivalries often have degenerated into campaigns to subjugate weak cultural groups and to repress their errant beliefs and practices, such as the Spanish Inquisition's demand that Jews renounce their faith. Yet appeals to a culture's divine mission or privileged access to occult wisdom are attractive reasons for cultural perpetuation because they feature elements of cultures that make them worth preserving. If any reli-

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gious precepts about how to live or doctrines about the nature of reality are true, it surely would be lamentable if the culture embodying them perished. In the interest of reducing transcendental risk, then, we might consider o·urselves well advised to secure the perpetuation of as many cultures as possible, since we do not know which, if any, of their ostensible revelations are genuine. To some extent this line of thought echoes John Stuart Mill's On Liberty, which defends free expression as a means of making social progress and discovering the truth. On Mill's model, cultural groups might be seen as laboratories testing alternative systems of beliefs and practices. But whereas Mill pictured a debate in which the best ideas and arrangements would gain ascendancy, I do not envision a cross-cultural free-for-all in which less attractive cultures would be marginalized, if not eliminated. Neverth.eless, since Mill insists that inquiry and experimentation should never cease, his view requires making provision for some form of diversity within. society. It might be thought, however, that ad hoc groups that would form and dissolve at the pleasure of their membership could take the place of cultural groups in sustaining the testing process. While it is clear that voluntarist groups play an important role in social experimentation and change, this suggestion overlooks the richness of cultural traditions as sources of fresh Llnderstanding and direction. Indeed, it overlooks the fact that voluntarist groups are to some extent parasitic on unacknowledged cultural traditions. If these cultures disappeared, I suspect that the insight and imagination of these ad hoc groups would dry up. Various instrumental considerations argue more or less convincingly for cultural perpetuation. Yet cultural diversity seems to exert an intuitive appeal that is not reducible to any culture's role in self-defense, personal identity formation, or social progress. The loss of a culture, it seems to me, would be a misfortune even if these other goods could be secured without it. Paradoxically, a satisfactory account of the intrinsic good of cultural perpetuation cannot rest on whatever intrinsic goods are to be found in each culture. The trouble with this approach is that it implicitly bestows on every culture a title to precedence that either obviates mutual accommodation or invites evaluation of the relative worth of the intrinsic goods different cultures embody. By locating the good of cultural perpetuation at the level of the spectrum of cultures rather than at the level of individual cultures, these difficulties can be avoided, and the residual, noninstrumental appeal of cultural perpetuation can be captured. Cultural diversity is, I believe, the social counterpart of the uniqueness we attribute to each person, and the value attaching to cultural diversity mirrors the value of personal uniqueness. Individual diversity is the upsh.ot

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of freeing people to express themselves. Likewise, if each cultural group is composed of a singular combination of participants who collaborate to create and develop a shared system of beliefs and practices-a system answering to their distinctive collective genius, as well as to their particular historical circumstances-the result is cultural diversity. Just as we value individual diversity because we regard the unique individual as precious, we have reason to value cultural diversity since it is the prime manifestation of unique human collectivities. Now, it might be objected that, since many cultures drastically curb individual expression, the desideratum of individual expression cannot account for the value of perpetuating diverse cultures, if those include repressive ones. This objection raises an important issue that is addressed in the next section-that is, whether for the sake of cultural diversity people are obligated to uphold cultures that they find uncongenial. However, as a critique of the account of the value of cultural diversity I propose, this argument mistakes analogical reasoning for instrumental reasoning. Cultural diversity is valuable, not because or insofar as it secures opportunities for personal expression, but because cultural uniformity would bespeak societies of interchangeable individuals living in indistinguishable environments and interacting in identical ways. In contrast, cultural diversity is emblematic of the uniqueness of human collectivities and is valuable for this reason.

PERSONAL MORALITY AND CULTURAL PERPETUATION It might seem that the next step must be to propound a duty incumbent on each individual to uphold the culture of his or her birth. If cultural di-

versity is good, and if people ought to promote the good, it appears to follow that people are morally bound to perpetuate their respective cultures. What better way could there be to ensure that a multiplicity of cultures survives? And yet, what could be more stultifying for individuals who conscientiously dissent from fundamental tenets of their cultural heritage than a duty to uphold their cultures? A duty to uphold the culture of one's birth would either be redundant or egregiously confining. To the extent that people cannot help exhibiting indelible cultural traits acquired during childhood, no one could fail to discharge this duty. However, to the extent that this duty prescribes participation in practices from which persons are capable of abstaining, it comes into conflict with basic personal liberties. If people are entitled to decide whom to befriend, where to live, what work to do, whether to believe in a religion, and the like, they cannot be duty-bound to perpetuate their cultures, for this duty would supersede these rights. Though there are circumstances in which people may be obligated by ties of solidarity

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not to abandon their culture, there is no natural duty contravening personalliberties to conform to cultural norms. Rejecting a duty to perpetuate one's culture raises the question of whether cultural perpetuation is morally accidental. In one sense it clearly must be. If upholding one's culture is not usually morally compulsory, it is just happenstance that enough individuals from different cultures have chosen traditional observance to maintain a variety of cultures. Still, as a compromise between moral indifference to cultural perpetuation and moral enforcement of it, a right of cultural perpetuation might register moral approval of cultural perpetuation and thus underwrite cultural diversity. In exploring this proposal, it is necessary to consider both who would possess this right and what guarantees it would afford. To see that a right of cultural perpetuation cannot be held by individuals, it is necessary to ask whether persons, taken singly, are the agents of cultural perpetuation. Consider an individual who is the sole surviving adherent of a culture and who continues to engage in its prescribed practices. If this individual possesses a right of cultu.ral perpetuation, this behavior must be an instance of exercising this right affirmatively-this individual must be perpetuating a nearly defunct culture. It is not clear, however, that this lone individual's activity should count as perpetuating a culture. Obviously, she is trying to perpetuate her culture, but presumably she will fail in the long run for lack of committed fellows. Can she, then, be exercising a right to perpetuate her culture? Of course, it might, be objected that there is no n10re mystery here than there is in the right to assemble. Just as one person cannot assemble, one person cannot perpetuate a culture. Nevertheless, we acknowledge an individually held right to organize a meeting and to meet, and we would t11ink a person entitled to publicize a gathering even if it could be reliably predicted that no one would attend. Similarly, a right of cultural perpetuation could be exercised unavailingly, and this would show nothing about the intelligibility of this right. I believe, however, that this reasoning overlooks a crucial difference between organizing an assembly and perpetuating a culture. Whereas organizational activities are recognizable as such whether or not the intended meeting ever convenes, cultural perpetuation is irreducibly social. The main ground for allowil1g that a lone cultural exponent can perpetuate her culture is that she is a bona fide recipient of her cultural group's continuously transmitted body of doctrine and regulation and, consequently, some of her beliefs and actions must surely be authentic instantiations of her heritage. Still, the fact that this individual has ceased to share her culture's beliefs and practices with anyone else provides grounds for doubting that she is engaged in cultural perpetuation.

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Although her credentials as an interpreter and practitioner of her culture are not suspect, her isolation conflates what she does because of her ! personal propensities with what she does because of her cultural back- • ground. If culture were not shared by individuals who mutually recognize one another as cohorts, culture would collapse into personality. Because a single remaining adherent of a dying culture does not share it with anyone else, it is impossible to separate culture from personality in her case. Without the distinction between culture and personality, no one's conduct can qualify as cultural perpetuation. Now, it might be urged that this problem could be handled by independently documenting the culture's beliefs and practices. If a dispute arose over whether the individual was engaged in cultural perpetuation or merely doing what she wanted, expert anthropologists could be called in to make a determination. But, of course, this solution commits the cultural exponent to the cultural practices that prevailed whenever the culture was last accepted by a cultural group and thus bars cultural evolution. If a stagnant culture is a dead culture, it follows that cultural perpetuation would not be possible under this arrangement. Needless to say, a lone cultural adherent should be free to pursue her chosen course-basic personal liberties entitle her to do so, and the worst that can be said of it is that it is futile. Still, such a person's liberty is not predicated on any special prerogatives arising in connection with cultural perpetuation. Unless she has the cooperation of others, a person cannot perpetuate her culture and cannot claim a right to do so. Consequently, any right to perpetuate cultures over and above basic personal liberties must be ascribed to cultural groups. I

COLLECTIVE RIGHTS OF CULTURAL PERPETUATION

On one interpretation, a collectively held right of cultural perpetuation would be a right of noninterference endowing each cultural group with a liberty to uphold its shared beliefs and practices and imposing a reciprocal obligation not to intervene in the internal affairs of any other cultural group. This version of the right of cultural perpetuation is attractive in part because its implementation would allow each cultural group to devote its resources to shared cultural purposes and also because it does not conflict with cultural adherents' personal liberties. Unfortunately, this right squares better with a politics of cultural nationalism-that is, a political order in which cultural groups are self-sufficient and self-governing-than it does with a politics of cultural pluralism-that is, a political order in which cultural groups interact amicably under the auspices of a central authority.6

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One problem with a group right of cultural perpetuation is that it would run afoul of tl'le personal liberties of cultural strangers. Within broad limits, people are entitled to form and act on their own convictions without regard to their ancestral cultures. For example, cultural initiates may reject religious doctrine altogeth.er or convert to a religion other than the culturally sanctioned one? A cultural right of noninterference would not impinge on such liberties, but, if this right is to have any force, it would presumably bar missionary work. Yet representatives of alien religions are entitled to speak freely and to practice their religions, some of which command them to save heathens. Why should the liberties of cultural adherents constrain their cultural group's rights while cultural rights of noninterference govern the personal liberties of strangers? The explanation of this asymmetry must be either that the limitations on strangers' rights are relatively unimportant or that the religious convert does not but the missionary does sabotage a viable culture. The former reasoning is uncol'lvincing since it assumes that choosing to embrace a religion is mOll'lentously important but that practicing it is not. In defense of the latter line of thought, it might be argued that the impact of an individual's apostasy is confined to that single person's violation of cultural norms, whereas a missionary has designs on the entire community. But this argument rests on the implausible assumption that the choices of independent converts are harmless from the standpoint of cultural perpetuation. Yet it is evident that the cuml1lative effect of unsolicited individual conversions could be just as pernicious for a culture as the worst consequences of missionary zeal. Thus a cultural right of noninterference would arbitrarily favor the liberties of cultural adherents over the comparable rights of strangers. Equally serious, it is not clear what protections a cultural right of noninterference would afford. Granted that cultural evolution is compatible with intercultural borrowing and that different cultures are supple and rigid in different ways and to different degrees, it is impossible to distinguish generically between destructive extracultural initiatives and felicific ones. Some culttlres have been able to accommodate religious dissent and have embraced the value of religious tolerance, while others have dissolved in the wake of mass rejection of religious tradition. Similarly, whether exporting iI'ldustrial technology or donating medical services to a cultural group unaccustomed to these benefits will prove benign is by no means apparent in advance. In contrast, core violations of such well-established rights to noninterference as the right to life can be specified. This right prohibits, among other things, shooting, knifing, bludgeoning, and poisoning right-holders, for all people are vulnerable to being killed in these ways. Though some people are exceptionally at risk-for example, people who are allergic to

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penicillin-human vulnerabilities are sufficiently uniform that people generally know what they must refrain fron1. doing in order to respect the right to life. But predicting an extracultural initiative's eventual effects is hazardous guesswork, and cultural destruction is often detectable only after it has been irreversibly set in motion. If it is not possible to distinguish extraculturally animated evolution from sinister alien manipulation, it is impossible to respect the proposed right of cultural perpetuation without altogether abstaining from intercultural contact. But choking off intercultural overtures, thus rendering cultural pluralism sterile, hardly seems a satisfactory solution. Two ways to circumvent this impasse suggest themselves. One would be to model cultural exercise of a right of noninterference on individual exercise of an unrestricted right to liberty that permits virtually any form of intervention in the right-holder's life once the right-holder has consented. Wielding this right, cultural groups could entertain proposals for intercultural projects and control extracultural penetration. The other would be to shift away from a right to noninterference and to recognize a cultural right to aid modeled on the individual rigl1.t to satisfaction of basic needs. An umbrella right compassing subsidiary rights to various kinds of government support, the cultural right to aid could mitigate the deleterious effects of cultural interaction through gover11.ment .programs designed to maintain the attractiveness of traditio11.al cultures. s The idea would be to ensure that any disadvantages attaching to cultural adherel1.Ce, such as missed opportunities in the mainstream economy or fulfillment of onerous cultural duties, would not render this option ineligible. Policies ranging from enforcement of fair employment practices to bilingual services and subsidies for traditional economies could undercut assimilationist pressures. Il1.itially, a right of cultural perpetuation requiring strangers to obtain permission before penetrating a culture or requiring governments to make support available to constituent cultures seems admirably suited to the end in view. Whereas a right of cultural perpetuation stressing noninterference on the model of the right to life relies on strangers to anticipate and to desist from actions that would be destructive, this new version lodges responsibility for cultural survival with culh.lral groups themselves. To forestall cultural destruction, cultural groups would be expected to ascertain their needs and apprise other groups or government agencies of them. Furthermore, it is clear enough what would respect and what would violate these rights. In the first case, seeking approval for intercultural involvement before embarking on it would respect the right, and proceeding without prior consultation or despite being refused permission would violate it. In the second case, government funding of rea-

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sonable aid applications would respect the right, and refusal of such requests would violate it. Yet these rights pose other sorts of problems, for they rest on an.alogies between individuals and cultures that do not hold. The problen1 of how a cultural group/s right to noninterference or government support could be asserted highlights these disanalogies. An indispensable assumption underlying the attribution to persons of basic liberties and subsistence rights is that these individuals have a permanent interest in their own survival and freedom. Though they may rationally choose to risk their lives or their liberty when pressed by terrible and irremediable circumstances, there is a formidable presLImption_ that people prefer life and self-direction over death and coercion. However, no comparable presumption is warranted with respect to cultures. A culture may be declining as a result of being traumatized by extracultural incursions or as a result of members' disenchantment with and desertion of anachronjstic beliefs and practices. Cultures, to be blunt, can be backward and repressive, and cultural adherents can come to realize that their cultures thwart their aspirations. When people freely abandon a culture en masse, cultural devolution signals a legitimate exercise of individual autonomy, and no residual cultural interest remains to groLlnd a countervailing right of cultural perpetuation. Indeed, what might l1ave been taken for a Collective interest in cultural perpetuation stands exposed as the SLIm of its adherents' interests in sustaining their cultLIre, interests that need not be abiding. Nevertheless, internally motivated cultural destruction is typically a piecemeal process pitting partisans against cultural loyalists. During such transitional periods, some individuals continue to share an interest in cultural perpetuation, and recognition of a right to noninterference or aid could not be decried as an affront to individual choice or as a vain attempt to revive a defunct culture. Now the crucial question for a right of cultural perpetuation becomes who should exercise this right. Under the envisaged circLImstances, cultures would harbor a range of opinion and practice. But surely each subculture could not be entitled to demand noninterference or aid geared to its particular conception of the culture. When a cultural group is engaged in modifying its beliefs or practices to the alarm of some members, enforced insularity or aid at the behest of a few disgruntled traditionalists would amount to alien obstruction of cultural evolution. Conversely, if a splinter group of activists could obtain government support for modernization projects abhorred by most members of the cultural group, the government would again in1properly intervene, this time to impose change. In according every cultural subgroup the status of a cultural representative, this interpretation of the right of cultural perpetuation would invite these factions to prosecute their causes with th.e authority and power of

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the state, thereby politicizing cultural variegation and aggravating cultural fragmentation. If a right of cultural perpetuation is not ascribed to every cultural exponent with a following, it must be ascribed to whole cultural units. But, unlike individuals, the contours of cultural groups in culturally pluralistic societies are often subject to dispute. Nevertheless, a right of cultural perpetuation would oblige cultural groups to settle their boundaries, possibly preempting evolution in progress and freezing distinct groupings that might otherwise have been temporary into permanent independent units. Moreover, cultural groups in culturally pluralistic societies seldom have centralized decision mechanisms and frequently lack a unified will. Thus the rights-based approach to cultural diversity would oblige many cultural groups either to invent institutions through which to exercise their rights or to forfeit the guarantees of these rights. The effect of this arrangement would be to give a survival advantage to cultural groups with affinities for existing government institutions, for they would be able to equip themselves institutionally to claim their rights without betraying their own traditions. However, this arrangement would disadvantage cultures with very different institutional histories, for they could not exercise this right in a manner consonant with their heritage. Again, a right to cultural perpetuation that itself disrupts cultural evolution hardly seems a satisfactory solution to the problem of maintaining cultural diversity. In authorizing custodial tampering with the process of cultural evolution, a right to cultural perpetuation creates an unintended trap for right-holding cultures. Of course, denying a right of cultural perpetuation does not ensure that all cultures will remain supple and vigorous. Still, the artificiality of cultural rights to noninterference and aid in the fluid setting of cultural pluralism defeats their serviceability as vehicles of cultural perpetuation.

THE GOAL OF CULTURAL DIVERSITY It may seem paradoxical to claim that cultural diversity is good but that there is no individual duty or responsibility, or any individual or group right to perpetuate cultures. If cultural perpetuation is good, it seems it ought to have some sort of moral standing. I would like to conclude by suggesting that Ronald Dworkin's notion of a social goal can help to supply the missing moral support for cultural diversity, but that applying his distinction between a right and a social goal to this issue reveals that the sphere of rights is not as sharply demarcated from that of goals as he sometimes maintains. 9 The category of social goals compasses a variety of aims, such as prosperity, clean air, scientific progress, preservation of historical landmarks,

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and national defense. Like rights, social goals concern goods that are sensitive to government policy; however, social goals differ from rights inasmuch as the failure to realize a social goal is not morally appalling, as violating a basic right is. Attainment of social goals is problematic, since no hierarchy of goals is ever lasting and since programs contrived to achieve social goals are rarely, if ever, assured of success. Social goals are constantly in competition with one another and can .be ranked only tentatively. When it is discovered that one social goal has been unduly slighted, remedial action may be taken at the expense of some other goal until yet another commands political attentionprosperity is often at odds with ecological concerns, and recently the conflict between prosperity and the defense budget has come to the fore. Rights, of course, do not admit such ongoing byplay. Though vexing questions about relations between rights do arise, these often concern peripheral matters, and, whether or not controversy is confined to the periphery of the right, the solutions adopted should be enduring, if not permanent. Whereas the politics of rights is a judicial exercise in discriminating among cases and applying principles, the politics of social goals is an inconclusive politics of shifting coalitions and endlessly debatable priorities. Since social goals are never immune to redefinition and reappraisal in the light of transient interests, it is not surprising that experts sharply disagree about what constitutes attainment of various goals-some arms strategists think we need the Stealth bomber for an adequate national defen.se; others oppose this program-but it is also not surprising that experts disagree about how social goals can best be achieved-son1e economists think prosperity will be best served by keeping interest rates low; others recommend moving them up. In the absence of any stable COl'lSensus regarding these diverse aims, officials responsible for pursuing them must proceed by trial and error. Implementing rights, in contrast, is not a flexible enterprise. Because the core of the protections that a basic right secures is clearly specified and also because failure to respect basic rights seriously wrongs the right-holder, policy regarding rights can and sho·uld be firm. But social goals resist unwavering pursuit. Sighted on the overarching end of the good society but granting that the ideal will always elude us, the politics of social goals affords officials maximum discretion with respect to the means used to promote them, as well as with respect to the urgency with which they are pursued. More fungible than rights, social goals can be adduced to defend policies, but they never secure unassailable backing for any policy. Now, cultural diversity is not a good that any society ougl'lt to pursue regardless of costs. While cultural perpetuation is good, so is integration. But these two goods are in tension, and the best outcome that can be

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hoped for is that a balance will be struck between them. Furthermore, cultural perpetuation is not a good that can be guaranteed in any straightforward way. Not only does cultural viability ultimately depend on the unpredictable decisions of countless individuals, but also well-intentioned public policies may fail to preserve foundering cultures and may even hasten their demise. Sustaining cultural diversity is bound to remain a continuing experiment. Since cultural homogeneity is not morally calamitous, though cultural diversity is good, cultural diversity is best classified as a social goal. Still, it seems that this goal has some bearing on rights. Consider the case of freedom of religion-a two-pronged right that empowers individuals to worship as they please and that forbids the state to endorse a particular religion. In the public schools of the United States, the doctrine of the separation of church and state has come to be associated with the ban on prayer. In the public schools of France, however, this doctrine has been interpreted more strictly. There, the separation of church and state is understood to prohibit students from wearing clothing that has religious significance. Not only is the state barred from imposing religious beliefs on public school students, but also these students are barred from introducing tokens of their religious beliefs into the classroom setting.l° Needless to say, there are historical reasons that explain the difference between the United States and the French conception of freedom of religion. But I would like to examine the difference from the standpoint of the values that are at stake. Though free exercise of religion and the separation of church and state both support freedom of conscience in religious matters, the rationales for these doctrines are disparate and do not always lead to congruent conclusions. Separation of church and state is anchored in assumptions about the need to protect religion from politics and politics from religionpolitical concerns degrade spiritual ones, and religious passions, especially hatred for unenlightened rivals, contaminate political debate. In contrast, free exercise of religion focuses on the individual-religious conviction is definitive of an individual's identity, and religious persecution attacks the individual's integrity. Plainly, however, politics often impinges on religious territory, and, when it does, free exercise authorizes individuals to advocate religiously grounded positions. Moreover, the effects of political neutrality are not necessarily neutral and can limit the free exercise of religion. Thus, these two principles call for compromise. Returning now to the contrast between the French conception of state neutrality as the exclusion of religion from state institutions and the U.S. conception of neutrality as not taking sides, it is clear that in France disestablishment takes precedence over free exercise, whereas in the United States free exercise tempers disestablishment. Moreover, part of what is at issue is a pair of competing social goals: on one hand, the survival of mi-

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nority cultures and, on the other hand, the autonomy of the political process. The French interpretation of neutrality tends to suppress adherence to religious practices that are at variance with the dominant Christian ones (e.g., three Islamic girls who wear hijabs, that is, traditional head scarves, being barred from classrooms and confined to the library of a French elementary school), whereas the U.S. conception allows diverse practices to flourish. But whereas the U.s. interpretation invites the par= t~cipation of religious groups in public institutions (e.g., the demands of fundamentalist sects that creationism be taught alongside evolutionary theory), the French interpretation insulates these institutions from religious opinion. Still, in light of the oscillating politics of social goals, it is necessary to ask whether cultural diversity or the autonomy of the political process can properly be brought to bear on the question of the contours of the right to free exercise of religion. Each of these goals is associated with a fundamental individual right: the goal of the alltonomy of the political process with the right not to be involuntarily subject to religious belief or morality; the goal of cultural diversity with the right to practice one's religion with minimal restraint. These pairings, however, are not symmetrical. Advancement of the goal of cultural diversity is a likely consequence of respect for the right to free exercise of religion, but implementation of the right is independent of realization of the goal. In contrast, achievement of the goal of the autonomy of the political process is a precondition for respecting the right not to be involuntarily subject to religious belief or morality.ll Now, it might seem that people must have a right to whatever is necessary to implement their rights. Thus it would follow that people have a right to a secular state, but not a right to cultural diversity. That this proposed right would decisively vindicate the French position on religious dress in the public schools reveals, I tl'link, that it would only trade one form of repression for another. As a way of preserving a goal-free spl'lere of rights, then, elevating social goals necessary for the implementation of rights to the status of rights seems misguided. Rights cannot be delimited with.out recourse to social goals; however, the goals that rights depend on ought generally to be given greater weight in such deliberations than others. Still, these rights-supporting goals are not invariably dispositive. On the assumption that there are expressions of cultural difference that are innocuous and that cannot reasonably be construed as invidious institutionalization of religious beliefs or practices, it seems possible that tl1e goal of cultural diversity could legitimat~ly be invoked to defend some erosion of the secular state. Though the social goal of cultural diversity is a relatively weak consideration/ it represents an enduring value, and it can provide moral reinforcement for personal liberties when individuals are exercising them to

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uphold beleaguered cultures. After all, however bad it is that people's liberties must sometimes be constrained, the disappearance of a culture surely counts as an ancillary evil. Governments of culturally pluralistic societies have a responsibility to avoid subverting cultural diversity and to underwrite cultural heterogeneity when doing so will not violate basic rights or interfere with more compelling goals. To neglect this responsibility is, finally, to exhibit contempt for the uniqueness of human collectivities.

NOTES Acknowledgments: I want to thank David Theo Goldberg, Len Krimmerman, Joel Kupperman, Jerry Shaffer, and Sam Wheeler for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this chapter. 1. An excellent compendium of accounts of culture has been compiled by A. L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn, in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions (Cambridge, Mass.: Peabody Museum of American Archaeology, 1952). 2. John Rawls offers helpful discussion of how a system of recognized personal liberties can serve as a common political culture-an "overlapping consensus," as he calls it-for otherwise profoundly different cultural groups in "The Priority of Right and Ideas of the Good," Philosophy and Public Affairs 17 (1988): 267-74. 3. It might be argued that, if one had independent criteria marking cultural boundaries, one could devise worldviews that would preserve these distinctions. We have seen, however, that cultural boundaries cannot be marked definitively, and, in the present context, it becomes apparent that to attempt to do so could needlessly block cultural evolution. Moreover, this proposed strategy would involve carving out worldviews that would define cultures more in opposition to one another than in terms of the substantive beliefs and practices of each. 4. Since cultural cohesion requires not only the persistence of the bonds among the present members of a cultural group but also the maintenance of their ties with their ancestry, cultural cohesion is not vulnerable to the same sorts of objections as is cultural autonomy. Although a collective decision to replace one system of beliefs and practices with another could be compatible with a cultural group's autonomy, it would violate cultural cohesion. 5. Sara Ruddick provides useful inSight into the failings of the balance-of-power approach to mutual coexistence in "Remarks on the Sexual Politics of Reason," Women and Moral Theory, eds. Eva Feder Kittay and Diana T. Meyers (Totowa, NJ.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1987), 248-55. 6. Under cultural nationalism, of course, the right of cultural perpetuation would coincide with the right of nation-states to nonintervention. 7. In this discussion, I will use the example of religious liberty; however, it should be noted that any conflict between cultural norms and individual conduct authorized by basic personal liberties would raise the same problem. 8. For discussion of this possibility, see Michael McDonald's use of the concept of group rights to account for public funding of religious schools in Canada: "Re-

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spect for Individuals versus Respect for Groups: Public Aid for Confessional Schools in the United States and Canada," in Philosophical Dimensions of the Constitution, eds. Diana T. Meyers and Kenneth Kipnis (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1988), 184-86. 9. For extended discussion of the distinction between rights and social goals, see Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977), 90-94, 274. 10. This issue also has come up in U.S. courts, where religious practice has met a more favorable reception. For example, in Menora v. Illinois High School Association, 683 F,2d 1030 (1982), it was decided that male Jewish basketball players could wear yarmulkes during play provided that they devised a secure way to prevent them from falling off and endangering other players. However, in Bitterman v. Secretary of Defense, 553 F. Supp. 719 (1982), the military's claims of ll1ilitary effectiveness prevailed, and a captain in the air force was refused permission to wear a yarmulke while in uniform and on active duty. 11. Another example of a social goal that is a precondition for the implementation of rights is public order. For discussion of the relation between this goal and the rights to moral liberty and freedom of thought, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972), 212-15. Moreover, anyone who thinks there is a right to satisfaction of basic needs ll1USt agree that, prosperity is among the preeminent social goals. Of course, none of this implies that a society must maximize these objectives. Rather, societies must attain them to a degree sufficient to implement the right.

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+ Feminism and Women's Autonomy: The Challenge of Female Genital Cutting erminology for the multiform phenomenon I shall discuss is itself a matter of vexed controversy. Some scholars prefer the expression "fen1ale circumcision" on the grounds that this is the expression preferred by women who are now subject to the practice. To adopt any oth.er language, th.ey n1aintain, would be to show disrespect for these won1en and their cultures and perhaps to engage in cultural imperialism. Other scholars opt for medicalized terminology-either "female genital surgery" or "female genital operations." Still other scholars prefer the expression "female genital mutilation" on the grounds that no other language expresses the suffering inflicted by this practice and that oth.er labels implicitly condone a cruel practice that sustains male dominance by tormenting women. I have adopted the expression "female genital cutting" in order to address several concerns. On the one hand, I see the medicalized terminology and the culturally relative termiI10logy as euphemistic. Although the medicalized expressions accurately represent th.e hygienic conditions of the hospitals in which some Euro-American and African female genitalcLltting is performed, they give the false in1pression that female genital cutting is always a sanitary procedure performed with anesthesia. Unfortunately, the procedure is frequently performed under unsafe conditions, and it never improves women's health. The culturally relative terminology is also euphemistic because the analogy with male circumcision suggests a relatively risk-free, minor procedure that

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does not interfere with sexual pleasure. Although one form of the female procedure is aptly analogized to male circumcision, most forms are not. On the other hand, the morally condemnatory language of "female genital mutilation" prejudices the question of women's autonomy via-a.-vis this practice. Since there is a presumption that a person who chooses to be mutilated does not choose autonomously, this language is question begging in the context of my present topic. Moreover, I suspect that Euro-Americans are attracted to this language largely because they do not imagine that women like themselves have in the past consented to such "mutilation" and that mothers in their own society today continue to authorize comparable procedures on their daughters, and consequently they fail to empathize with contemporary women in other societies who make similar choices. Thus, I have sought terminology designed to avoid denying the pain and impairment often associated with female genital cutting but also to avoid presuming that women involved in the practice have no autonomy. Many Euro-Americans might doubt that there is any basis for ascribing autonomy to women whose cultures mandate female genital cutting. Yet the feminist literature on female genital cutting provides ample evidence that many women exercise effective agency with respect to this practice. One striking finding is that autonomy is to be found among accommodators as well as resisters, and that neither group can be presumed to enjoy greater autonomy than the other. If this is so, one cannot identify autonomy or lack of it simply by looking at what people choose or refuse. Autonomy must dwell in the process of deciding, not in the nature of the action decided upon. Moreover, students of female genital cutting regard it as essential to avoid the trap of conceding that resisters are Western dupes and, as cultural outsiders, have no right to press for change, whereas accommodationists are more authentically representative of their culture of origin and, as female insiders, confirm the legitimacy of the practice. To overcome this dilemma, one must resist the temptation to explain greater autonomy as a function of the reduced influence of cultures that mandate female genital cutting. Culture cannot be cast as the villain that paralyzes some women's autonomy, nor can it be cast as the hero that frees women into autonomous lives. Still, in acknowledging that some social contexts are more conducive to autonomy than others, students of female genital cutting spotlight the ambiguous role of culture with respect to women's autonomy. My project is to explore the implications for autonomy theory of these understandings of the relations among culture, female genital cutting, and women's agency. I begin by surveying the reasons different cultures give for female genital cutting and the different types of female genital cutting.

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My purpose in exhibiting the enormous variation in this practice and in women's responses to it is to undercut simplistic dismissals of women's autonomy with respect to female genital cutting that rely on attentiongrabbing horror stories and generalized theories of patriarchal domination. I then examine two kinds of autonomy theory-latitudinarian, valueneutral accounts and restrictive, value-saturated accounts-and I argue that neither approach adequately addresses the phenomena of women's autonomy regarding female genital cutting. To bring these phenomena into focus, it is useful to review a number of strategies for augmenting women's autonomy regarding female genital cutting. I urge that although culturally anchored educational programs may not be the most effective way to eradicate female genital cutting, they have proved to be the most effective way to promote women's autonomous control over their sexuality and health. In the concluding section, I consider how the cultural imperative of self-perpetuation entails both support for and limitation of autonomy. If cultures are to meet the need for change in response to historical contingencies, they must ensure that cultural initiates have autonomy skills that enable them to adjust their traditions. Yet if cultures are to survive, they must channel exercise of these autonomy skills into constructive critique framed by cultural allegiance, and they must discourage the development of autonomy skills that heighten discontent and precipitate defection. I argue that autonomy-augmenting educational programs succeed by developing autonomy skills that cultures have systematically, but needlessly, suppressed. Conceived as the exercise of self-discovery, self-definition, and self-direction skills, autonomy-within-culture is not only intelligible; it is a morally defensible and politically viable conception of autonomy for an era of global feminism.

CULTURAL CONTEXTS AND FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING

Among Euro-Arnericans, misapprehensions about culture and female genital cutting abound. For example, many people associate female genital cutting with a single region, usually sub-Saharan Africa. But the practice is also found indigenously in North America, Asia, and the Middle East, and immigrants have spread their practices far and wide (Toubia 1995,21; Obiora 1997,298). A related misconception is that female genital cutting is rooted in a single culture, but this is far from the case. A highly diverse array of cultures furnish a variety of rationales for female genital cutting. Many people are astonished to learn that among middle-class white Americans in the late nineteenth century and continuing into the early twentieth century clitoridectomy was a popular and medically certified

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"cure" for hysteria, nymphomania, lesbianism, and "excessive" masturbation (Gifford 1994,334,361; James 1998, 1037). Curiously, though, there are cultural groups that practice female genital cutting today for the opposite reason-they believe that female genital cutting enhances women's sexual desire (Ogbu 1997, 414). More typical, though, are rationales similar to those formerly current in the United States-many cultural groups maintain that female genital cutting reduces women's sexual appetite, enforces norms of chastity, and thereby protects family honor (Obiora 1997, 298; Kouba and Muasher 1985, 104; Ogbu 1997,414). Repressing women's sexuality is by no means the only, nor even the most frequent, reason given for female genital cutting. Gender regimentation is a prevalent rationale as well. From this perspective, the purpose of female genital cutting is to ensure that the individuals assigned to dichotomous gender categories have anatomically suitable genitals. In the United States today, female genital cutting is a routine, though increasingly contested, medical intervention when a condition called "ambiguous genitalia" is diagnosed (Diamond and Kipnis 1998; Fausto-Sterling 2000, chs. 3-4). Physicians and parents generally presume that left "untreated," an elongated clitoris will have deleterious effects on a girl's psychological development and will prove socially disabling (for documentation and critique of these attitudes, see Diamond and Kipnis 1998). To the extent that this negative prognosis is warranted, it is because contemporary U.S. culture insists that there are only two kinds of people-males and females-and because this particular culture prescribes genitalia conforming to restrictive norms for each category.! Without "corrective" demasculinizing surgery, it is thought that a genetic female endowed with "ambiguous" genitalia will be unable to attain a feminine identity. The theme of demasculinization is also found in some non-Westem cultures. Anticipating Freud, those cultures view the clitoris as a masculine organ and therefore regard excision as necessary to achieving a feminine gender identity (Kouba and Muasher 1985, 103; Obiora 1997, 297). Worldwide, it seems, people believe that babies can be born with "unnatural," though not sexually or reproductively dysfunctional, genitalia. Whereas American culture currently mandates female genital cutting as a corrective for what it deems "abnormal" genitalia, members of many other cultural groups regard female genital cutting as an indispensable rite of passage through which all girls must pass in order to attain the identity and the status of women. Some see female genital cutting as a test of courage and endurance that prepares the individual for labor pains and birthing (Obiora 1997, 296). Others contend that female genital cutting physically purifies the individual and enhances her fertility, for they believe that the clitoris can kill a man if it touches his penis or that it will kill

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the baby during childbirth (Ogbu 1997, 415; Kouba and Muasher 1985, 103). Fen1ale genital cutting may be thought necessary to morally appropriate fertility, and morally sanctioned fertility may be thought necessary to producing socially and morally viable children (Boddy 1989, 57, 60). In one Sudanese community, "son of an uncircumcised mother" is among the most derogatory epithets one can ·utter (Sussman 1998). Gender norms are associated with aesthetic standards as well as moral standards, and aesthetic considerations sometimes dictate female genital cutting. A woman who belongs to a culture that considers gaping orifices, including the mouth, distasteful asks, "Which is better, an ugly opening or a dignified closure?" (Boddy 1989, 52). In some cases, religious doctrine is pivotal. Some cultural groups believe that Islam mandates female genital cutting and that Allah will not hear a woman's prayers if she has not been cut (Kouba and Muasher 1985, 104). Another cluster of reasons concerns intercultural political relations. Within a local framework, cultural identification is sometimes cited: Whether women's genitals are cut or not and, if they are cut, how they are cut may be an important way in which cultural groups inhabiting the same geographical region are differentiated (Obiora 1997,297; Ogbu 1997, 415; James 1998, 1041-43). From a global perspective, loyalty to one's cultural roots and repudiation of Western influence are sometimes cited: Female genital cutting was often seen as testifying to opposition to colonialism an.d more recently as affirming indigenous tradition in the face of Western contempt for non-Western cultures and Western economic and cultural penetration (Toubia 1995, 37). Altl10ugh cultural rationales for female genital cutting can be classified accordin.g to the broad themes of sexual repression, gender identity, and group cohesion, there is no uniformity whatsoever in the specifics. This heterogeneity is echoed in the variety of forms that female genital cutting takes. Many Euro-Americans believe that fen1ale genital cutting is a single procedure, but this is not true. In addition to Western cosmetic procedllres designed to "feminize" ostensibly male genitalia, practices range from sunna-that is, removing the clitoral prepuce-to infibulation-that is, excising the clitoris, the labia minora, and the labia majora and suturing the remaining tissue together to create a minuscule orifice (Obiora 1997, 288-89; Kouba and Muasher 1985, 96). Correlated with this spectrum of outcomes is a spectrum of health risks in the immediate aftermath. of the procedure and a spectrum of long-term consequences for women's sexuality, physical health, and psychological well-being. Moreover, different groups perform the cutting procedure at different ages-some on infants or very young girls, some on adolescents. Adult women participate in this practice not only by authorizing and/or carrying out the procedure but

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also, in groups where infibulation is the rule, by agreeing to reinfibulation after childbirth. It is a mistake, then, to suppose that female genital cutting has the same impact on all affected women's lives. Finally, it is necessary to dispel some prevalent misconceptions about culture. The misconception that most incenses non-Western women is the othering" of the very idea of culture-that is, the supposition that culture itself is a non-Western phenomenon and that Westerners are not themselves enculturated. Alternatively, Westerners may acknowledge that everyone is enculturated yet assume that, unlike Western cultures in which dissent is tolerated and cultural change is ongoing, non-Western cultures are homogeneous and static (Narayan 1997, 14-17; Walley 1997,408,420). Nothing could be farther from the case. Members of a cultural group do not think and live in lockstep. Within cultural groups, interpretations of cultural beliefs vary, and so do interpretations of cultural practices. Drawing on the countless beliefs and practices that constitute a culture-beliefs and practices that are in some respects in tension with one another-and accenting and linking some of these beliefs and practices while deemphasizing or isolating others, people individualize their cultural heritage. As a result, traditionalists often coexist, albeit uneasily, with nonconformists. Moreover, the survival of cultures depends on their capacity to modify their beliefs and practices to meet new contingencies, and their capacity to adjust depends in part on the internal variegation I have described (Meyers 1993, 16-19; Moody-Adams 1994, 305-7). A seamless, timeless culture is a dead culture. This brief survey of the anthropological background of female genital cutting is sufficient to demonstrate the daunting complexity of analyzing women's agentic position with respect to this practice. Evidently, judgments about women's autonomy vis-a.-vis female genital cutting cannot rest on generalizations about the severity of the outcome, for the medical and psychosexual consequences vary substantially. Women's autonomy with respect to female genital cutting cannot be ruled out on the grounds that no one could freely choose the endangerment and impairment resulting from these procedures, for the consequences are not always grave. Nor can one assume that the reasons women have for either accommodating or resisting female genital cutting are consistent across cultural groups. Therefore, a theory of women's autonomy that is applicable to societies in which female genital cutting is practiced cannot rely on ascriptions of particular reasons to the women who are subject to this practice. The content of women's deliberations cannot settle the question of their autonomy, for the reasons they invoke are not uniform. It is clear that some cultural groups preempt girls' autonomy by cutting their genitals when they are young and helpless. However, female genital cutting is part of an adolescent initiation rite in many cultural groups. Although it is troubling that these girls may have little experience of their 1/

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own genital eroticism and presumably have no experience of the interpersonal intimacies that this sexual responsiveness makes possible, it is doubtful that girls of this age altogether lack autonomy.2 Likewise, adult women participate in this practice as midwife practitioners, as mothers who arrange female genital cutting for their daughters, and as postpartum mothers who request reinfibulation. It is iInportant to bear in mind, as well, that during the nineteenth century many adult Euro-American women anxiously sought relief from psychopathology or sexual deviance and willingly underwent clitoridectomy. Whatever one may think of juvenile agency, these women's agency must be analyzed on its own merits. It is wrong, moreover, to assume that all female members of cultural groups that practice female genital cutting collaborate with this practice. Women are not in the grip of totalizing, internalized cultures which drive them to comply with a female genital cutting imperative. There are many instances of individual women persuading their families not to uphold the practice, and instances of women organizing against female genital cutting are on the rise. Although data about the prevalence of female genital cutting is disputable, it is quite possible that adherence to the practice is waning. Accordingly, to declare women who belong to cultural groups that practice female genital cutting devoid of autonomy would be to deny existing opportunities for choice and to erase the real, sometimes courageous, choices women have actually made. Women exercise agency, then, both by complying with and by resisting female genital cutting. A theory of women's autonomy must take these realities into account, but it must also ask whether women have as much autonomy as they should have with respect to female genital cutting.

FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING'S CHALLENGE TO AUTONOMY THEORY

The phenomenon of female genital cutting presents two opposed temptations for autonomy theory. On the one hand, latitudinarian, value-neutral accounts of autonomy-whether rational choice models or hierarchical identification models-are attractive because they do not withhold respect from women who accommodate female genital cutting by impugning these women's ability to make their own judgments and choices. On the other hand, restrictive, value-saturated accounts of autonomy that deny that people can be both oppressed and autonomous are attractive because, in claiming that false consciousness blocks the self-detern1ination of women in cultures that mandate female genital cutting, they highlight the harsh personal cost of living under such oppressive social regimes. Neither of these approaches is ultimately convincing, however.

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Preliminary to characterizing the weaknesses of these approaches, it is useful to review what an account of autonomy should accomplish. An account of autonomy aims principally to explicate an especially valuable mode of living. That mode of living is captured in a number of familiar expressions: "She lives by her own lights," "He is his own man," "She's always been true to herself," and the like. Autonomous individuals are not mere conformists. They need not be eccentric, but they do rely on their own judgment. They know who they are-what really matters to them, whom they deeply care about, what their capacities and limitations actually are, and so forth-and they enact this introspective understanding of their "true" selves in their lives. There is a good fit between their identity, their attitudes toward themselves, and their conduct. Colloquial expressions, such as "I feel at one with myself" and "I feel right in my skin," voice this sense of integration. As these idioms suggest, living autonomously is satisfying, sometimes exhilarating. Subjectively, then, the value of autonomy stems from the fascination of self-discovery and the gratification of self-determination. Objectively, it rests on the dignity of the distinctive individual and the wondrous diversity of the lives individuals may fashion for themselves. A second aim an account of autonomy should fulfill is to explicate the nature of the personal and social costs of suppressing autonomy. Individuals experience lack of autonomy as a sense of being out of control or being under the control of others-whether other identifiable individuals or anonymous societal powers. At odds with themselves, at odds with their behavior, or both, nonautonomous individuals often feel anxious about their choices, contemptuous of themselves, and disappointed with their lives. Alternatively, they may simply feel hollow, for they may feel they have been made into vehicles for projects that they do not disavow but that are not their own. In one way or another, nonautonomous individuals suffer from alienation from self. I would add, moreover, that societies that are not conducive to autonomy incur a moral loss since they thwart (or try to thwart) insightful social critique. When a society discourages self-exploration and self-expression, it discourages attention to symptoms of discontent and shields social ideologies and institutions from probing examination and oppositional activism. Autonomy exposes the need for social change and equips people to pursue it. I shall not linger long over latitudinarian, value-neutral views, for their weaknesses have been diagnosed and elaborated elsewhere. Briefly, rational choice views take people's desires, values, and goals for granted and identify autonomy with devising plans that maximize satisfaction (for critique, see Meyers 1989, 77-78; Babbitt 1993). Hierarchical identification views subject first-order desires to scrutiny in light of second-order volitions and link autonomy to reconciling the two levels to achieve a har-

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n10nious whole (for critique, see Meyers 1989, 33-41 and 2000, 169-72; Benson 1991, 391-94). Both types of theory neglect the possibility that an oppressive social context could subvert people's autonomy by imparting detrimental desires, values, and goals or warping people's second-order volitions. Such theories make no adequate provision for "authenticating" the concepts and commitments that struchlre one's interpretations and propel one's deliberations and choices. In contrast, restrictive, value-saturated accounts of autonomy, such as Susan Babbitt's and Paul Benson's, insist on the need to distinguish real from apparent desires and authentic values from spurious ones, and they draw these distinctions by placing constraints on what people can autonomously choose. According to Susan Babbitt, ideological oppression instills preferences and desires that do not adequately reflect an interest in one's own flourishing and that prevent one from pursuing one's"objective interests" even when one is aware that one has an option to pursue them (Babbitt 1993, 246-47). The problem, claims Babbitt, is the individual's "not possessing a sense of self that would support a full sense of flourishing"that is, one has been deprived of a precondition for wanting to pursue one's objective interests (Babbitt 1993, 248). Although the oppressed have nonpropositional knowledge-that is, knowledge in the form of intuitions, attitudes, ways of behaving, etc.-that adumbrates their objective interests, this knowledge is inexpressible within the existing ideological regime and is not translatable into autonomous action (Babbitt 1993, 252-54). Mute and subjugated, these individuals' agency can only be salvaged through "transformative experiences" that, as it were, upgrade their selfhood (Babbitt 1993, 252-53). I doubt that oppression renders people's nonpropositional knowledge inexpressible. In fact, I think one of Babbitt's examples amply demonstrates my point. Commenting on Alice Walker's novel about domestic violence, The Color Purple, Babbitt claims that Celie's knowledge that she is a morally worthy person is nonpropositional and inexpressible. I would argue that Celie's knowledge indeed stems from nonpropositional sources, her feelings, attitudes, and perhaps her intuitions. But, as Babbitt reports, when taunted by Mister-I/[Y]ou nothing at all"-Celie trenchantly replies, "I'm pore, I'm black, I may be ugly and can't cook ... but I'm here" (Babbitt 1993,253; emphasis added). Babbitt is correct to say that the categories of Mister's ideology provide no direct, authoritative way for Celie to assert her moral status, but it is evident that Celie is able to give her knowledge a propositional form and to encode her knowledge in intelligible speech. Oppression deprives Celie of conventions-readily available, generally accepted discursive formulae-through which she can articulate her convictions, protests, and aspirations (Walker 1998, 125-28). To articulate

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their self-knowledge, oppressed people must resort to circumlocution, devise figures of speech, and work to redefine the terms that frame intrapersonal understanding, interpersonal relations, and moral reflection. Thus, they must summon extraordinary imaginative and linguistic powers if they are to gain a rich understanding of who they are and why their needs and desires deserve respect. Nevertheless, in light of her defiant self-recognition and her poignant self-assertion, it seems doubtful that Celie lacks an adequate" sense of self. I see no reason, then, not to trust her to sort out her own values and goals and conduct her own life. Still, it is undeniable that Celie's social context is doing everything possible to stifle her autonomy and to defeat her. Likewise, women who demand reinfibulation because it is beautiful, because it is a precondition for womanly virtue, because it is our way," or because the World Health Organization is trying to force them to stop doing it hardly enjoy cultural environments that encourage them to do what they think is best for themselves. For this reason, I expect, Paul Benson would argue that attributill.g autonomy to these women betokens a Pollyannaish confidence in their agentic capabilities. According to Benson, "Certain forms of socialization are oppressive and clearly lessen autonomy" (1991, 385). There are two forms that oppressive socialization takes: (1) coercive socialization that inflicts penalties for noncompliance with unjustifiable norms, and (2) socialization that instills false beliefs that prevent people from discerning genuine reasons for acting (388-89). Autonon'lous people are "competent criticizer[s]" who can detect and appreciate the reasons there are to act in various ways" (396, 397). But oppressive socialization systematically obviates and obfuscates victims' reasons for acting. As Benson puts it, oppressive socialization limits in "well-organized ways what sorts of reasons to act people are able to recognize" (396). Moreover, bidirectional integration-that is, mutual adjustment and reconciliation of first-order desires and second-order volitions about first-order desires-is no guarantee of autonomy, for oppressive socialization could implant such deficient values that a person could have degraded first-order desires that would nonetheless be endorsed by second-order volitions (395). Internalized oppressive socialization, it seems, can shanghai a person's entire life. Presumably, Benson would conclude that, because of their socialization, the many women who do not repudiate female genital cutting have defective reason-detection faculties-defective at least insofar as they are oblivious to the decisive" force of the reasons against this practice-and thus that they have been deprived of autonomy at least with respect to this choice. 3 But I would urge that Benson's grim assessment of the sinister potency of oppressive socialization exaggerates the impact of socialization generally. It just isn't true that oppressive socialization always deII

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creases autonomy. Some people become oppositional activists, and some of them flourish in that role. In cases of firebrand, adventure-loving resisters/ one suspects they would have had a hard time fitting in and living autonomously if they had been born into a just society during peacetime. Other people carve out lives that enact "inappropriate" values in the interstices of the constraints t11at society imposes. They find pockets of lapsed surveillance or permissiveness within oppressive regimes and devise ways to express their unorthodox values and commitments in those spaces. Still others endorse at least some of the values upon which oppressive constraints are based and on balance accept the constraints and conform their lives to them. We find all of these possibilities represented in connection with female genital cutting-women fleeing their homeland and seeking asylum to avoid having their genitals cut or to protect their daughters from cutting, women organizing locally and nationally to modify or eradicate female genital cutting, women concluding that cultural tradition and cohesion or getting married and bearing children are more important than bodily integrity. I would venture that there are women in each of these groups who have experienced comparably oppressive socialization. Undeniably, they have more to overcome in order to attain autonomy than some other women, for they must mobilize extraordinary introspective and volitional powers to figure out what they really want and to act on their own desires. But it is h.ard to believe that none of them chooses autonomously. The fact is that we are all immersed in a culture at a historical moment. How do we know that some of us have attained adequate selfhood and thus have the epistemic perspective needed to grasp what full flourishing is like? How do we know that some of us h.ave highly developed, aClltely sensitive reason-detection faculties and thus have the epistemic skills needed to determine what cannot be a good reason to act or what is a dispositive reason to act? It seems to me that we would need far more consensus than we presently have (or are likely to get) about human nature and social justice before we could conclude that women who opt for compliance with female genital cutting norn1S never do so autonomously. We would have to be persuaded, in other words, that all women's interests are such that this decision could not accord with any woman's authentic values and desires under any circumstances. If we are prepared to ackrLowledge that a woman who has undergone oppressive socialization but who rebels against its dictates may be accessing her authentic values and desires and acting autonomously, it seems to me that we cannot rule out a priori the possibility that a similarly socialized woman who chooses otherwise may be autonomous too. In sum, restrictive, value-saturated accounts of autonon1y are troubling because they homogenize authentic selves and autonomous lives. The

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paradoxical effect of ahistorically, acontextually foreordaining what individuals can and cannot autonomously choose is to deindividualize autonomy. Yet latitudinarian, value-neutral accounts of alltonomy are troubling, too. On this view, failures of autonomy are failures to obtain and take into account relevant information, or they are failures to integrate one's values, desires, and the like into a coherent outlook and a feasible course of action. The paradoxical effect of neglecting the possibility that a well-integrated, smoothly functioning self could be in need of rigorous scrutiny and drastic overhaul is to abandon the individual to the influence of a culture's prevailing beliefs and practices. Such a view oversimplifies self-alienation and blunts autonomy's potential to spur social critique. Neither of these approaches offers a compelling theory of individualized autonomous living.

AUTONOMY-AUGMENTING PROGRAMS AND FEMALE GENITAL CUTTING

Feminist students of female genital cutting have analyzed a number of programs that have enhanced women's autonomy in regard to this practice. Moreover, they have proposed legal reforms, and they have documented the effects of social trends on female genital clltting. I shall briefly survey this literature with the aim of using it as a springboard for developing an acco"unt of women's autonomy-within-culture. My reading of this literature suggests that education is the least controversial and most effective approach to augmenting women's autonomy regarding female genital cutting, but the success of this approach depends on the nature of the educational program. Again and again, scholars stress the need for grassroots participation in conceiving the aims of educational initiatives, in formLl1ating educational agendas, and in devising educational presentations and materials. Phrases like "education for critical consciousness" and "emancipatory education" imply the need for institutionalizing self-determination at the founding and throughout the implementation of educational programs (Kouba and Muasher 1985, 108; Obiora 1997, 361; Mugo 1997, 467). This imperative has been put in practice through dialogic program planning and dialogic "classrooms" and also by adopting culturally familiar media for "instruction" (Mugo 1997, 467).4 Songs, plays, and pLlppet shows followed by exploratory discussion sessions often replace lectures and rote learning. Experience shows that many women are receptive to information aboLlt the health risks associated with female genital cutting (Obiora 1997, 361). Successful educational programs often capitalize on women's dissonant experiences vis-a.-vis female genital cutting. For example, health education can

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juxtapose women's commitment to female genital cutting with their awareness of traumatic outcomes (sometimes deaths) and their awareness of their own sexual impairment. Likewise, health education can kindle cognitive dissonance by highlighting potential conflicts between women's desire to bear children and their commitment to female genital cutting, which can reduce fertility (Obiora 1997,362). Programs designed to elicit inquiry into the symbolic meanings that one's culture attaches to female genital cutting have also proved effective (Obiora 1997,361). An international organization called Women Living "Lmder Muslim Laws h.as developed educational strategies that encourage women. to analyze and reconstruct their own identities within their cultures. Through education, this organization seeks to debunk the myth of one universal Muslim identity and to offer women the opportunity to read and interpret Islam's sacred texts for themselves (Shaheed 1994, 1009, 1011; 1995,80,86). In discovering how differently women live under different Islamic regimes and how weak the tie between Islamic scripture and current religious doctrines requiring female genital cutting actually is, many women realize that they could modify their beliefs regarding female genital cutting without sacrificing their religious beliefs. Intellectual and emotional space hospitable to envisaging a different conception of the ethics and aesthetics of womanhood is thus opened. Sometimes women become convinced that they can flourish as women with their genitals intact. Kenyan women and their families have created "circumcision through words" rituals in which cultural teachings about womanhood are transmitted and girls' el1trance into womanhood is celebrated, but the traditional cutting is eliminated (James 1998, 1046).5 Sometimes women remain convinced that female genital cutting is necessary, but they alter the practice either by reducing it to a symbolic pricking or by medicalizing it (Obiora 1997, 368, 371-73; Gunning 1997, 455-56). Sometimes they insist on upholding tradition. Hofriyati women whose husbands have returned from working in Saudi Arabia convinced that infibulation is contrary to Islam and that sunna is the religiously sanctioned form of female genital cutting have resisted the ensuing pressure to adopt the less extreme practice (Boddy 1989, 52, 319). In some cultural groups, the ritual surrounding female genital cutting not only confers the status of womanhood on the initiate but also creates lifelong social bonds among the girls who undergo the ritual together. Thus, another important task of edllcational programs has been to create substitutes for the"age groups" established by female genital cutting. In central Kenya, the social benefits formerly delivered by age groups-solidarity among women and consolidation of women's social authority-are now secured by women's self-help economic organizations (Robertson 1996, 616, 631). In addition to such culturally attuned, participatory education, we also find more coercive legal and social forces at work. Female genital cutting

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is prohibited in a number of countries where the practice has been common. However, the history of criminalizing female genital clltting and disseminating information about women's legal rights does not inspire confidence in this approach. Either these measures have had little impact, or they have intensified reactionary traditionalism (Obiora 1997, 357; Kouba and Muasher 1985, 104-5). But legal sanctions could take a different form. One scholar proposes that laws be passed giving adult women the right to sue the practitioners who cut their genitals when they were children (A'Haleem 1992, 155). As a precedent for her proposal, she points to the passage of parallel laws protecting women from compulsory marriage. Women who were adequately informed of these laws frequently went to court and sued to enforce their rights (A'Haleem 1992, 155). Perhaps women would also avail themselves of rights to seek compensation from felllale-genital-cutting practitiollers, which would discourage WOlllen from entering this trade all.d encourage practitioners to find other sources of income. It seems clear, however, that whereas legal measures produce mixed results, urbanization and industrialization predictably curtail female genital cutting. In Nigeria, for exalllple, OI'le report shows how the rise of Western-style education has led to a marked decline in female genital cutting. Busy with book learning and preoccupied by extracurricular activities, girls have no time at puberty for lengthy seclusion periods and ceremonies (Ogbu 1997,420). As education, employment and marriage increasingly take place away from girls' communities of origin, the power of cultural traditioI'l wanes, and the incidence of female genital cutting plulllmets (Ogbu 1997, 420-21). I do not object to social and econOlllic mobility provided that individuals weicollle it and benefit from it, nor do I object to using law to bring about allleliorative social change. Still, it is illlportant to point out tl'lat these two strategies are not necessarily cOlllpatible witl'l cultural perpetuation, and they do not necessarily ensure increased aLltonolllY for women. EI'ldowing women with the right to penalize female-genital-cutting practitioI'lerS pits women from the same cultural group against one anoth.er and preempts the possibility of their working together to transforlll cultural norms and obtain economically viable employment. Some women may gain autonomy. But their gains may be made at the expense of other women's autonomy, and relying on the national judiciary to make these gains may short-circuit cultl,lral processes througl'l which womanhood might be redefiI'led without shattering all continuity with traditional conceptions of womanhood. While some women's autonomy may be enhanced, their autonollly may be dissociated from their culture of origin. More obviously, social and economic mobility gained through geographic mobility often dissolves networks of mLltual recognition and shared beliefs and practices that are necessary to sustain cultl,lres. Migration often leads to assimilating prevalent norms in one's new place of res-

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tdence and work. Assimilation weakens, if it does not sever, one's ties to one's culture of origin. Some women who move to urban areas and marry !into families with different cultural backgrounds gain greater autonomy Ib y abandoning their own culture and becoming integrated into a more congenial cultural milieu. Others suffer a loss of autonomy. They find their cherished beliefs denigrated or derided; they experience a sense of dislocation and disorientation.; and they are blocked from enacting values they consider authentically their own. What these observations show, I would urge, is how important it is to bear in mind the difference between eradicating the practice of female genital cutting and augmenting women's autonomy with respect to female genital cutting. 6 Ceasing to be subject to a cultural imperative mandating female genital cutting does not in itself constitute increased autonomy. The educational programs I described may well try the patience of feminists who are (in my opinion, justifiably) appalled at the harm inflicted by female genital cutting. Yet these programs have a distinct advantage from the standpoint of alltonomy, for they are designed to engage women's autonomy skills without exposing them to autonomy-disabling culh.lral alienation. In sh.ort, these programs promote autonomy-within-culture.

AUTONOMY-WITHIN-CULTURE

Michele Moody-Adams points out that successful cultures must preserve people's capacities for the exercise of judgment and discretion (1994, 307). "Any culture that worked to impair these capacities," she adds, "would be creating the conditions for its own demise." I agree that a viable culh.lre cannot turn its adherents into indoctrinated automatons who cam'lot question cultural beliefs and practices and who cannot instigate cultural change (Meyers 1993, 17). Still, I find Moody-Adams's view of autonon1ywithin-culture overly sanguine. A thriving culture must evolve, but it must persist as well. If cultures are self-perpetuating systems, they must have built-in mechanisms that shield their beliefs and practices from criticism so zealous and damning that it triggers cultural decline or foments mass defection. The slightest acquaintance with human history confirms that cultures need not depend on the justice of their beliefs and practices to secure the loyalty of their adherents. Indeed, cultures, including the most unjust ones, may have a willing coconspirator in human psychology. People commonly exhibit a conservative bent-preferring the known over the unknown, even preferring the security of having more or less mastered coping with a known evil over the risk of being thrown off balance by whatever might succeed it. Still, this conservative disposition is to a significant degree culturally abetted. Cultures ward off the perils of internal dissension and disruption

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by circumscribing adherents' exercise of autonomy skills. Adroitly channeling exercise of these skills where they are needed while limiting the scope of their application enables cultures to evolve and endure. Moody-Adams might reply that what I have described is not impairment of capacities for judgment and discretion. On the contrary, she might say, cultures guide and modulate exercise of autonomy skills, and rightly so. To some extent, I would not take exception to this rejoinder. No doubt cultures exist because people cannot lead fulfilling lives without stable systems of shared beliefs and practices. Thus, serviceable cultures nurture those autonomy skills that people need to get along within their existing cultural framework and those that they need to improvise adjustments when circumstances render long-standing cultural beliefs and practices untenable. However, insofar as cultures perpetuate injustice by selectively suppressing autonomy skills, I would insist that they are not merely regulating people's capacity for judgment and discretion, but rather they are impairing it. It seems to me that cultures do this in two main ways. First, cultures furnish repertories of concepts and interpretive schemas that focus perception and shape reflection. Thus, cultures lead people to notice some phenomena and overlook others, and they lead people to ascribe certain meanings to their experience and to disregard other possible meanings. Second, cultures valorize some autonomy skills over others. Hence they commend childrearing practices that nurture these skills and establish social structures that reward individuals who have them, and they let other autonomy skills languish. The favored autonomy skills enable people to function well in their cultural context, and the repertories of concepts and interpretive schemas provide input for these deliberation skills that is preselected and preprocessed in culturally congenial ways. The disfavored autonomy skills are skills that might lead people to question the adequacy of the culturally approved repertory of concepts and interpretive schemas and, perhaps, to condemn their cultural heritage. For example, middle-class Euro-American culture prizes means/ends rationality and vigorously cultivates the skills needed to pick goals with high satisfaction yields and to plot successful goal-directed campaigns. In this culture, however, valorized autonomy skills are gendered. Although childrearing practices and reward structures do not extinguish means/ ends rationality in middle-class Euro-American girls, their interpersonal skills are accentuated. I confess I do not know which autonomy skills are valorized in the innumerable cultures that practice genital cutting. But I believe it is possible to infer which autonomy skills they devalue in women by examining the educational programs that augment women's autonomy. Successful educational programs mobilize women's introspection, empathy, and imagination skills. One program invited women to explore their feelings about their sexuality-their sufferings, their frustrations,

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and their disappointments, as well as their pleasures-and to sift through the possible meanings of these stirrings (for discussion of the need to pay attention to subjectivity, see Gifford 1994, 338; also see Meyers 1989, 79-89; for related discussion of "outlaw emotions," see Jaggar 1997). In effect, this program encourages women to acknowledge the complexity of their emotional lives and to take their own subjectivity seriously. Another program capitalized on situations in which local girls and women had become infected or died and invited women to empatl1ize with the suffering of the infected individuals and the grief of the families of girls and women who died. Instead of rationalizing the pain and dismissing the sorrow as passing, women were freed to regard such. sufferiI1g as significant and avoidable (for related discussion of empowerment, see Okin 1998, 47; for related discussion of enlpathy, see Bartky 1997; Meyers 1994).7 Some programs invite women to imagine the lives of women whose cultures are different but wl10se religion is the same as their own (Shaheed 1994, 1009-10). Sharing a religion builds a bridge to empathy with these cultural strangers and provides a link that legitinlates using emphatic understanding of these other women's lives to reflect critically on one's own experience and culture. I suspect that these educatio11al programs owe their success to synergy among introspection, empathy, and imagination. Empathy with others can embolden one to confront a11d enrich one's interpretation of one's own experience, and insightful introspection can facilitate empathy with other people's experience and equip 011e to iI1terpret their experience sympathetically and respectfully. As evide11ce, let me offer a sequence I have observed. Most middle-class Euro-Americans initially find it virtually impossible to empathize with an African mother who consents to and actively participates in the infibulation of her daughter. Yet these individuals typically find it easy to empathize with an American mother who consents to reconstructive surgery on a daughter whose genitals are considered ambiguous. Not only does one assume that surgery in the United States will be performed under sterile c011ditions and that an.esthesia will be used, but also one is oneself imbued with the same image of an appropriately gendered female body that is guiding the Anlerican mother's decision. Thus, one can readily and vividly apprehend the American mother's distress about her daughter's purportedly unnatural condition and her worries about the problems she expects her daughter will encounter if her "pathological" geIlitals are left untreated. It is easy, then, to understand her decision to authorize surgery. Indeed, many middle-class Euro-Americans might find withholding permission to operate incomprehensible or irresponsible. Sometimes when I start a conversation with a middle-class Euro-American acquaintance by eliciting empathy along the lines I have just sketched and by eliciting reflection on the reasons for the ease of this empathy, it

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proves possible for my acquaintance to transfer this understanding to the larger issue of female genital cutting. Sensitized to the role that Western gender norms are playing in one's empathy for the American mother, one now appreciates how potent culturally specific feminin.e bodily norms are, and one can sympathetically reconstruct how a vastly different set of norms could figure in an African mother's feelirlgs and decision about infibulation. Thus, empathy with a fellow cultural initiate and introspective reflection on how culture facilitates one's empathy for this individual make it possible to empathize with a woman from a different cultLlre and to interpret her subjectivity and choices charitably. Narrow categories and prejudicial values often distort or block introspection and empathy. Yet opportunities to examine one's subjective experience with supportive associates, to discover hidden similarities between others' experience and one's own, and to talk about unorthodox ideas in a safe environment can correct and deepen both. self-knowledge and insight into others. Introspection and empathy can expand one's repertoire of concepts and interpretive schemas beyond the culturally furnished stock. The educational programs I have described suggest that this struggle for introspective and empathic access and for language that adequately expresses one's newfound knowledge is best undertaken as an open-ended, collective endeavor (for relevant discussion, see Scheman 1993, chapter 3; Brison 1997; Meyers 1997). Not only does interaction with others expose individuals to novel viewpoints that may never have occurred to each of them separatel)!, but also the sharing of conclusions and of the process of reaching them infuses these dissident views with an authority they might otherwise lack. It seems, in sum, that women who participate in these educational programs gain intellectual tools and self-confidence, and that they license themselves to recirculate their discoveries and use them to refurbish or jettison traditional beliefs and practices. Introspection and empathy thus emancipate their imagination.s. Beliefs and practices that once seemed degraded and abhorrent can now be pictured as constituting an honorable and fulfilling way of life. The capacity for imagination is complex, for it recruits subsidiary skills and orchestrates them. Introspection and empathy can spark imagination, as can dialogic and consensus-building skills. Moreover, imagination depends on the concepts one has at one's disposal and the meanings one associates with phenomena. Prescriptive norms shape imagination.. Thus, cultures can limit imagination by furnishing an. impoverished repertoire of concepts and interpretive schemas, by stunting the development of skills that contribute to imagination, or by devaluing imagination itself. My hypothesis, then, is that cultures that mandate female genital cutting either altogether devalue imagination in women or else value imagination in women only when it is serving specific approved purposes. In the latter case, cultures may foster the subsidiary skills that imagination enlists only

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insofar as these skills promote the condoned forms of imaginative activity. A culture's ultimate defensive weapon is to make alternative ways of life Llnimaginable or imaginable only as bizarre or loathsome specimens. There is no more effective way to galvanize cultural allegiance than to suppress people's ability to imagine a profoundly different life as a life they might gladly lead. There is no better evidence, I would add, that cultures typically perpetuate themselves by impairing empathy with cultural outsiders and thwarting imagination of cultural alternatives than the fact that ethnocentricity and xenophobia are as rampant and virulent as they are. Whereas I am convinced that Moody-Adams overestimates the autonomy proficiency that viable cultures must secure, I am convinced that the two restrictive, value-satLlrated theories of autonomy I discussed above underestimate the damage to autonomy that alienation froll1 one's culture an.d isolation from other members of one's cultural group can inflict. Still, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that Babbitt and Benson bring out important dimensions of women's autonomy with respect to female genital cutting, and these insights into women's autonomy lend support to a skills-based, processual account of autonomy. Benson's chief contribution to a theory of women's autonomy over female genital cutting rests on 11is observation that oppressive socialization compartmentalizes critical skills and receptivity to reasons (1991, 397). His example is a woman who exercises critical competence with respect to her education but not with respect to her appearance. Similarly, we have seen that cultures place female genital cutting beyond the purview of women's introspection, empathy, and imagination skills, yet they rely on women to exercise these very skills in other areas of life, such as childrearing. Although the importance of introspection, empathy, and imagiI1ation for gaining autonomy over female genital cutting suggests that it would be a mistake to confine autonomy skills to critical reasoning, and although the need for cultures to deflect exercise of autonomy skills away from culturally destructive llses suggests that it would also be a mistake to suppose that only oppressive enculturation compartmentalizes autonomy skills, it is nonetheless true that cultures' self-protective devices include compartmentalization and that these devices can have deleterious effects on autonomy. Indeed, it seems to me that the success of the educational programs I discussed is due in part to their effectiveness in decompartmentalizing and redirecting autonomy skills that women already have. Babbitt claims that altered settings can prompt transformative experiences that enhance autonomy, and this view is borne out to some extent by the line of thought I have presented. I would take issue with her, though, when she allows th.at foisting a new set of opportunities on people is an ethical and efficacious way to increase their auton.omy (Babbitt 1993, 256-57). That legal reforms and social or economic upheaval produce n1ixed results for women's autonomy over female genital cutting

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raises doubts about the defensibility of manipulating the context of women's choices. Since autonomy-augmenting educational programs are typically developed by cultural initiates who rely on traditional modes of expression and appeal to traditional values, it is reasonable to surmise that autonomy is best extended by avoiding cultural alienation and by bUilding on women's existing autonomy skills. 8 Still, I agree with Babbitt that women's participation in these educational programs can be transformative, for breaking through the barriers erected by a culturally transmitted cognitive system can radically reconfigure perception and open previously unthinkable vistas of reflection and choice. Successful educational programs embody four assumptions about autonomy: 1. Autonomy is best understood as socially situated-that is, asautonomy-within-culture. 2. Autonomy couples self-discovery and avowal with choice and selfredefinition. 3. Gaining autonomy consists of exercising a complex set of skills. 4. One's authentic values and real desires are those that emerge as one exercises autonomy skills.

From their inception, autonomy-augmenting programs regard women in cultures that practice female genital cutting as self-determining individuals. Since it is obvious that these women have some degree of proficiency with respect to autonomy skills, such as introspection and empathy, before these programs ever become available, it is clear that they have some understanding of what matters to them and how best to proceed in light of their values and commitments before they participate in such programs. Understanding autonomy as I have proposed, then, makes sense of the claim that women who are subject to female genital cutting are not without autonomy. But this understanding of autonomy entails neither endorsement of female genital cutting nor resignation to its persistence. Since cultures that practice female genital cutting may have selectively nurtured and stifled women's autonomy skills, and since these cultures may shield the issue of female genital cutting from exercise of autonomy skills, developing and coordinating women's autonomy skills and extending the range of application of these skills are key to augmenting their autonomy. Individuals may identify points of self-estrangementdoubts about values or tensions between private feelings and conductand decide to revise their convictions and openly oppose tradition. They may find themselves unconflicted about their cultural heritage and renew their traditionalist convictions from a broader perspective. Or they may pursue some nuanced, intermediate path, embarking upon a process of

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renegotiating and revitalizing cultural traditions. Although no uniform outcome is guaranteed, the trend when the scope of women's autonomy is expanded has been toward erosion of the practice of female genital cutting. This skills-based, processual view of autonomy insists on respecting people as self-determining agents and refuses to prejudge what values and practices autonomous people can endorse. Nevertheless, this view does not collapse into indifference to values or cynicism about social reform.

NOTES I would like to thank Ken Kipnis for a prepublication copy of the Diamond and Kipnis paper I have cited and for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. I am also grateful to Berel Lang and Sara Ruddick for their suggestions. 1. In the United States today, we find gender parity where ambiguous genitalia are concerned. Cosmetic surgery is also routinely perforn1ed on genetically male infants whose penises are considered too small or who lack testicles. It is worth noting, though, that gender symmetry is not necessarily the rule. Just as some cultures practice female genital cutting but not male genital cutting, others cut boys' genitals to bring about a masculine identity (sometimes the cutting is as radical as infibulation) but do not cut girls' genitals (James 1998, 1041-43). 2. An interesting complication concerns the potential for dramatic development of the individual's erotic responsiveness over time. In this connection, it is worth noting that throughout our lives we are obliged to make choices that, for better or worse, cut off other possibilities. Alas, we cannot always foresee what options we are eliminating, nor can we always appreciate just how desirable foreseeable, forgone options really are. Rational choice theory's requirement that choosers have full knowledge of the consequences of their choices is an ideal that usually cannot be approximated very well. Thus, a realistic theory of autonon1y must work within the limits of human prescience. 3. I want to acknowledge that Benson realizes that oppressive socialization does not necessarily rule out autonomy in all aspects of the victim's life. He discusses the possibility that a person's critical competence can be compartmentalized-that is, one can exercise critical capabilities in one arena but be unable to exercise these capabilities in another (Benson 1991, 397). 4. Conventional educational methods do not seem particularly fruitful. In her role as English teacher, for example, Christine Walley gave her pupils the option of writing an essay about female genital cutting. Many students defended it as our custom" and as keeping girls' sexuality under control until marriage, but they also asserted that it was "bad" because it was illegal and un-Christian (1997, 411). One student who had "enthusiastically invited" Walley to her sister's female genital cutting declared that it is another way of destroying" women's bodies. As Walley observes, the students' arguments in favor of female genital cutting parrot local authorities' pronouncements on cultural propriety, while their critiques parrot doctrines taught in the official Social Education curriculun1. I suspect that they 1/

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saw the writing assignment as an academic exercise which called upon them to recite what they had learned, rather than as an opportunity to reflect and reveal what they personally thought. If such exercises contribute to their autonomy, it is only in virtue of maintaining their consciousness of disparate views of female genital cutting. Perhaps they appropriate and individualize some of the ideas they have been exposed to in their private conversations and kvetching sessions. 5. This cultural change highlights the importance of bringing men into the educational and cultural reconstruction processes. When and how women choose to do this vary greatly from cultural group to cultural group. 6. It might be argued that eradicating female genital cutting is objectively in the best interests of the cultural groups that practice it, for repudiating the practice would decrease disease and increase fertility. Although this may be so, I believe that social change that is disconnected from individual autonomy is as often as not counterproductive. It often proves culturally destructive, for it alienates members of the group. But when it is culturally advantageous, it often sacrifices some members of the group and their interests to the interests of the larger social collectivity. Individual autonomy may not always be the most efficient way to promote cultural interests, but I am convinced that it is the most humane way to advance this goal. 7. In an intriguing aside, Walley wonders whether incidents in which girls reveal cowardice"-in one cultural parlance, they cry the knife"-could be enlisted to reconstruct values (Walley 1997, 418-19). Might this obstensible cowardice be reinterpreted as resistance? 8. More generally, I would urge that transformative experiences that do not engage autonomy skills are extremely hazardous. Cults specialize in transformative experiences, and some people who undergo transformative experiences get converted into neo-Nazis instead of feminists. Although there is no way to immunize people against such ill-fated transformations, autonomy skills are the best protection there is. U

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+ Rights in Collision: A Nonpunitive, Compensatory Remedy for Abusive Speech here is no reason to suppose that the problems that beset our deeply unjust world can best be addressed using principles conceived for a perfectly just one. Among the most widespread and glaring injustices facing our society are entrenched, cross-cutting systems of domination and subordination that enforce group-based social and economic exclusion. 1 Since these injustices often make a mockery of ideal rights theory, I am convinced that there is an acute need for nonideal normative moral theory, especially nonideal rights theory. The basic rights we endorse should reflect social reality and should be capable of ameliorating real-world injustices. In this chapter, I shall examine some recent work by critical race theorists on the problem of hate speech. Their discussions of this issue suggest two key elements of a nonideal rights theory. First, rights that address real-world injustice are best grounded in empathic understanding of diverse right-holders. Second, empathy-based rights may conflict with established rights, and, where this is the case, we must avoid lapsing into orthodox approaches to resolving the conflict and must instead be resourceful in envisaging ways to respect everyone's rights. I shall defend these claims by attempting to show that embracing them leads to fruitful results with respect to the vexing problem of hate speech on US. college and university campuses.

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BASIC RIGHTS: THE CLASSIC VIEW AND CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES

Classically, basic rights are characterized as rights that one has simply in virtue of being a person. The reasoning that fleshes out this view assumes that all persons share certain capacities, such as rationality, the capacity to choose and act morally, or the capacity to formulate and carry out a life plan. Basic rights are rights that secure the exercise of these core capacities by assuring the right-holder of others' forbearance or by guaranteeing the availability to the right-holder of needed goods or services. Grounded in the concept of a person, basic rights are universal and equal rights. A government that violates people's basic rights or that does not enforce these rights against private violations commits a serious injustice, for it denies these individuals' humanity. The structure of this line of argument explains both why basic rights can be an important ally of the dispossessed and also why these rights often fail them. The universalism undergirding this type of argument has supplied socially excluded groups with a powerful weapon. They can argue that they, too, are persons who share the very capacities that ground basic rights and therefore that they have the same rights as everyone else. This argument played an influential part in the struggle to gain suffrage for African Americans and for women and also in the struggle to pass legislation prohibiting discrimination against these groups and extending equal opportunity to them. Insofar as the interests of socially excluded groups can be served by extending established rights to a broader class of right-holders or by recognizing a new right that meets a universal need, basic rights construed on the classic view provide an excellent vehicle for seeking justice. Yet, recognizing the equal rights of all members of society does not eliminate injustice. Unconscious discrimination does not stop, nor do social divisions disappear when members of excluded groups become better educated and more affluent. 2 Moreover, equal opportunity disadvantages mothers who allow their careers to lapse in order to stay home and care for their young children, and it disadvantages most people who grow up in impoverished school districts. The generality of humanity-based arguments of the kind I have sketched establishes a single standardized conception of each basic right, and the claim that abrogating a basic right denies a person's humanity makes these rights rigid in the face of newly recognized social contingencies. As a result, members of socially excluded groups often do not actually enjoy the benefits their rights officially confer. Observations of this sort have led some feminist proponents of the ethic of care and proponents of critical legal studies to attack rights. 3 According to these theorists, rights are premised on an individualistic conception of

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the person that neglects morally significant relations of dependency and interdependency, and they subvert comml.,lnity by valorizing egoism and promoting alienation. Yet, critical race theorists have not joined this movement to abandon rights. In an essay in which she reflects on the moral and legal significance of a document that may be the bill of sale for her great-great-grandmother, Patricia Williams observes that respect for personhood and boundaries is highly desirable if one's social position has historically been one of peril-that is, denial of selfhood and exposure to others' often brutal whims. 4 Moreover, getting justice by stepping forward and asserting one's rights is an advance over getting justice by abasing oneself and pleading for mercy.5 From the perspective of the legal limbo Williams depicts, sh.unning the status of right-holder is self-defeating if not laughable. Only those who are in secure possession of their rights are in a position to disdain. and dispense with them and instead to trust in others' good will. Trust without mutual respect is misplaced, and in the United States and similar moral cultures mutual respect presupposes recognition of the other's rights. As Williams puts it, "rights are to law what conscious commitments are to the psyche."6 Like conscious commitments, rights are normally enacted in routinized patterns of conduct, but, when a temptation to break one of those patterns of respect arises, rights sound the alarm and mobilize resistance. The moral stringency of rights and the readiness of public institutions to enforce them makes rights attractive instruments for advancing the interests of socially excluded groups. This stringency and enforceability, though, can function as a barrier to salutary, urgently needed social c11ange. If established rights conflict with novel claims there is a strong presumption in favor of granting the established rights precedence over the novel claims. This presumption can be overcome. But it is not easily overcome, and, in some cases where it l1as not been overcome, socially excluded groups have been denied justice. If we are to escape from this impasse, we need a reconceptualization of rights that preserves their moral force but that makes rights adjudicatiol1 comport better with justice? With these aims in mind, I shall take my cue from Patricia Williams and two other critical race theorists who have written on the topic of hate speech on college campuses. According to Williams, "The possibility of a broader referential range of considered types of rights may be found by at least adding to, even contradicting, traditional· categories of rights recipients."s If she is right about this, and I think she is, the approach to defending basic rights that I outlined at the beginning of this section is seriously flawed, for it assumes that all rightholders qua right-holders are the same. If one decides what rights there are on the basis of an. introspective inspection of one's own most compelling needs, one risks overlooking the compelling needs of others and

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implicitly denying them the status of right-holder. To know what rights there are, then, one must look beyond oneself and one's largely insular and homogeneous community. Let us agree that all persons have basic rights. But, instead of turning inward, let us see what happens when we look outward to discover who all those persons are and what rights they have.

EMPATHY, DIFFERENCE, AND THE HARM OF ABUSIVE SPEECH

There are two main ways to learn about people who come from an unfamiliar background or who occupy a different social position. One can study social scientific reports and learn the facts they contain. Or one can empathize-that is, one can construct in imagination experiences resembling those of the other person. 9 Although critical race theorists sometimes cite social scientific evidence to support their claim that hate speech is harmful, I would urge that their empathy-based arguments point to an innovative and promising approach to rights. There is, however, considerable ambivalence about empathy and some unequivocal hostility toward empathy among critical race theorists. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic dismiss empathy as resting on the mistaken belief that "through speech and remonstrance we can surmount our limitations of time, place, and culture, can transcend our own situatedness."l0 In the same spirit, Mari Matsuda baldly declares, "Legal insiders cannot imagine a life disabled in a significant way by hate propaganda."ll Seconding Matsuda, Patricia Williams doubts that she and a white male law school colleague can fully comprehend one another's point of view. Still, Williams tempers Matsuda's implacable skepticism, for she endorses "listen[ing] intently to each other so that maybe our children can bridge the experiential distance."12 Likewise, Charles Lawrence calls for listening to the victims of hate speech and for empathizing with them. 13 And elsewhere, Matsuda herself seems to be more receptive to empathy. She advocates making a "deliberate choice to see the world from the standpoint of the oppressed," and she maintains that anyone who is willing to read about or to get acquainted with people from different social groups can make progress in this endeavor. 14 I would argue, moreover, that Matsuda's expository practices-practices that Williams and Lawrence also adopt-implicitly rely on empathy. All of these theorists narrate anecdotes to great effect. 15 Recounting her response to an incident of hate speech at Stanford University (see the next section), Williams voices her frustration at the refusal of whites to acknowledge the achievements of blacks and the contribution blacks have made to Western culture. 16 Matsuda's essay, "Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering

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the Victim's Story," begins with brief descriptions of three incidents of racist speech; later in the essay, she juxtaposes additional incidents of racist speech with the lame excuses people in authority gave for them. 17 Lawrence structures his essay, "If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Hate Speech on Campus," around stories of racist verbal and pictorial attacks. He prefaces his essay by interweaving a list of racist activities on college campuses with a series of singularly detached defenses of free speech; at a pivotal moment in the essay, he describes a vicious racist incident at the school where his sister was the principal and the exculpatory reactions of many white parents; he closes his essay by telling a story about the casual, probably unwitting racism of his childhood playground companions. IS Instead of citing lifeless data and statistical correlations, these aLlthors offer arresting phenomenologies of th.e experience of being subjected to assaultive racist speech. I read their narratives as prompts to empathy, that is, as attempts to give readers who have not had similar experiences a glimpse into the subjectivity of the victims of hate speech. Some preliminary caution about ell1.pathy is in order, though, for it is not Llnusual for people to project their own characteristic emotional responses onto the other and think they understand this person. Undeniably, one cannot empathize witl1. someone if one has nothing in common with that individual, for otherwise the other's experience would be so alien that one could not get a purchase on imagining it. Still, the ll1etaphor of putting oneself in the other's shoes is misleadh1.g, for it is a mistake to assume that the other feels the same way as one would oneself feel in the same circumstances. 19 Lawrence brings out this point in his discussion of a gay white male's differential responses to various terms of opprobrium. Whereas this student describes a devastating and disorienting reaction to being called a "faggot," he denies being particularly disturbed by being called a "honkey," a "sexist pig," or a "ll1.ick."20 In view of the asymmetry between being verbally attacked as an. oppressor or as a member of a group that is no longer marginalized and being attacked as a ll1.ember of a widely despised and actively discriminated against social group, many whites lack comparable experience tl1.at they can bring to bear on the issue of hate speech. I would add, as well, that it is not easy to accurately predict how one would feel about a situation that is completely foreign to one's actual experience. Since one tends to project oneself with one's real background as opposed to oneself with a background more like that of the people who are actually in the situation, one is liable to overestimate or to underestimate one's resilience. Also, to the extent that one foresees the prospect of incurring onerous moral burdens depending on one's assessment of others' subjective states, one is likely to err on the side of projections that are consonant with a moral view that is less discomfiting to oneself. Empathy

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based on projecting oneself into the other's position is far from reliable. Thus, when the other's background or circumstances are dramatically different from one's own, empathy may require protracted observation and painstaking reconstruction of the minutiae of the other's viewpoint. To make an effective empathy-based moral argument, then, it is necessary to thwart the common disposition to project one's own subjectivity onto others. Lawrence, Matsuda, and Williams use three main rhetorical techniques to accomplish this end: 1) multiplying instances; 2) presenting evocative details; and 3) filling in biographical background. By canvassing many hate speech incidents that were perpetrated by different sorts of people and that took place in a wide variety of locations, these authors convey the fact that these are not isolated incidents that a sensible person would dismiss as anomalous. Many of the details these authors present suggest specific ways in which this pattern of domination shapes subjectivity. For example, Matsuda, a Japanese-American, tells of visiting Australia at a time when an anti-Asian poster campaign was in progress and of her decision "not to complain when she is overcharged."21 Or imagine being told by your local police that a four-foot cross burned on your lawn was nothing but "a prank."22 These details conjure up a sense of fearsome exposure to harm, of dependency on the twisted logic of self-protection through self-abnegation, and of the desolation of being deserted by other individuals and by public officials. By filling in biographical background, these authors make connections between their subjects and their readers. For example, many academic readers who have had disgruntled students write gratuitously nasty remarks on anonymous student evaluation forms (or who have dreaded that they might) will identify with Williams's description of her dismay upon reading some of her students' vindictive, arrogant, largely irrelevant comments. 23 Though her students fasten on her race and gender, their barbs are variations on an overplayed theme. But biographical background can also be used to highlight significant discontinuities between the reader and the author's subjects. Thus, Lawrence recollects the method he and his friends used to choose team captains on the playground at recess. 24 The boys make a ring of sneakers by standing in a circle and putting their right feet forward. Then one of the boys works his way around the circle chanting a short rhyme. Whoever's toe is tapped at the end of the rhyme is out, and the rhyme is repeated until by a process of elimination two captains are chosen. One day the boy designated to carry out this ritual chants, "Eeny, meeny, miney, mo; catch a tiger by the toe; if he hollers, let him go; eeny, meeny, miney, mo" (emphasis added). To some, this boy's modified chant may seem a model of sensitivity and decency, a gesture that plainly signals Lawrence's inclusion in the group. But the racist version "rings" in

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Lawrence's ears, and he is sure the other boys hear it, too-so indelible is the link between this rhyme and a racial epithet that there can be no nonracist version, and using it in any form raises racial barriers. 25 For many readers, then, this story will unsettle naive assumptions about the subjective meaning of race for African Americans and therefore about the tractability of race relations. I think that the authors I have discussed are as successful as anyone could hope to be at preempting projective empathy, and I think they succeed because they appeal to a form of empathy tlLat has by and large gone unnoticed. Typically, empathy is seen as a response to a particular episode or state of affairs in another person's life. We empathize when we are told that someone has received bad news or that someone is suffering a hardship. In incident-specific empathy, one seeks to answer the question "What are you going through now?" by imaginatively reconstructing another persons present state of mind. 26 When the empathizer has a lot in common with the other or knows the other well, this form of empathy reliably provides information about the other's subjectivity. As a result, it plays an important part in moral judgment, for it helps people see how to apply their values and principles. Still, since ilLcident-specific empathy is confined to a narrow slice of the other's experielLce, and since incidentspecific empathy usually accesses familiar subjective states, it rarely occasions substantial revisions in anyone's moral outlook. IlL contrast, Lawrence, Matsuda, and Williams undertake to acquaint their readers not only with tILe immediate experience of being subjected to hate speech, but also with the social and psychological context that makes such attacks so disturbing. In other words, they seek to elicit broad empathy with the victims of hate speech. Posing the question "What is it like to be you?" broad empathy engages complex intellectual and affective capacities in order to gain insight into the other's subjectivity as a whole or at least a good-sized stretch of it taking various aspects of it into account. 27 While broad empathy requires emotional attunement to the other, it also requires that the empathizer's affective understanding be situated ilL an understanding of the social conditions of the other's life, as well as an understanding of the other's distinctive constellation of beliefs, desires, abilities, limitations, vulnerabilities, and traits of character. 28 As a substitute for the metaphor of wearing another's shoes, then, I would endorse Elizabeth Spelman's metaphor of "apprenticing" oneself to the other,29 for broad empathy keeps moral perception and reflection from calcifying around egocentric categories that eclipse difference. Notice, moreover, that, contextualized in this way, broad empathic interpretation of the sources of the other's experience is inescapably evaluative. Through broad empathy, one grasps the values and disvalues that different individuals realize in diverse circumstalLces. A modest additional

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imaginative and analytical investment enables one to anticipate many of the values and disvalues that are realizable for a particular individual.30 Thus, broad empathy provides a basis for assessing people's overall prospects for weal or woe. Whereas incident-specific empathy with a stranger is relatively crude and conjectural, incident-specific empathy undertaken against a background of broad empathy guards against crass "empathic" self-projection. Thus, Maria Lugones and Elizabeth Spelman call on feminists to engage in this wide-ranging form of empathy as a basis for doing feminist theory that is not culturally imperialistic. 31 Similarly, broad empathy is wellsuited to mediate relations between members of subordinated social groups and members of dominant social groups with respect to contentious issues like hate speech. To heighten their readers' awareness of how hate speech structures subjectivity and to make the case that this form of subjectivity is morally significant, Lawrence, Matsuda, and Williams give rich descriptions of what it is like to be on the receiving end of hate speech attacks-descriptions designed to support broad empathy. To "comprehend viscerally" (here I borrow Adrian Piper's apt phraseology)32 not only the immediate blow of hearing racial epithets flung at you, but also how the effects of such blows can reverberate through one's psyche-threatening one's self-esteem, introducing an element of wariness or defensive belligerence into one's relations with other people, and skewing one's life choices-is to apprehend that speech can inflict severe harm. 33 Indeed, broad empathic understanding of such harms discloses that they undermine people's agentic capacities. 34 It would seem, then, that the negative impact of hate speech on subjectivity is a paradigm case of moral significance. Since agentic capacities are the very capacities that basic rights secure, it seems that empathic understanding of people who belong to historically despised and currently excluded social groups supports the claim that they have a right not to be subjected to verbal or pictorial abuse based on their membership in one or more of these groupS.35 (Hereafter, I shall refer to this right as the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse.) But to allow that basic rights should protect people from the harm of discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is to recognize a nonuniversal basic right and thus, to violate one of the key tenets of classic rights theory. To preserve universality, this right could be attributed to all persons. After all, anyone could in principle be a member of a historically despised and currently excluded social group. With the advent of majority rule, dominant white minorities in some African countries have been abruptly reduced to beleaguered, isolated minorities. Undeniably, a universalistic view of the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse points to a side of social relations that is often overlooked and that

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is worth bearing in mind: Nothing lasts forever. However, I think it is more important to see why this account seems artificial and strained. Since few, if any, members of historically advantaged social groups are in fact n10tivated to protect themselves against the improbable eventuality that they will be harmed by discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse (nor, I would add, is it reasonable for them to regard securing such protection as a personal priority), they will not see the palpable need for such protection unless they empathize with n1embers of historically despised and currently excluded social groups. In other words, only when members of these latter groups are fully accepted as right-holders will the theoretically universal vulnerability to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse be recognized and shielded as a matter of right. Again, the types of rights that are countenanced depends on who counts as a right-holder. 36

THE PROBLEMATICS OF REGULATING HARMFUL SPEECH

Challenges to the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse come from two main sources. The best-known objection is that this right would conflict with the right to free speech and that free speech is of paramount importance both from the standpoint of individual autonomy and also from that of the democratic political process. Since restricting speech could bring about disastrous consequences, the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse must be rejected. Another objection stems from Judith Jarvis Th.omson's view that rights do not afford protection from "belief-mediated distress." Plainly the point of the right not to be subjected to discrin1inatory verbal or pictorial abuse is to protect people from just this sort of suffering, for, in the absence of beliefs about the pervasiveness of racism, sexism, homophobia, and ethnocentrism and beliefs abollt the social significance of certain symbols, no one would be the least bit upset by these utterances. I shall take up Thomson's position first. Thomson acknowledges that belief-mediated distress can be more painful than nonbelief-mediated distress. 37 Her reason for disallowing the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is not that the suffering inflicted by this form of abuse is not sufficiently severe. Rather, her point is that one has more control over how much one suffers when one's distress is belief-mediated and therefore that one bears a share of responsibility for one's own suffering. 38 Thus, she observes that people can "steel" themselves against the pain of belief-mediated distress. 39 Yet, in view of the fact that people can take precautions to avoid or minimize the pain of many types of nonbelief-n1ediated distress, as well,

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Thomson's position must ultimately rest on unstated assumptions about what precautions it is reasonable to expect people to take to secure their own well-being. 40 Evidently, in her judgment, steeling oneself against harmful speech is reasonable to expect. Steeling oneself against intense physical pain is not. But since many of our beliefs are not fungible and resist being changed, steeling oneself against belief-mediated distress may prove very difficult, if not impossible. Apart from the feasibility of modifying those of one's beliefs that increase one's vulnerability to harm, there is the question of whether it is desirable to do so. Plainly, it is not always desirable to steel oneself against harmful speech. If one were to become inured to physical pain, one might fail to heed its warnings and fail to seek needed medical attention. Similarly, if one were to steel oneself against the fear and humiliation that discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse precipitates, one might fail to recognize serious threats for what they are, and thus one might become excessively vulnerable to physical attack or unfair treatment. 41 In short, one might become complicit in one's own oppression. In addition, steeling oneself against the effects of harmful speech may pave the way for morally objectionable conduct toward others. Patricia Williams's account of an incident that took place at Stanford University provides disturbing evidence for this claim. A student descended from German Jews, who is called Fred in the university's official report, became embroiled in an argument with an African-American student, who is called Q.C in the report. Q.C maintained and Fred disputed that Beethoven had black ancestors. The following night Fred and some friends drew stereotypical African-American features on a poster of Beethoven and tacked it outside Q.C's room. Williams cites further details from the report that reveal more about Fred's experience during his youth and about his interpretation of his conduct: [Fred] described incidents [at his school in England] that he called "teasing" ... by his schoolmates about his being Jewish. They called him miserly, and his being a Jew was referred to as a weakness. Fred said that he learned not to mind it and indicated that the poster defacement at Ujaama House had been in the spirit of this teaching. He wondered why the black students couldn't respond to it in the spirit in which it was meant: "nothing serious," just "humor as a release."42

Surely Fred's success in withstanding anti-Semitism contributed to his inability to empathize with Q.C Moreover, his lack of empathy made him liable to engage in morally obtuse behavior, behavior that perpetuates the cycle of prejudice and persecution. In short, steeling oneself may lead one to join the ranks of the oppressors.

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Of course, my point is not that vulnerable individuals should adopt no coping strategies to reduce the harm they suffer. Rather, my point is that it is important to recognize that there are dangers associated with steeling oneself against discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse and that one must take care to avoid desensitizing on_eself so completely that one loses one's sense of justice. Trading in one's attunement to injustice for a false sense of one's own security or for callousness toward others' suffering is a bad bargain. I would stress, moreover, that the possibility of taking measures to protect oneself from certain harms and the reasonability of doing so does not entail that one has no right not to be harmed in these ways. When I learned of a rash of burglaries in my area, I had an alarm system installed in my house. My neighbors have chosen not to invest in similar equipment. Yet, if their house was burglarized, the police would accord their property rights the same respect as they would accord mine. And if my house was burglarized despite my alarm, the police would not ask me why I had neglected to run coils of razor wire around the perimeter of my property. The asymmetry in people's intuitions about rights is not governed by the availability of coping strategies, especially when the coping strategies are costly or interfere wit11 one's enjoyment of one's rights. Nor is it governed by the distinction between belief-mediated distress and nonbelief-mediated distress. Until recently, rape trials often turned on whether the victim had"asked for it"-that is, had forfeited her rightsby dressing seductively, by consuming alcoholic beverages, or by walking alone at night. If the victim had not taken all possible precaLltions to prevent a crime from taking place, including maintaining an unblemished reputation for chastity, the jLlry was likely to acquit the assailant. It seems there is no temptation to say that people who fail to adopt coping strategies have no rights except when the injured parties are typically men1bers of marginalized social groups. But plainly, whether people have a certain right does not depend on the social status of their groLlp; it depends on the nature of the harm the right forbids. It seems to me, then, that the link between the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse and belief-mediated distress is no reason to reject it. On the contrary, since steeling oneself against this form of distress can be the height of irresponsibility, but since the harm inflictedby hate speech is often grievous, there is good reason to recognize this right. Still, the clash between free speech and the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse remains. One way to resolve this conflict would be to tailor the right of free speech so as to cordon off racist, sexist, homophobic, and similar forms of abuse from the class of protected speech (this is the solution that Matsuda,

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Lawrence, and Richard Delgado advocate). I am agnostic with regard to the feasibility of drawing this distinction in a way that prohibits the speech that seems to me to violate the rights of members of socially excluded groups but that allows the speech that seems to me important to protect. In this regard, I was surprised and intrigued to learn that, although Ronald Dworkin opposes regulating harmful speech, he denies that regulating harmful speech is likely to lead to tyranny.43 But even supposing that the slippery slope argument is unconvincing, there are two further lines of argument in support of unrestrained speech that I find worthy of serious consideration. I think of the first of these arguments as the "Sigmund Freud argument." This argument points out that people have a dark side and that hiding or denying what is seen as shameful or sinister in the human psyche is bad faith and potentially dangerous. Repressed material always returns in some form or other, and the menace of the repressed is redoubled because it is forbidden and because the forbidden is alluring. Thus, the effect of censorship might be to attract new converts to racist, sexist, homophobic, and ethnocentric doctrines and thus to defeat the interests. of the very groups it aims to help. I call the second argument the "Lenny Bruce argument." This argument reminds us that racial and other epithets are just words and urges that the best antidote for harmful, emotionally charged language is to repeat it and broadcast it to the point where it becomes banal. This is the strategy behind naming a gay and lesbian political organization "Queer Nation" and chanting "We're here; we're queer; we won't go away!" at demonstrations. All in all, then, it may not be such a bad thing for hateful thoughts and vicious language to be aired. Whatever the merits of these admittedly speculative worries about restricting speech, there remain two formidable practical obstacles. Here in the United States, many people are passionately attached to free speech as it is presently delimited and are not at all likely to accept a narrower reading of their rights. Opponents of restricting speech doubt that speech is really all that harmful. They ask for proof that a particular incident of hate speech caused this individual's debilitating depression, and the proof is not forthcoming. Indeed, if it weren't for the climate of racism, sexism, homophobia, and ethnocentrism in the United States, discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse would not be seriously harmful. 44 In addition, people are fearful that government officials will exploit new legal restraints on speech to persecute political dissent or personal nonconformism. Butler v. Her Majesty the Queen (1992) permits the Canadian government to suppress highly explicit sexual materials that harm women. 45 It remains to be seen whether this bold social experiment will jeopardize artistic and political expression. 46 Whatever the outcome, at present there is no popular

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sentiment in the United States in favor of government intervention to restrain discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse. 47 This antipathy is reinforced by a venerable tradition of First Amendment jurisprudence that vigorously protects free speech from encroachments. Thus, a fLlrther concern is that any redefiI1ition of the bounds of permissible speech that would pass constitutional muster wOllld define verbal and pictorial abuse so narrowly that the change would not do much good. As Henry Louis Gates points out, angrily shouting a wellknown racial epithet at an African-American student might be prohibited, but racist views cloaked in civil language or delivered in th.e guise of theory, however hurtful their expression may be, could not be prohibited. 48 Indeed, its speech code notwithstanding Stanford University concluded that the students who defaced the picture of Beethoven and posted it in a predominantly black dormitory were acting within their constitutional rights. 49 If verbal and pictorial abuse is to be defined broadly enough botl'l to recognize all the harm it causes and also to serve an educative function, it may well be advisable to uncouple the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse from censorship and punitive sanctions. 50 Still, I strongly agree with Charles Lawrence when he admonishes partisans of u.nfettered speech rights that it is important to be n1indful of how one participates in the hate speech debate. Too often free speech is defended, and the harm of discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is shrugged off. "It's a pity," civil libertarians sometimes say, "but it's the price we pay for freedom." Once harmful speech has been proll.ounced despicable, the discussion is summarily closed. Lawrence points out that taking positions like this does nothing to dispel the appearance of condoning bigotry.51 It is unconscionable to betray the moral data gained through broad empathy with the victims of discriminatory verbal and pictorial abuse. But how is it possible to keep faith with this moral data and also to endorse free speech as it is presently defined in U.s. law? l

AN UNORTHODOX PROPOSAL In what follows I shall confine my comments to the proliferation of discriminatory verbal and pictorial abuse on U.S. college and university campuses. One reason for narrowing my focus is that concentrating on a single institutional setting makes the problem more tractable. The other is that it is especially important that the problem be solved in this particular setting. The obligation of the university to provide equality of opportunity to all of its students requires that it take measures to create a I

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sanctuary for those students who are vulnerable to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse in order to ensure that their ability to learn is not impaired by others' stupidity or malice. Here the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is salient. Yet, the mission of the university as a site of inquiry and open dialogue requires that all students and faculty feel free to express their views. Here the right to free speech must be robust. Thus, universities seem to be torn between a pair of equally compelling, yet incompatible moral claims. By fran1ing these two rights using Hohfeld's technical rights taxonomy, it is possible to dissolve this paradox. It has often been noted that the U.S. Constitution construes free speech not as a claim right correlated with a duty of forbearance, but rather as an immunity correlated with a legislative disability. 52 Censorship is not a crime. But since government bodies lack the power to prohibit free expression, the courts will nullify legislative attempts to restrict speech unduly. Likewise, the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse need not be construed as a claim right el1titling students who are members of socially excluded groups 110t to hear hate speech and imposing a duty of forbearance specified in a restrictive speech code. Instead, this right could be construed as a power correlated with the university's liability to that power. Members of historically despised and currently excluded social groups could be empowered to exact compensation from the university upon demonstrating that a fellow member of the university con1munity subjected them to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse. 53 On this interpretation, there would be no new restrictions on speech, and yet the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse would be recognized and respected. The funds that some states have set up to compensate victims of violent crime provide a precedent for this proposal. However, these funds differ in two major respects from my hate speech compensation scheme. In the case of crime compensation funds, the state prohibits and punishes the cOI1.duct for which it compensates victims. Thus, it is in a position to minimize its liability.. Likewise, in sexual harassment law, which holds employers responsible for compensating employees who are harassed by supervisory or peer employees, employers are permitted to institute and enforce policies prohibiting harassing behavior. Thus, it may seem unfair to hold l.lniversities responsible for compensating victims of discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse and yet to deny them the right to deter these utterances by establishing and enforcing speech codes. Of course, it is not true that rejecting speech codes renders universities helpless with respect to discriminatory verbal and pictorial abuse. Universities can establish oriel1tation programs, courses, and workshops that educate students, faculty, and staff about the nature and the harm of dis-

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criminatory verbal or pictorial abuse; they can diversify their faculties land student bodies; they can enlist prominent conservative and civil liblertarian faculty members and student leaders who claim to abhor hate speech to publicly decry campus incidents; university presidents and deans can vocally condemn hate speech wllenever and wherever it occurs. Moreover, llnlike crime compensation funds that are statutorily mandated, compensating student victims for violations of the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is a moral imperative. I shall leave aside the more complicated, but undeniably important, question of under what circumstances the legislatures or courts should impose this liability on universities. I shall urge only that these educational institutions should assume this responsibility voluntarily. There are a number of reasons for thinking it proper for universities to accept liability for compensating students whose right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is violated on campus. Charles Lawrence and Frederick Schauer both question the legitimacy of leaving the victims of harmful speech to shoulder the costs of keeping the marketplace of ideas open. 54 If free speech is a social good, as well as an individual good, it is unfair that members of certain groups are required to bear a disproportionate share of the burdens of free speech by being barred from obtaining conlpensation for speech that harms them. Yet, requiring those who verbally assault others to pay for the harms they inflict would inhibit and thus constrain. free speech. It seems, then, that we must turn to social institutions to defray these costs. Since universities benefit enormously from free speech, it seems especially appropriate that they should do so. Also, discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is not a purely individual wrongdoing. It is substantially aided and abetted by the dominant culture. In the United States, this culture couples official condemnation of racism, sexism, and ethnocentrism (but, notice, not homophobia) with underhanded symbolic inculcation and reinforcement of these very attitudes and the behavior that goes with them. 55 In view of the pervasiveness of these prejudices, and in view of the fact that universities playa vital role in transmitting the dominant culture in which they are encoded, it is fitting that these institutions assume the costs of compensating th.e victims of discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse on their own campuses. Finally, I wot:Lld point out that it is in the interest of colleges and universities to 'undertake to compensate students who are victimized by discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse. Both because it is desirable to distribute the good of education as widely as possible and also because lively and fruitful intellectual debate requires assembling representatives of as many viewpoints as possible, these institutions seek to recruit a diverse student body. Presumably, students from historically despised and currently excluded social groups wo'uld find colleges an.d universities that

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were committed to respecting their right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse more attractive. If this is so, these institutions would gain a significant advantage in enrolling and retaining students from these groups and thus a significant advantage in achieving one of their principal goals.

NONIDEAL RIGHTS THEORY IN PRACTICE

Turning now to the mechanics of implementing the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse, I believe that this right calls for innovative methods. The forms of harmful speech and the nature of the harms that speech can cause need to be investigated. Moreover, compensation scales need to be set. It strikes me that universities are unusually well-situated to conduct these inquiries and to implement the power and the liability I have proposed. One objection that might be lodged against the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is that we do not know enough about how speech harms people to identify violations of the right. To some, this may seem like a good reason to confine rights to physical or nonbelief-mediated harms-harms that medical science can confidently document and trace to their causes. Compared to our knowledge of physical diseases and injuries, our knowledge of psychological maladies is undeniably in its infancy. But there is a revealing analogy between speechinflicted harm and environmentally caused harm. Scientists are far from clear about which pesticides and other pollutants endanger human health, and their estimates of what quantities of these chemicals cause serious ailments are very rough. Still, few regard the trial-and-error approach of environmental medicine as a reason to abandon the inquiry or to forgo taking steps to protect public health. There seems to be a consensus (outside agribusiness and the chemical industry, that is) that it is best to prohibit substances and practices that appear to pose a danger, while continuing to do research and revising policy in accordance with the preponderance of the data. University committees charged with implementing the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse would be in a similar position-examining cases as they arise and doing their best to assess the harm and to devise appropriate remedies. The likelihood that they will occasionally make mistakes does not mean that they should not get to work and start developing a body of findings. Eventually, it may be possible to distill these findings into a cogent system of principles and policies. Meanwhile, it is necessary to be mindful of the complexities and uncertainties surrounding the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal

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or pictorial abuse in planning for its implementation. Although university committees can undertake preliminary studies to determine what sorts of speech trouble members of socially excluded groups and how these individuals are affected by these utterances, it seems clear that any definition of verbal and pictorial abuse that they formulate is best regarded as provisional. Since these comn1ittees will be exploring uncharted territory, it seems unlikely that any committee will be able to anticipate all possible forms of discrimin.atory verbal or pictorial abuse. Thus, con1mittees created to administer this right will be learning as they go. The experimental nature of this undertaking argues against a punitive interpretation of the right and in favor of my compensatory interpretation, and it also argues against adversarial enforcement procedures and in favor of arbitration procedures. Interpreting the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse as mandating a punitive speech code would establish an insuperable presumption in favor of a sharp and narrow definition of harmful speech and adversarial enforcement procedures. Both the unfairness of meting out punishment when the offense is vaguely defined and the instrumental value of free discussion on campus necessitate minimizing restrictions 011 speech and maximizing the prerogatives of accused individuals to defend themselves. Yet establishing such a definition would choke off inquiry into the various forms of harmful speech and would almost certainly prove underinclusive. Moreover, the virtue of adversarial proceedings is that they protect the accused, not that they foster inquiry and deepen llnderstanding of vexiI1g social problems. In contrast, a social compensation scheme of the kind I am proposing does not require a neat and fixed definition of discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse, nor does it oblige universities to strictly observe disciplinary procedures comparable to those of a fair trial, for no one is being accused of a punishable infraction. Although punishing an innocent individual is a grave injustice, benefiting a person who does not deserve it is a minor mishap as long as no one else is seriously harmed. No terrible moral wrong would be committed if occasionally a student were overcompensated. The point of the right not to be subjected to discrimiI1atory verbal or pictorial abuse is to protect vulnerable people from a particularly invidious form of harmful speech. Thus, a tenable interpretation of this right will advance three key aims: 1) it will educate people about how speech causes harm; 2) it will make up for harm that is caused by discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse; and 3) it will deter this harmful speech. I believe that much harmful speech on campuses stems from ignorance-simple lack of information about different culttlres and distorted beliefs transmitted through derogatory stereotypes that are in wide circulation. To reduce the isolation of different social groups and to counteract

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misinforn1ation about these groups, Lawrence suggests that student victims be compensated by creating minority scholarships or minority faculty lines or by suspending classes and holding teach-ins on racism. 56 I certainly have no objection to the aims underlying Lawrence's proposals, and I would be happy if universities took such measures. However, I think that, whenever possible, the individuals whose rights are violated should be recompensed personally. Thus, I shall offer a compensation scheme that preserves the educational potential of Lawrence's proposal but that gives due recognition to the harn1 individuals suffer. A fair compensation scheme will take into account the gravity of the harn1 and the intent of the speaker. When a speaker unwittingly causes harm and the harm is slight, an apology and a promise to desist seem sufficient as compensation. However, when a speaker deliberately causes harm, or when the harm is severe, material compensation seems necessary, for the sincerity of an apology would be doubtful, and severe injury calls for substantial recon1pense. In such cases, universities could ~ward victims credit toward the next semester's tuition (or in the case of secondsemester seniors a refund on the current tuition bill), and they could tie the amount of credit to the egregiousness of the incident. This remedy seems fitting since it links the compensation to the victim's educational aspirations and contributes to those goals. This method of compensation can be administered using an arbitration model rather than a legalistic adversarial model. If the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is to serve an educational function, it is important to avoid exacerbating hostility and putting the parties on the defensive. When guilt and punishment, on the one hand, or exoneration, on the other, exhausts the possible outcomes for the accused individual, one cannot expect that person to be candid and forthcoming. 57 A compensation scheme that does not penalize the accused individual and that is in1plemented through arbitration provides a setting for mediation and an opportunity to reach mutual understanding and reconciliation. Student complainants must see these proceedings as an opportunity to learnt as well. As a result of the dialogues such proceedings initiate, a student whom an utterance offended and upset rnight come to understand the reasonableness and the justifiability of the speech and to regard his or her reaction as excessive. In that case or in cases in which the adnlinistrative committee determines that a student should accept this view of the matter, no compensation would be awarded. In advocating arbitration proceedings, I am not suggesting that universities should accept all claims at face value or that the only issue is how much compensation the alleged victim should receive. On the contrary, to make sure that incidents are not being staged, these claims must be thoroughly investigated, and the testimony of witnesses must be sought.

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Moreover, I would advise universities to impose fairly onerous penalties ,,\Then students are found to have lodged fabricated or frivolous complaints. Still, I would expect that some cases will fall in a gray area, and it seems to me that it is better for universities to respond to such cases in a spirit of openness and compromise rather than in a harsh, incredulous spirit that requires students who clailll to have been victimized by discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse to produce incontrovertible proof to support their charges. I think that flexibility in enforcement, as long as it does not devolve into capriciousness, is both dictated by the typical university/s administrative capabilities and also befits the unpredictability and the variety of forms that abusive speech takes. On my compensatory interpretation of the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse, a somewhat elastic definition of abusive speech that allows for sensitivity to social context and variations in individual temperament is tenable. Since the alternative is to preen1pt inquiry and to deny justice to many victims of abusive speech, this flexibility constitutes a strong reason to adopt my interpretation. I suspect that punitive sanctions would martyr many people who violate the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse, and that this veneration of abusive speakers as heroes of civil liberties would stigmatize their victims. Yet, by itself, answering abusive speech with more speech seems a toothless altern.ative. If education were as effective as educators would like to believe it is, the incidence of discriminatory verbal and pictorial abuse on can1puses should be waning, but it is not. Although my compensation scheme imposes no punishments, it would nevertheless deter discriminatory verbal and pictorial abuse. It would defeat the purposes of malicious speakers, for voicing prejudice would ultimately benefit the very people the bigot wants to hurt. With respect to well-meaning but misguided speakers, using arbitration to in1plement the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse incorporates the advantages of the educational approach and strengthens tl1e educational impact by personalizing the process. Tutorials work better than large lecture courses. Finally and most importantly, this interpretation of the right would not leave victims in the lurch. Wl1ether in the form of an apology and an assurance that tl1e harmful speech will not be repeated or in the form of tuition remission, the victim receives a significant, individuated benefit. Now, it might be granted that my proposal provides a way for L111iversities to discourage violations of the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse and to respect victims' rights without encroaching on free inquiry. Still, a critic might regard my proposal as unrealistic and possibly dangerous. First, it might be objected that universities will seek to minimize their liability by accepting only ideologically

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compatible students. But it seems doubtful th.at a university that would voluntarily institute the compensation scheme I envisage would secretly reverse its principles and undermine diversity by homogenizing admissions. Moreover, federal law provides further protection for diversity. Discrimination on grounds of race, religion; or sex is illegal at schools that receive pLLblic fLlnding. I would add that conservatives who fear that like-minded applicants will be targeted and discriminated against should not concede that bigots can be weeded out by identifying prospective students' conservative political leanings. This stereotype, like all stereotypes, should be resisted. Second, it might be urged that compensating all the victims whose claims were vindicated would bankrupt universities. If that is true, I would reply that it is all the more urgent for universities to take aggressive measures to implement the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse. Still, I would also stress that universities need not create lavish funds to compensate victims. Even if budgetary constraints render their compensation awards essentially symbolic, these awards will represent a colossal improvement over the institutional indifference th.at now prevails on U.S. campuses.

CONTESTABLE CLAIMS AND RESPECT FOR RIGHTS

At this point, someone might object that my construal of the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is an. evasion and a pernicious one at that. This Hohfeldian sleight of hand, it could be argued, is ll1ere trickery that makes the conflict between free speech and this novel right seem to disappear, but that in reality aggravates the conflict. A policy of compensating victims of discrimin.atory verbal or pictorial abuse would provide a powerful disincentive to abusive speech. In litigation in.volving jOLlrnalism, there is a presumption against similar disincentives for fear of the chilling effect they might have on vigorous investigation and uninhibited reportage of the news. Mightn't my compensation program also chill free debate on. campus? Let me bring this objection into focus by reformulating it. Insofar as the right to free speech and the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse are institutionalized and respected by universities, I think there is nothing wrong with conceptualizing this pair of rights as an ill1munity and a power, respectively. But I agree that we have to face the fact that, conceived as moral or custoll1ary rights-that is, as rights that private individuals regard as action-guiding-these two rights conflict. 58 The reason for this is that our inforll1al conventions regarding free speech oblige us to tolerate expression of ideas that we oppose and thus impose

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a d'uty on each member of an audience to allow the others to speak in accordance with. certain rules of order. Hecklers come in for criticism because the right to free speech is commonly viewed as a claim right. Axiomatically, if someone has a claim right to forbearance, everyone else has a duty to forbear and therefore no one has a right not to forbear. But notice that, conceived as a customary right, the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse would also be regarded as a claim right. As an individual seeking to respect this right, one would refrain from utterin.g abusive speech. Thus, we are back to the paradox with which we began. Everyone has a minimally fettered right to free speech, and everyone is at liberty to utter abusive speech. Yet, the members of historically despised and currently excluded social groLlps have a right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse, and no Oll.e is at liberty to utter abusive speech. On some rights theories, this conflict would sLlffice to disqualify at least one of these rights or to require that exceptions be built into one or both of them. John Rawls, for example, maintains that each perSOIl. has an "equal claim to a fully adequate scheme of equal basic rights and liberties, whicll. schenl.e is compatible with the same scheme for all" and that these rights and liberties take precedence over economic welfare rights. 59 Likewise, Rex Martin argues that "careful drafting and redraftiIl.g" can (in principle) and should (wherever possible) eliminate conflicts between rights. 60 Others, notably Judith Thomson and George Sher, dell.y that rights conflicts can be avoided. Thomson denies that rights are absolute and examines the distinction between justified abridgn1ents of rights and wrongful violations of rights. 61 Sher holds that incorrigible ignorance about the legitimacy of some people's claims and the fact that injustices will inevitably be committed entail that rights conflicts are inescapable. 62 I shall argue that it is feasible for individuals to respect both the right to free speech and the right not to be subjected to discrimin.atory verbal or pictorial abuse wit110ut universities stipulating a resolution of the conflict betweell. them in advance. To frame this issue, I find it helpful to note some continuities between free speech and property rights. Some people regard possessions as extensions of persons and the unlimited right to acquire property as a basic moral right. 63 I myself doubt that any fundamental human interest entails that the right to property must authorize people to become billionaires if they can do so without resorting to force or fraud. There is a fundan1ental human interest in the satisfaction of subsistence needs, and there is a fundaluental hLlman interest in leading a fulfilling life. One way to secure these interests is to institute a scheme of property rights that sets out permissive rules for acquisition and that endows individuals with broad powers to dispose of their holdings. Although capitalism is by no means

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the only conceivable way of organizing commerce so as to safeguard these fundamental interests, it is defensible as a means to this end, for it has proven to be a relatively efficient way to generate goods and services and to conserve wealth. 64 Still, capitalism introduces a paradox analogous to the paradox of free speech. On the one hand, all persons are permitted to acquire extensive holdings and to use their possessions however they please. Yet those who fail to prosper under this system have fundamental human interests in subsistence and fulfillment, too. Thus, on the other hand, empathy with people who are disadvantaged by capitalism argues for a right to an economic share adequate to secure these interests-a right that obligates the well-off to aid the poor. 65 There may be some people who believe that helping strangers is always supererogatory. But for the most part, debate centers on the questions of how much assistance to provide and to what extent the obligation to aid the poor should be discharged through mandatory redistributive taxation as opposed to voluntary philanthropy. At the border where the right to property intersects with and competes with the right to a minimally adequate economic share, the scope of each of these rights is contested. Because the right to property has a moral core, it resists outright expropriation; however, because the open-ended prerogatives this right confers are justified largely by instrumental considerations, it is not immune to moral trimming. 66 In sum, the libertarian right to property that undergirds capitalism is a right that permits conduct that is morally objectionable, but the extent to which the right to a minimally adequate economic share requires that the consequences of recognizing this property right be mitigated is a matter of ongoing dispute and changing public policy. The right to free speech is similar. People's fundamental interests in their autonomy and integrity provide a moral anchor for this right. People need the liberty to express themselves, and this right guarantees it. Yet, these interests cannot account for the virtually unrestricted permissions this right is widely thought to confer. In interpersonal relations, people generally recognize moral constraints on what they may say and how they may express what they have to say. Autonomy and integrity are not equated with thoughtless spontaneity and tactless candor; these values are assumed to be reconcilable with consideration for other people's feelings and needs. The expansive constitutional interpretation of free speech gains its support from the role this right plays in fostering the spirited debate that democratic institutions thrive on. Arguably, the dangers of regulation and the potential damage to the democratic process outweigh most of the harms that unfettered speech inflicts. As with property, instrumental considerations enlarge the scope of the right.

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Another way in which the right to free speech parallels the right to property is that both of these rights are associated with countervailing rights. As we have seen, members of historically despised and currently excluded social groups have a right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse, and this right impinges upon the right to free speech. Thus, the borders of the right to free speech are contested, just as the borders of the right to property are contested. But whereas the right to a minimally adequate economic share is respected primarily through compulsory redistribution and secondarily through voluntary assistance, my account would leave respect for the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse largely to the conscience and judgment of individuals. 67 Not only is it more difficult to demarcate harmful speech that could never be necessary to autonomy and integrity than it is to identify levels of wealth that exceed what is needed to survive and find fulfillment, but also the threat to democracy that restricting harmful speech poses is more difficult to gauge than the threat to capitalist markets that taxation poses. Many moral claim rights are not legally codified or enforced, but are nonetheless vital to everyday social relations. People create claim rights by making promises and small loans and by joining improvised cooperative arrangements. Although respecting these rights is very important since many desirable, informal types of relationship would collapse if they were generally ignored, fulfilling these obligations and deciding wh.en they are overridden is left to individual probity and discretion. Likewise, it is up to individuals to define the contours of the obligation to refrain from utteriI1g abusive speech. The tension between the right to free speech and the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse prompts people to pause and reflect on what they want to say, on whether there is good reason to say it, and on why they need to say it in this particular forum and in this particular way. Are one's autonomy and integrity really at stake? Is public debate really advanced? And so forth. To forget that n1embers of historically de.;. spised and currently excluded social groups have a right not to be sl.lbjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse is to embrace what might be dubbed the "bratty kid" view of free speech-lilt's a free COUTltry; I have a right to say whatever I want!" Although this juvenile conception of free speech is morally defective, so is self-betraying, albeit self-imposed, censorship. If one automatically defers to others' complaints about one's utterances, if one silences oneself against one's better judgment, one surrenders one's own right to free speech and abrogates the values of autonomy and integrity. Exercising one's right to free speech is no less important than respecting the right not to be sLLbjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse, and it is sometimes deeply perplexing which should take precedence.

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A virtue of construing the institutional right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse as a power to exact compensation from one's university rather than as a claim right that obliges universities to enforce speech codes is that this arrangement acknowledges these rival considerations. That an utterance may result in someone's being compensated provides an incentive to reflect before one speaks. 68 Yet, since the costs of compensating victims of hate speech do not fallon the speaker alone, and since these costs are distributed so widely that no OI1.e will bear a great burden, this disincentive is not strong enough to foreclose controversial speech that someone sincerely judges to be worthwhile. 69 This scheme frees people to err without encouraging them to speak recklessly. The rights of the vulnerable are respected along with the rights of the advantaged.

NONIDEAL RIGHTS THEORY

The problems that bedevil contemporary liberal democratic societies stem from a legacy of wrongs that persist in the form of group-based social exclusion and domination. When anchored in the abstractions of ideal theory, basic rights lose touch with this social reality and disadvantage many of the people who most urgently need the moral platform rights provide. If rights theory is to address contemporary social issues, it is necessary to displace the minimalist universalistic conception of the person and to recognize that systemic injustice conditions human interests. 7o Through broad empathy with members of different social groups who are suffering different forms of injustice, rights theorists can incorporate these heterogeneous interests in their accounts of basic rights. But acknowledging that right-holders are not uniform and that different groups of right-holders may have rival interests interjects the problem of conflicting rights into rights theory in a particularly disquieting way. It is commonplace that rights compete and that competing rights must be reconciled with one another. The right to free speech is qualified to accommodate the right to personal safety and the right to a fair trial. This kind of adjustment aims to strike that balance among the competing rights that best protects the interests of a representative person. A congress of free and equal contractors rationally bargain for the best package of equal rights they can get, and the rights specified in their agreement are deemed "fully adequate" (to use John Rawls's p:hrase) for every rightholder. However, empathic attention to group-based differential social positioning raises the specter of entrenched universal basic rights clashing with novel nonuniversal ones. The image of an amicable social contract reached by morally identical individuals does not perspicuously model these moral circumstances.

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Too often, problems of this kind are formulated as dilemmas-either one preserves the full force of universal basic rights or one capitulates to a new group of claimants and compromises a basic right. Such formulations are politically counterproductive. They intensify conflict between social groups by narrowing the field of moral options to two mutually exclusive possibilities. Whichever solution is adopted, one group will triumph, and the other will lose. Moreover, ll1.any of these dilemmas are false dilemmas that manifest a failure of moral imagination. An alternative solution may exist, but once the issue has been constructed as a dilemma, a third option is not sought. It seems to me that what is needed is inclusive moral thin.king-moral thinking that seeks to identify a course of action or a policy that secures everyone's interests. In the preceding discussion, I have used a strategy of indirection to frame the right not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse in a way th.at leaves free speech intact. This is by no means the only available approach. A more conventional strategy is to maintain neutrality by assimilating new group-based claims to universal categories of need. By classifying pregnancy as a disability, the need of many women for prenatal medical care and pregnancy leave has been extricated from issues of sexual difference and obtained the protection of rights. No doubt there are many other ways to minimize conflict between entrenched universal rights and novel nOl1.universal rights and to include rights that secure the interests of socially excluded groups in the corpus of basic rights. What I would emphasize in closing is that there is ample reason to believe that the public moral cultures of Western democracies are considerably richer than the rights theories that have as yet found legal favor would seem to suggest. 71 If this is so, there is reason to be optimistic that socially excluded groups will succeed in tapping these moral resources to gain recognition for their rights.72

NOTES 1. See both Martha Minow, Making All the Difference (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1990) and Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton; N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990). 2. See Adrian M. S. Piper, "Higher-Order Discrimination," in Owen Flanagan and Amelie Oksenberg Rorty, eds., Identity, Character, and Morality (CarrLbridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990); and Charles R. Lawrence III, "If He Hollers Let Him Go: Regulating Hate Speech on Campus," in Mari J. Matsuda et al., eds., Words that Wound (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993), 77. 3. Rejection of rights is a minority view among feminists. See Marilyn Friedman, What Are Friends For? (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993), 127-34, for an argument that women should not jettison rights.

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4. Patricia Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991), 153-54, 164. 5. Ibid., 158; for related discussion see Joel Feinberg, "The Nature and Value of Rights," Journal of Value Inquiry 4 (1970): 243-60. 6. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 159. 7. For pioneering work on this problem, see Minow, Making All the Difference; for related discussion, see my "Social Exclusion, Moral Reflection, and I{ights," Law and Philosophy 12 (1993): 217-32. 8. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 160. 9. See Adrian M. S. Piper, "Impartiality, Compassion, and Modal Imagination," Ethics 101 (1991): 735-37; also my "Moral Reflection: Beyond Impartial Reason," Hypatia 8 (1993): 24-26, and my Subjection and Subjectivity: Psychoanalytic Feminism and Moral Philosophy (New York: Routledge, 1994),32-33. For related discussion of the dependency of theory on practice, see Susan J. Brison, "The Theoretical In1portance of Practice," in Judith Wagner DeCew and Ian Shapiro, eds., NOMOS XXXVII: Theory and Practice (New York: NYU Press, 1994); for assessment of the relative merits of studying social scientific reports versus engaging emotionally with another's subjectivity, see Sandra Lee Bartky, "Sympathy, and Solidarity: On a Tightrope with Sheler," in Diana Tie~ens Meyers, ed., Feminists Rethink the Self (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1997). 10. Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic, "In1ages of the Outsider in American Law and Culture: Can Free Expression Remedy Systemic Cultural Ills?" Cornell Law Review 77 (1992): 1281. 11. Mari J. Matsuda, "Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story," in Mari J. Matsuda et al., Words That Wound (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993), 47. 12. Williams, The Alchemy of.Race and Rights, 150. 13. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go," 57, 72. 14. Mari Matsuda, "When the First Quail Calls: Multiple Consciousness as Jurisprudential Method," Women's Rights LaID Reporter 11 (1989): 9. 15. For related discussion of the role that empathy has played in court decisions, see Lynne N. Henderson, "Legality and Empathy," in Patricia Smith, ed., Feminist Jurisprudence (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993). 16. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 112-15. 17. Matsuda, "Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story," 120-22. 18. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go," 53-55, 72-74, 87-88. 19. For related discussion of "boomerang perception," see Elizabeth V. Spelman, Inessential Woman (Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press, 1988). 20. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Hin1 Go," 69-70. 21. Matsuda, "Public Response to Racist Speech," 17. 22. Ibid., 21. 23. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 95. 24. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go," 87-88. 25. Frederick Schauer and several men1bers of audiences to whom I have presented this chapter tell me that they grew up with the "tiger" version of the chant and that, as children, they did not know that another version was in circulation.

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Schauer suggests that the difference between his experience and Lawrence's may stem from the fact that he is a few years younger than Lawrence. Perhaps this small age differential suffices to explain Schauer's childhood ignorance. I would venture to say, however, that community attitudes may also have played a part. Having grown up in an exclusively white suburb where subdued forms of racism and anti-Semitism were socially acceptable and where all the children knew the racist version of this chant, I suspect that Schauer grew up in a community that was more sensitive to and progressive about issues concerning bigotry and discrimination. But even supposing that the racist version of this chant really has disappeared from the vernacular, it is undeniable that sanitizing the rhyme eliminates neither its racist history nor African-Americans' knowledge of its racist past. In fact, the only people who have told me that they did not know the racist version are white. For the oppressed, the past is not so easily erased. 26. Meyers, Subjection and Subjectivity, 34-35. 27. Ibid., 35-37. 28. The interplay that broad empathy sets up between imaginative replication of and analysis of the other's circumstances and psyche helps to counteract projective empathy. Since one cannot imaginatively reconstruct another's life in real time, broad empathy must rely to some extent on the economies of conceptualization and must selectively imagine salient dimensions of the other's life. The resulting interplay enables intellection to check flights of fancy while imagination presses intellection to break out of habitual conceptual schemas. 29. Spelman, Inessential Woman, 178. 30. Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, in Waltraut Stein, trans., The Collected Works of Edith Stein, vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: ICS Publications, 1999), 109. Joel Kupperman, "Ethics for Extraterrestrials," American Philosophical Quarterly 28 (1991): 319. Diana Tie~ens Meyers, Subjection and Subjectivity, 37. 31. Marfa C. Lugones and Elizabeth V. Spelman, "Have We Got a Theory for You! Feminist Theory, Cultural Imperialism, and the Demand for 'The Woman's Voice:" in Marilyn Pearsall, ed., Women and Values (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1986). 32. Piper, "Impartiality, Compassion, and Modal Imagination," 737. 33. For related discussion, see Frederick Schauer, "The Phenomenology of Speech and Harm," Ethics 103 (1993): 640-49. 34. For a detailed inventory of these harms, see Richard Delgado, "Words that

Wound: A Tort Action for Racial Insults, Epithets, and Name Calling," in Matsuda et aI., eds., Words that Wound, 90-93. 35. For those who may doubt that empathy can provide the basis for recognizing rights, let me point out that it is easy to see the seeds of rights in empathic responses within interpersonal contexts. For example, parents' empathic understanding of their adolescent children typically leads them to the conclusion that they must grant these individuals greater decision-making power over their own lives. As their children mature, parents begin to grasp their daughters' or sons' frustration at having decisions imposed on them and to appreciate their budding capacity for autonomous choice. Thus, parents who feel antipathy for an overbearing, authoritarian style of childrearing expand the sphere of liberty they accord to their teenagers and resolve not to meddle in or overrule the choices they

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make. Henceforth, when their kids tell them to back off, they regard this demand as legitimate and try to respect it. Parents use their intimate knowledge of their children's developing capacities and needs to increase their freedom commensurately. In so doing, they informally recognize rights that are sensitive to individual needs. 36. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 160. 37. Judith Jarvis Thomson, The Realm of Rights (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990), 253. 38. Ibid., 253-54. 39. Ibid., 254. 40. Schauer, "The Phenomenology of Speech and Harm," 650-52. 41. I do not mean to suggest that it is always inadvisable to steel oneself against the oppressive speech of others. Faced with massive propaganda glorifying large breasts and promoting surgical breast enlargement, the best thing a woman can do is ignore it and accept her natural endowment. But this case differs from hate speech. First, since women are being induced to submit to elective surgery and to incur the risks associated with breast implants, failing to withstand these recommendations itself endangers women's health. Second, despite this propaganda, a wide range of female body types are in fact attractive, and ideals of beauty change periodically. Thus, women who undergo this surgery may not achieve the glamour they had hoped for. Since indifference to this oppressive speech poses no threat to women and is in many respects advantageous to them, Thomson's advice to Steel oneself against belief-mediated distress is well-taken in this case. 42. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 111. 43. Ronald Dworkin, "The Coming Battle over Free Speech," The New York Review of Books 39 (1992): 58, 62. 44. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go," 68-69, 74. 45. 2 WW.R. 577 (Can.). 46. For evidence that it has already led to repressive measures see Henry Louis Gates Jr., "Let Them Talk:' The New Republic 209 (Sept. 20 and 27, 1993): 44. 47. Indeed, there may be growing resistance to campus speech codes. According to Ann Cudd, the state of California has passed legislation affirming that people on college and university campuses have the same speech rights as people in any public place. Ann Cudd, "When Sexual Harassment Is Protected Speech:' unpublished manuscript delivered at the Conference on Feminist Ethics and Social Policy, University of Pittsburgh, November 1993. 48. Gates, "Let Them Talk:' 45. 49. Williams, The Alchemy of Race and Rights, 112; Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go:' 55. 50. It could be argued that prohibiting the most blatant forms of hate speech is worthwhile since doing so may sensitize people to the evils of hate speech in general and thus help to eradicate more subtle, nonprohibitable forms of hate speech. Perhaps constitutionally defensible speech codes would have this desirable spillover effect, but my experience suggests that they might provoke a backlash that would renew some people's determination to exercise their remaining speech rights in harmful, but permissible ways. It is hard to anticipate whether the overall consequences of narrowly drawn speech codes will be felicific.

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51. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Hin1 Go," 82-87. 52. David Lyons, "The Correlativity of Rights and Duties," Nous 4 (1970): 50-51; Frederick Schauer, Free Speech: A Philosophical Inquiry (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 116; Rex Martin, A System of Rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 30. 53. This right should not be assinlilated to the hostile environment theory of discriminatory harassment. Charging an employer or educational institution with maintaining a hostile environment requires demonstrating that a pattern or practice of harassment exists. In contrast, the power I am proposing could be activated by a single incident of discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse. Often the experience of being a target of hate speech on campus is compounded by similar experiences in childhood and off-campus and by widespread social tolerance of racism, sexism, homophobia, and ethnocentrisn1. No pattern of abuse need exist on can'lpus for a hate speech incident to be harmful. Also, one of the reasons for my proposal is that legal remedies are slow in coming and expensive to pursue. Thus, many victims who have a sexual harassment case under the hostile environment theory mandated by the Civil Rights Act do not sue and never obtain any form of relief. 54. Frederick Schauer, "Uncoupling Free Speech," Columbia Law Review 92 (1992): 1321-57; Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go," 80. 55. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go," 68; for an account of culturally normative prejudice, see Meyers, Subjection and Subjectivity, 51-56. 56. Lawrence, "If He Hollers Let Him Go," 85-86. 57. Some faculty unions (e.g., the PSC/CUNY) have protested university procedures for addressing sexual harassment complaints on the grounds that these procedures violate due process. Since a finding that someone has committed sexual harassment is grounds for punitive sanctions, it is crucial that universities enforce their sexual harassment regulations in a manner that respects due process. Still, it is clear that these procedural restrictions interfere with the educational function of sexual harassn1ent proceedings since they provide a strong incentive for the accused individual to refuse to cooperate and to deny the charges regardless of the truth. I do not advocate stripping penalties from sexual harassment codes. Nevertheless, I want to point out that the absence of penalties in my interpretation of the right not to be subjected to discrin1inatory verbal or pictorial abuse eliminates the threat to the accused individual, defuses the conflict between this individual and the complainant, and thus maximizes the chances of fruitful dialogue leading to a mutually satisfactory resolution. 58. This line of thought is important since these moral rights are in a sense more fundamental than the institutional variants I discussed above. The moral backing for the power and liability I propose stems from the thought that people are entitled not to be subjected to discriminatory verbal or pictorial abuse. Thus, my compensatory, institutional interpretation represents a nonideal compromise designed to skirt the dangers of authorizing institutions to monitor speech and punish son1e utterances. 59. John Rawls, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993),5-6; also see Rawls, A Theory ofJustice (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971), 250.

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60. Martin, A System of Rights, 110-15. 61. Thomson, The Realm of Rights, 120-22. 62. George Sher, "Rights Violations and Injustices: Can We Always Avoid Trade-Offs?" Ethics 94 (1984): 212-24; for helpful discussion of different approaches to weighting rights, see Judith Wagner DeCew, "Moral Rights: Conflicts and Valid Claims," Philosophical Studies 54 (1988): 63-86. 63. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (New York: Basic Books, 1974). 64. Diana Tie~ens Meyers, Inalienable Rights: A Defense (New York: Columbia University Press, 1985), 68-71. 65. For discussion of the role of empathy in defending redistributive taxation, see Meyers, "Moral Reflection: Beyond Impartial Reason," 27-31. 66. Diana Tie~ens Meyers, "A Sketch of a Rights Taxonomy," in Kenneth Kipnis and Diana Tie~ens Meyers, eds., Econo1nic Justice: Private Rights and Public Responsibilities (Totowa, N.J.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1985), 92-93. 67. An important exception is speech that creates a "hostile environment" in the workplace and thus constitutes sexual harassment under the U.S. Supreme Court's interpretation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (see Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc. [1993]). For interesting discussion of the possibility of adapting hostile environment theory to the issue of hate speech in academic settings, see Timothy Shiell, "Hate Speech Codes and Hostile Environment Law," APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Law 92 (1993): 64-66. 68. For discussion of the abuse of rights, see Frederick Schauer, "Can Rights Be Abused?" The Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1981); 225-30; and Schauer, Free Speech: A Philosophical Inquiry, pp. 145-48. 69. It might be objected that I am overlooking the potential for social ostraciSll1 that ll1y scheme creates. Students who resent contributing anything to compensating hate speech victims might put pressure on other students to desist from uttering abusive speech by shunning them socially. Although I grant that some students might try to strengthen the disincentive in this way, I think this would be good insofar as speakers are not deeply committed to the ideas and attitudes they express, and I do not think that such tactics will silence speakers who believe that they have something important to say. I doubt that students will be socially ostracized when the legitill1acy of their utterances is genuinely debatable. Moreover, it is clear that student populations are diverse enough to ensure that virtually any strand of student opinion will find an enclave of friendly support. 70. Notice that seen from the standpoint of systemic injustice the minimalist universalistic conception of the person is the conception of the person that privileges the interests of the merrlbers of the dOll1inant social group. This is not to say that members of historically despised and currently excluded social groups do not share these interests (critical race theorists typically affirm the value of free speech), but it is to open the possibility that they have additional interests that have been overlooked or that they rank these interests in a different order. 71. An intriguing dimension of Mari Matsuda's discussion of hate speech that I do not have space to take up in detail is her claim that censorship of the most egregious forms of racist speech is justified because the wrongness of the doctrine of racial superiority is universally accepted (Mari Matsuda, "Public Response to Racist Speech: Considering the Victim's Story," in Mari J. Matsuda et al., eds.

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Words that Wound (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993), 37). Obviously, her position cannot be that each and every person rejects the doctrine of racial superiority, since this is patently, though sadly, false. Rather, she speaks of the public positions that governments have enunciated on behalf of their nations, i.e., of the moral identities and values of societies. Interestingly, John Rawls's current account of the grounding of his principles of justice bears a striking resemblance to Matsuda's line of thought. For Rawls, the rights guaranteed by justice as fairness constitute the "kernel of an overlapping consensus" that articulates the "basic intuitive ideas fout;ld in the public culture of a constitutional den10cracy" (John Rawls, "Justice as Fairness: Political Not Metaphysical," Philosophy and Public Affairs 14 (1985): 246; also Rawls, Political Liberalism, 13-15, 175). Though I would argue that Rawls's interpretation of this public culture is much too legalistic and tradition-bound, I think that the idea of invoking the collective moral identity of one's society for purposes of defending novel moral claims is a promising strategy (See Meyers, Subjection and Subjectivity, 157-62). On this view, inflicting certain harms and withholding certain benefits are serious injustices, for mistreating individuals in this way betrays the moral identity of a society. 72. I am indebted to Susan Brison, Judith Wagner DeCew, and Frederick Schauer for valuable comments on this project. Also, I presented this chapter at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Graduate School of the City University of New York, the State University of New York at Albany, and a meeting of Amintaphil, and I am grateful to the members of those audiences for their many helpful suggestions.

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great deal of socially necessary labor is unwaged, undervalued, and coded feminine. Showing that caring for dependents is the main industry in this shadow economy numbers among the signal accomplishments of second wave feminism. Yet, after a quarter of a century of feminist critique and activism, little progress has been made in uncoupling caregiving from gender. Moreover, caregivers who are not impoverished remain economically insecure, and none are accorded the social status they deserve. One of the many liabilities of caring for dependents is the threat it poses to individual autonomy. Mothers are cultllrally represented as self-sacrificial, llnconditionally loving, and totally identified 'with their children-the prototype of a gladly nonautonomous being. This chapter argues that, as this maternal imagery suggests, coercive gender structures put dependency workers' autonomy in jeopardy and that these constraints are unjust. 1 The first section argues that default dependency work and autonomy are in principle compatible. The second section argues that gender and the family intersect to maintain the sexual division of labor, which prevents many default dependency workers from being as autonomous as they are entitled to be. I examine Diemut Bubeck's and Eva Kittay'saccounts of dependency work and the policies they propose to free women from the coercion of the sexual division of labor. Although I think their suggestions are helpful, I urge that ensuring women's autonomy requires more profound social change. Thus, the last section outlines a nllmber of changes in the structure of the fan1ily that I believe are

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necessary to eliminate the coercion that constrains default dependency workers' agency.

AUTONOMY AND WORK

For the purposes of this chapter, I shall understand autonolny to mean self-governance or self-determination. More specifically, to be autonomous is (1) to figure out what your personal values and goals arewhat really matters to you as an individual and what you as an individual really want out of life; (2) to figure out how you can fulfill those self-chosen values and goals; and (3) to act in ways that are congruent with those self-chosen values and goals. Autonomous individuals have their own commitments and these commitments are expressed in sizable and significant chunks of their conduct. For the most part, then, they do not suffer from chronic and acute alienation from themselves or their lives, for, within the limits set by social relations and human fallibility, they feel comfortable with spontaneity and in control of their lives. With regard to the structuring of the paid as well as the unpaid work world, autonomy is at stake in three respects. First, one may be more or less autoll.omous in one's choice of work, for one mayor may not have access to the resources necessary to qualify for it. An enthusiastic and talented teenage scientist who cannot afford to go to college has considerably less autonomy in her or his choice of work than another teenager whose parents can easily pay for college. Second, one may be more or less autonomous once one embarks on a particular type of work. Some workers (e.g., university professors) have a great deal of control over how their work is conducted; others (e.g., assembly line workers) do not. Some workers (e.g., servers in lucrative restaurants) have quite a bit of tin1e to engage in outside pursuits; others (e.g., aides to important government officials) do not. Third, one may have more or less autonomy with respect to exiting one's work. Leaving some types of work requires no more than a few days' notice, but it is far more difficult to extricate oneself from the commitments and responsibilities that many other types of work entail. A soldier cannot desert her or his squadron; the star of a play cannot capriciously and suddenly leave the production; an obstetrician cannot abandon her or his medical practice without making arrangements for patients to receive care from someone else. In each respect-choice of work, choice within work, choice to leave work-autonomy is a matter of degree. It depends on the range of occupations that are practically feasible and socially available to an individual. It depel1ds on the extent to which the occupation provides opportul1ities for individualized decision n1aking and action and also on the extent to - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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which it frees the individual to pursue other interests and projects. It depends on the limits that the occupation imposes on the individual's freedom to quit. That an occupation gives workers latitude in which to make autonomous choices does not guarantee that they will do so. It is up to them to seize their work-related opportunities for autonomy. But they may not see that autonomy opportunities exist, or they n1ay lack the skills necessary to take advantage of them. In addition, it is importal1t to recognize that even if extensive constraints on autonomy are built into the structure of a particular kind of work, some workers may nonetheless act autonomously. Some individuals may have values and goals that coincide with the stringent entrance requirements, the regimented day-to-day activity, or the onerous restrictions on quitting. They will experience no friction between their own sense of self and the way the work is structured. Hence, they will be able to autonomously comply with th.e established practices and aims of the work category and will need no additional options in order to act autonomously. Those who find the practices and the aims that define the work uncongenial may try to reform their work environment in order to bring it into better alignment with their own values and goals. Although they may fail to bring about all of the changes they desire, their attempt to effect change constitutes an autonomous act of dissent, for it enacts their own values and goals. It is important, then, to bear in mind that autonomy-discouraging practices and aims embedded in work structures do not rule out the possibility that some individuals will achieve atltonomy within those contexts. However, I shall concentrate on the ways in which different kinds of work are structured and on how these structures promote or discourage autonomy with respect to entrance, participation, and exit. Since the entrance requirements for dependency work are among the least restrictive, they impede autonomy far less than most kinds of work. Virtually anyone who wants to do dependency work can. But students of dependency work would reply that the relevant entrance issue is not whether there are ample opportunities to sign on, but rather whether the opportunities to refuse to do dependency work are sufficient for autonomy. Those who raise this issue base their skepticism on two claims: (1) Child and elder care is socially necessary labor, and (2) dependency work is unchosen. 2 It is undeniable that reproducing the species is socially necessary labor. It is not clear, however, that obligatory childcare is invariably unchosen in the United States and similar societies today. Admittedly, one can nonvoluntarily become responsible for children. For example, in order to spare their grandchildren the vagaries and hazards of the foster care system, mothers of drug-addicted women often feel they have no choice but

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to take responsibility for their daughters' children. Still, many obligations to do default dependency work, especially prolonged childcare, do not descend on individuals against their will or due to circumstan.ces beyond their control, for they are direct consequences of voluntary action. Anyone who has access to contraception and abortion need not have children. 3 Of course, once one has children, taking care of then1 ceases to be optional. B·ut since having children is not obligatory, childcare is not an unchosen obligation unless safe and reasonably affordable means to prevent or halt pregnancy are not available. Elder care responsibilities initially seem to be less voluntary. Since no on.e can avoid having parents, and since many people's parents will eventually lose their ability to take care of themselves, it might seem that this kind of dependency work is thrust upon their offspring willy-nilly. In light of the fact that very old and ltelpless people are often distrustful of and embarrassed by stranger care and consequently feel betrayed if their children decline to take them in, it is arguable that becon1ing a dependency worker for an incapacitated parent is unchosen but mandatory. Yet, in our cl1ild-centered society, many would agree that two-income parents do nothing wrong if they refuse to take on elder care because both of them need to work for the sake of their children's future. Also, in conten1porary middle-class America, elder care is increasingly cOltsidered optional thanks to long-term-care insurance and assisted living and nurshtg home facilities. 4 From this perspective, the family no longer seems to be the inevitable site of elder care. I submit, then, that whether unchosen family relations in conjunction with the severe incapacity of a family member give rise to default dependency work obligations depends on social conventions that are presently in flux. s Moreover, I submit that widespread use of cOlttraception and abortion shows that a commonly cited paradigm of a dependency relationsh-ip, namely, the mother-child relationship, is, for maltY women, not an unchosen relationship. If I am right, entering into a relationship that entails default dependency work or having a kinship relation to a person who becomes dependent does not necessarily interfere with autonomy. The scope of choice within dependency work is considerably broader than the scope of choice in other types of work that are considered unskilled and menial. 6 The definhtg purposes of any type of work place limits on individual choice. As short-order cooks must produce meals, so must dependency workers meet the needs of their charges. But whereas sh.ort-order cooking procedures are standardized, caring responsibilities can be fulfilled in indefinitely many ways. Although the needs of the person being cared for dictate the scheduling of man.y of the dependency worker's tasks, providing nutrition, entertainment, and emotional support afford opportunities for dependency workers to be creative and ex-

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press their own values. In. fact, very few types of skilled labor grant workers as much discretion with respect to the way in wh-ich the work is performed as dependency work does. Compared to medical protocols, which rigidly circumscribe the day-to-day practices of physicians, standards of nutrition, hygiene, and safety specify a rudimentary baseline of care that leaves most of dependency work unregulated. There is no reason, then, to think that the activity of caring for dependents stifles autonomy. In other respects, however, dependency work severely restricts individualized agency. Default dependency workers who cannot afford professional backup and who have no volunteer helpers are always on-call. Consequently, they h.ave little opportunity to develop other talents and pursue other interests. Yet, a number of other types of work make similar demands on workers' time. Entrepreneurs, investment bankers, and attorneys are commonly expected to sacrifice leisure, which might be used to get involved in other projects, in exchange for the personal and financial rewards of unstinting dedication to their chosen profession. Unlike in other highly skilled types of work, however, it is exceedingly difficult to justify terminating a dependency relationship. Only very unusual, perhaps counterfactual circumstances could morally oblige other workers, even employers whom other workers depend on, never to disengage themselves. Conscience may oblige them to make more or less elaborate transition arrangen1ents, but quitting for purely personal reasons is always an option. In contrast, moral reasons may forbid dependency workers to leave dependents, regardless of how disenchanted with their responsibilities the workers may be. Thus, the exit options of dependency workers, especially default dependency workers, are the narrowest of any work category. In my view, depel1dency work is on the same continuum as other work categories. If other types of work are considered to be compatible with autonomy, there is good reason to cOI1.sider dependency work compatible with autonomy too? Every form of work, including dependency work, offers a distinctive combination of opportunities to meet one's own needs and gain personal fulfillment together with opportunities to shoulder social responsibilities and make a valued contribution. Yet, every form of work, including dependency work, places characteristic limits on individual choice, and, as Marx noted long ago, most kinds of workers are depertdent on others to supply them with the resources they need to do their work. But no sensible person would value autonomy, nor would anyone ever be autonomous if autonomy precluded participation in modem economic institutions or deep commitments to values, persons, and projects. Moreover, since no credible account of autonomy requires that autonomous' individuals be totally independent of other people or totally free to do as they please, people can be autonomous despite the constraints

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associated with work (Friedman 1997). I would urge, then, that the nature of dependency work does not prevent dependency workers from enacting their own values and goals. If I am right, dependency work is, in principle, compatible with autonomy.

DEPENDENCY WORK AND GENDER

That there is no necessary incompatibility between dependency work and autonomy does not entail that there is no contingent conflict between them. My defense of the compatibility of dependency work and autonomy glosses over a key feature of social reality, namely, that American culture currently embeds dependency work in a coercive gender system. Since gender norms propel women into marriage and childbearing, and since gender norms then propel mothers into dependency work, it is doubtful that women freely become mothers and dependency workers. If they do not, the availability of contraception and abortion does not ensure that procreation is voluntary. Moreover, women are unlikely to contest the expectation that they serve as default dependency workers, and they are likely to overidentify with their charges. Indeed, dependency workers appear to be living out a culturally ordained plotline rather than improvising lives that express self-chosen values. Diemut Bubeck and Eva Kittay agree that the feminization of dependency work interferes with women's autonomy and propose social programs that expand women's autonomy opportunities. Bubeck argues that women's commitment to the ethic of care enrolls them in dependency work. She issues the standard liberal caveat that until women are equal to men and "really free to choose," one should refrain from judging whether their disposition to care is a consequence of their biological nature or a consequence of the social pressures brought to bear on them (Bubeck 1995, 170). But she holds that at present cultural representations of gender, gendered childrearing practices, gender segmented economic and family structures, and gender enforcing social sanctions foreclose women's freedom to choose (Bubeck 1995, 151, 160, 165, 172). Once they have been imbued with feminine norms, including the ethic of care, women find themselves trapped in the "circle of care" (Bubeck 1995, 171). Feminized women do dependency work both because they find it satisfying and because refusing to assume the responsibilities that convention assigns them would harm dependent persons (Bubeck 1995,171,246). Because the ethic of care proscribes harming others, it obliges women to continue as dependency workers, even when this work exploits them. Since exploitation may not harm them, their dependency duties take precedence. Thus, the circle of care degenerates into the "dilemma of ex-

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ploitation" (Bubeck 1995,246-47). For dependency workers who embrace th.e ethic of care, their obligation to meet the needs of people who would suffer harm without their assistance preempts their own freedom and interests. Either Bubeck's analysis only applies to a minority of women, or it relies on an unfounded generalization about women's moral views. Many women who are default dependency workers are not single-minded devotees of the ethic of care. According to Carol Gilligan, only one-third of tl1e women she studied focused exclusively on the care ethic. Another third focused exclusively on an ethic of rights and justice, and the remaining subjects used both approaches (Gilligan 1987, 25). Whether or not precisely these proportions hold true of the larger population, there is little doubt that women are a morally diverse lot. It is clear, then, that women's commitment to the ethic of care cannot explain the sexual division of labor, which is nearly universal. Nor can it explain why dependency workers are vulnerable to exploitation, for many of them do not subscribe to the ethic of care. Eva Kittay's account of coerced dependency work shifts th.e focus from individual women to the nature of dependency work and the institutional context that frames it. Kittay anchors her analysis of dependency work in Robert Goodin's ethic of responsibility for the vulnerable. She agrees with Goodin that when one is related to a person in need in such a way that 011e is well situated to help, one is obligated to respond (Kittay 1999, 55). However, she qualifies Goodin's theory in order to accommodate a pair of seemingly irreconcilable intuitions: (1) A person can be obligated to come to the assistance of a needy person without any prior agreement to do so, and (2) no one is obligated to respond to every demand for help. According to Kittay, cultural norms distinguish needs from mere desires and specify the types of relationsl'lips within which individuals are obligated to meet others' needs (Kittay 1999, 56-57). Dependency relationships are an important class of obligation-imposing relations. They are relationships between a charge and a dependency worker-that is, between persons who are so seriously incapacitated that they would lack life-sustaining resources without someone's help and persons who are responsible for securing their well-being (Kittay 1999, 30-31, 38). Kinship and friendship are prime instances of culturally recognized settings that can give rise to a dependency relationship when a party to the relationship is vulnerable (Kittay 1999, 57). People do not always enter into these obligation-generating settings voluntarily. But because culture designates them as legitimate sites of valid dependency claims against others, the obligations to do dependency work that issue from them are not coercive (Kittay 1999, 61-62). For Kittay, then, it is possible for a person's commitment to dependency work to be nonvoluntary

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yet noncoerced, but it is also possible for a person's commitment to dependency work to be nonvoluntary and coerced. To explain what is wrong with the patriarchal family and the sexual division of labor, Kittay cites the link between gender and dependency work and characterizes women's commitment to dependency work as nonvoluntary and coerced: Only by naturalizing dependency work (e.g., women are naturally better with children, the sick, the elderly) have ideologues made their constraints on freedom palatable to the modern sensibility. By so naturalizing the labor, the coercion required for the modern woman to engage in dependency work has been covered with sentimentality. (Kittay 1999, 95)

Because Kittay rejects voluntarist accounts of dependency obligations, she does not equate coerced dependency work with unchosen or nonconsensual dependency work. Instead, she equates coerced dependency work with unjustly imposed dependency work, and she defines unjustly imposed dependency work as dependency work mandated by a culturally accredited practice or institution that lacks a moral warrant (Kittay 1999, 59-61, 65). Nonvoluntary, noncoerced dependency work is dependency work that is required by a socially recognized, morally decent practice or institution. Nonvoluntary, coerced dependency work is dependency work that is required by a socially recognized, morally pernicious practice or institution. Like Bubeck, Kittay contends that the customs and traditions that enforce the sexual division of labor in the heterosexual family mark this institution as unjust (Kittay 1999, 98-99). Thus, the dependency relations formed within it are coercive, and since Kittay holds that coercive dependency relations do not give rise to binding obligations, it would appear that women are caring for countless young or ailing people who are not entitled to their ministrations (Kittay 1999, 59-61, 65, 71-72). As a sexist institution, the modern family lacks the moral authority to extract care from women. Despite her critique of the sexual division of labor, Kittay does not conclude that women have a right to repudiate default dependency work. In her view, the logic of dependency work rules out this option. She repeatedly affirms that adequate dependency work involves affective bonds between dependency workers and their ch.arges and also that dependents regard their dependency workers as irreplaceable (Kittay 1999, 31, 53, 94, 112, 186). Although she acknowledges that dependency workers l1.eed not internalize the interests of their charges, she enlphasizes that many do; and that doing so constrains their freedom and ties their self-respect to successfully meeting their charges' needs (Kittay 1999, 37, 42, 53, 94,

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96-97, 112). Most importantly, she insists that dependency workers are obligated to put the rights and needs of their charges ahead of their own interests (Kittay 1999, 51-52, 65, 91, 96-97, 186). Evidently, the moral potency of dependents' needs overrides the injustice of the sexual division of labor and its unfair allocation of dependency work to women. Here, Kittay's argument converges to some extent with Bubeck's. Both hold that the harm that dependents would suffer should womel1 refllse to do dependency work leaves them no morally tenable choice other than continuing to do this work. 8 But whereas Bubeck attributes the coerciveness of women's dependency obligations to the gendered enculturation that impels them to embrace the ethic of care, Kittay attriblltes the coerciveness of women's dependency obligations to the injustice of th.e institution that foists dependency work upon them. Thus, unlike Bubeck's account, Kittay's does not rest on the empirically indefensible claim that there is a universal feminine predilection for dependency work or a universal feminine commitment to the ethic of care. Despite these differences, Bubeck and Kittay propose essentially the same solution for women's diminished autonomy regarding dependency work. Both adapt a proposal of Susan Moller Okin's to compensate dependency workers and extend their freedom (Okin 1989, 180-81). Bubeck advocates establishing a publicly organized and funded "caring service" modeled on mandatory, gender-neutral military service-that is, drafting and training young people to do dependency work for a limited period of time (Bubeck 1995/ 259-60). Kittay advocates socializing and universalizing compensation for dependency work-that is, using public funds to pay all default dependency workers a fair wage (Kittay 1999/ 142). Both Bubeck's care corps and Kittay's maternal welfare agency are designed to make relief dependency workers available to default dependency workers at no cost. Bubeck's scheme creates a pool of publicly paid dependency workers that default workers can freely draw on. Kittay's scheme furnishes default dependency workers with money that they can use to hire back-up dependency workers if they want. For Bubeck and Kittay, th.e availability of supplementary dependency services neutralizes the coercivel1ess of women/s dependency work and secures their liberty. I shall set aside some obvious objections to these proposals: Bubeck's compels young people to sacrifice their freedom for the sake of others' freedom; Kittay's is prohibitively expensive;9 both are politically unrealistic. I shall confine my discussion to whether these proposals eliminate the coercion that maintains the sexual division of labor in the family and that unjustly constrains women's autonomy. Kittay's welfare plan would augment women's autonomy within default dependency work by increasing their delegation options. Since default dependency workers could use their income to hire helpers,

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Kittay's proposal would allow women to pursue interests and projects apart from dependency work. Also, some women might use their income to conduct their dependency work more autonomously (e.g., by hiring professionals to provide expert advice or by paying for specialized services for their charges). Still, state disbursed compensation would not solve the problem of women's coerced entrance into dependency work and their tendency to become overcommitted to dependency work. Since makin.g gendered dependency work less economically disadvantageous would not degender and redistribute default dependency work, paying dependency workers would have little, if any, effect on the sentimentalization of feminine care that Kittay rightly deplores. 1o As long as default dependency work is privatized and the sexual division of labor governs the distribution of default dependency work, women's autonomy will remain in jeopardy. Let us suppose, as Kittay seems to, that family members are one another's default dependency workers. Let us also suppose that Kittay's compensation progran1 is in place and that default dependency workers are receiving wages COlnmensurate with the worth of their work and sufficient to enable them to hire relief workers. Now suppose that a dependency professional d.oes not show up for her or his shift. The default dependency worker must fill in, for she is ultimately responsible for her charge. Providing women who do not want to be dependency workers with funds to hire willing substitutes is at best a partial solution, for they remain the default dependency workers-the care providers of last resort. Consequently, their careers will be at risk of foundering, and their projects will be at risk of languishing, while their partners will remain exempt from these perils. Indeed, womel1 who now rely on paid dependency workers are all too familiar with this predicament and its disproportionately adverse impact on their autonomy. Kittay's proposal purports to rectify the injustice of family-based dependency relations and to bestow a moral warrant on family-based dependency obligations (Kittay 1999, 64, 65/ 70/ 72/ 181). But it sidesteps the coerciveness of the conventional family-that is, the discriminatory allocation of default dependency work to won1en. I agree that it is unjust that dependency work is undervalued and un(under) compensated and that paying fair wages to all dependency workers would right this wrong. However, if the sexual division of labor, which compels women, bout not men to do this work, is neither derived from this devaluation nor a less serious injustice than this devaluatiol1, Kittay's maternal welfare system will not give the heterosexual, nuclear family the moral warrant it presently lacks. This family structure will remain unjust, and the dependency relations formed within it will remain coercive. I have already argued that the injustice of the sexual division of labor is not a consequence of the economic devaluation of dependency work.

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Fairly remuncerating dependency workers would leave a disparity between the scope of women's autonomy and the scope of men's autonomy because this cOll1.pensation would not abolish the sexual division of labor. I would deny, moreover, that coercion is a less serious injustice than economic inequity. In my view, it is a grave injustice that the members of one social groLlp-namely, women-are arbitrarily singled out and aLltoll1.atically assigned to dependency duty. Many of these women do not want this responsibility, and many men are equally able to assume it. The fact that some women gladly embrace this responsibility does not vindicate the coercive context in which they choose. Paying those who are forced to do default dependel1.cy work does not cancel out the injustice of their being forced to do it. Perhaps Kittay would agree that the persistence of this coercion is an equally serious injustice, for although her welfare proposal would not degender care, she endorses men's participation in dependency work (Kittay 1999, 183, 185). With respect to its impact on women's autonomy vis-a-vis dependency work, Bubeck's proposal is quite similar to Kittay's. Like the maternal welfare agency, the care corps expands women's delegation options. Also, botl1. of these institutions guarantee equality of opportunity. Kittay's compensation plan would grant male and female dependency workers the same rights. If a man chose to be a default dependency worker, he would be paid at the same rate as a woman. Bubeck's care corps is also gender-blind. Both men and women are to be drafted. By publicly affirming men's obligatioll_ to do dependency work and women's right not to care full time, this service symbolically affirms the desirability of restructurirtg family responsibilities. In addition, paying dependency workers would symbolically remove dependency work from the category of natural female functions, for in capitalist economies, wages serve as incentives to perform tasks that people would not otherwise choose to do or that they would not do conscientiously enough. Both of these schemes implicitly license women as well as men to defy gender norms. Bubeck and Kittay agree that someone must care for dependents and that women should not be stuck with all of this work. They disagree about how aggressively feminists should pursue gender equity in the distribution of default dependency work. Bubeck's proposal is more radical than Kittay's, for it directly confronts the gender asymmetry that renders women's default dependency work coercive. Whereas Kittay's scheme makes ll1.en'S participation in dependency work volLlntary and leaves women's participation nonvoluntary, Bubeck's makes participation nonvoluntary for young men and women alike. l1 Unfortunately, it is tlncertaiI1. whether care conscripts would transfer their degendered experience in the care corps to their family arrangements later in life.

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DEGENDERING DEFAULT DEPENDENCY WORK

With respect to the opportunities for autonoll1y that work can afford, I have argued that dependency work is not so different from other types of work that it does not belong in the same category. However, as we have seen, dependency work impairs autonomy in three troublillg ways: (1) pronatalist gender norms funnel women into procreation and stigmatize childlessness; (2) discriminatory gender norms slot women into the sexual division of labor; and (3) the needs of dependents oblige women to continue caring for their charges, even at great personal sacrifice. In otller words, gender 110rms deprive default dependency workers who are women, which is to say the vast majority of default dependency workers, of entrance options, allocation options, and exit options. It is no wonder, then, that dependency work and aLltonomy are widely thought to be uniquely incompatible. If my argument in the first section is correct, though, this incompatibility is socially constructed and socially remediable. Bubeck's and Kittay's proposals erLlarge women's allocation options in one respect. They entitle default dependency workers to delegate some of their tasks to hired dependency workers. I welcome ameliorative initiatives of this sort, for many women desperately need supplemental dependency services right now, and these services will remain indispensable to default dependency workers after this work has been defeminized. However, because such reforms do not give today's default dependency workers leverage to negotiate increases in their male partners' share of this labor, I doubt that they are sufficient to free women from coercion and safeguard their autonomy. Only reforms that promise to abolish the sexual division of labor can fundamentally transform women's allocation options and equalize women's and men's entrance and exit options. In my view, the normalization of motherhood and the normalization of family-based dependency relations are the chief culprits in the suppression of women's autonomy through dependency work. The former makes the very idea of deciding whether or not to becoll1e a mother sound weird, which. effectively discredits the claim that WOll1en should be authorized to autonomously choose whether or not to give birth to dependents (Meyers 2002, 47-50). The latter identifies the l1eterosexual, nuclear family as the only reliable source of competent and dedicated dependency workers. 12 Since the family is imagined as a network of lifelong bonds, exit options for default dependency workers are unimaginable. Since the conventional family is an inveterately sexist institution, the cultural designation of the family as the presumptive site of dependency work all but seals women's fate. Adding a biologized conception of dependency work to the sexist family invests the woman/vessel/nurturer

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equation with all the sublime incontrovertibility of an axiomatic truth. The symbolism of payment for dependency work or a nonsexist corps of young dependency workers seems rhetorically puny in comparison with the aphoristic ring of a recent intro student's commonsense pronouncement: "You made it; you take care of it. Not a hard concept." The feminization of default dependency work is encoded in endlessly circulatin.g stories and attention grabbing imagery. There are television characters fretting about their ticking "biological clocks" and fairytales depicting unmarried, childless women as scary witches. The image of the Madonna displaying her baby remains a powerful reminder of women's maternal "destiny," and the metaphor of sonographically assisted mother-child bonding greases the slide from childbearing into childrearing. These representations together with others like them supply the narrative templates and motifs for the life histories parents tell their children-life histories that tutor children in the syntax and semantics of culturally appropriate self-narration. Through these ubiquitous representations of women's "natural" life course, contemporary culture mythologizes the family and reproduction so masterfully and evangelizes the population so successfully that the ascription of default dependency work to women is sacrosanct. OrLly degendering and redistributing default dependency work-that is, granting women a full ran.ge of allocation options-can contravene women's "natural" responsibilities and ensure their autonomy. Alas, there is no single policy reforn1. that could effect these changes. Still, because I discern several incipient social trends that are denormalizing the sexual division of labor, and because I am convinced that cultural ratification often follows on the heels of social experimentation, I am not without hope. I shall conclude by briefly describing some of the experimellts that could help denormalize the feminization of dependency work and the heterosexual, nuclear family's status as the locus of care par excellence. Mal1.Y dependency relations, I have urged, come about as a result of voluntary actions. Yet, because coercive gender norms militate against autonomous choice, relatively few women feel they have genuine entrance options. Nevertheless, Kath Weston's studies show that many lesbian cOLlples carefully and open-mindedly think through their decisions to become mothers and then face off with the assisted reproduction industry or the adoption agencies, where prejudice against lesbian parenting is rife (Westol1. 1991, 190-91). PIaiI1.ly, these women are creating their own entrance options and demonstrating the feasibility of autonomously choosing to take on dependency work. Their example is auspicious. But if it is to be gel1.eralized, destigmatizing the happily childless woman and the childless, heterosexual couple is irnperative. 13

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With respect to allocation options as well as entrance options, I see gay men who decide to become parents through adoption or by contracting with birth mothers as the vanguard of freely chosen. (indeed, chosen against all odds), gender-bending parent-child dependency work. Unlike the all-too-familiar, male dependency dodger, these men seek out dependency work and ell1brace it as a masculine value. In addition, some employers are now striving not only to reshape the interface between unpaid, default dependency work and paid work outside the home but also to undercut the presumption that women are default dependency workers. When male senior managers set an example by taking paternity leave or by opting for flexible work schedules or telecomll1uting, other male employees get the message that there is no penalty for taking advantage of these programs. Such nonsexist workplace climates free men to be default dependency workers or to share default dependency work with a partner, and small, but increasing numbers of men are embracing these possibilities (Abelson 1999, 33; Ligos 2000, 1). By modeling the compatibility of masculinity and default dependency work, gay men who become parents and male workers who avail themselves of their employers' family-friendly policies erode tILe sexual division of labor. Although I believe that default dependency workers' exit options are necessarily more inlLibited than those of other workers, secure entrance options and equal allocation options would mitigate the severe restrictions that dependency work imposes on exit options. Nevertheless, it is worth considering how exit options might be made morally defensible. Exit options for default dependency workers seem farfetched because abandoning a dependent is such a grievous wrong, because legitimating these options would require debiologizing dependency relations far more than many of us can comprehend, and because the nuclear family is the paradigmatic site of valid dependency relations. However, collective families would give children not one or two, but multiple parents. If more people formed such families and nonconsanguineous kinship relations became accepted, children whose birth mothers left the collective would still have the benefits of intact dependency relationships and a stable home environment. Since this would cause no worse disruption of clLildren's lives than divorce does now, it seems that the same sorts of reasons that justify divorce would justify exiting a collective family. B"ubeck and Kittay envisage programs that would rescue WOll1en from lJnremitting dependency work. Perhaps this burden is the worst affront to women's autonomy that the sexual division of labor inflicts. Still, their subsidy programs would only carve out respites froll1 coerced dependency work. Just as battered women's shelters do not stop domestic violence, neither a care corps nor a maternal welfare agency would expunge the coerciveness of the sexual division of labor. Both leave women's au-

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tonomy under siege. However, if a dependency worker relief policy were implemented, and if the reforms in family structure that I have sketched were achieved, women would enjoy a maximal array of culturally condoned options vis-a.-vis dependency work. Such an autonomy-friendly cultural climate would surely embolden many more women to chart their own courses regarding dependerlcy work, for it would gradually transform these options into live options-options that are not merely officially available, but that are subjectively available as well. If I am right that denormalizing the heterosexual, nuclear family and denormalizing the dependency relations situated in. the heterosexual, nuclear family are vital to defeminizing dependency work, feminists have many allies in their struggle. This convergence of opposition to sexism and heterosexism is a lucky coincidence because I can think of no feminist objective that seems more out of reach. For this reason (and many others), making common cause with these other progressive movements ought to be a feminist priority. If their combined forces succeed in displacing the heterosexual, nuclear family, maternal autonomy will cease to be an oxymoron, and dependency work will be reconciled with autonomy in women's real lives.

NOTES 1. I adopt Eva Kittay's expressions "dependency work" and "dependency worker" both to emphasize that caregiving is socially necessary work and to distinguish caring for dependents who could not function on their own from the less critical forms of emotional labor women commonly do. Also, I shall focus my discussion on default dependency workers-those who are presumed to be ultimately responsible for the care of different sorts of dependents, who are generally expected to do most of the dependency work, and whose services are not compensated. I shall use various expressions to refer to paid dependency workers, including "dependency professionals," "dependency employees," and so forth. 2. Feminist skeptics about the compatibility of dependency work and autonomy are specifically dubious about women's freedom to refuse default dependence work, for gender normalization predisposes women to accept disproportionate dependency responsibilities. I take up this issue in the second section. 3. I realize that in many parts of the world these conditions are not fi1.et, and I believe that contraception and abortion should be more accessible to American women than they now are. However, in regard to the first point, I hasten to point out that feminist philosophers who work on dependency issues generally address them from the standpoint of affluent societies that have the means to fund programs to solve these problems (Okin 1989; Bubeck 1995; Kittay 1999). In regard to the second point, I would emphasize that I am not claiming that childbearing is voluntary for all American women. It is beyond the scope of this chapter, though, to establish when the difficulties of obtaining contraception or abortion become so onerous that childbearing ceases to be voluntary.

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4. Forgiving middle-class American attitudes toward parents who institutionalize children born with cognitive disabilities establishes a precedent for middleclass American attitudes toward partner disability and elder care. For a long time, cultural mores have absolved parents of cognitively disabled children of dependency obligations. Sometimes judgments about peer disability replicate this leniency. Often when a middle-aged partner is incapacitated, the healthy partner cannot afford to stop working. Presumably, no one would criticize such an individual, irrespective of gender, for declining to become a full-time dependency worker. I suspect, however, that gender shapes many people's views about cases involving elderly heterosexual partners. My conjecture is that an elderly woman who could care for her partner at home but who chooses to move him to a nursing home is more likely to be deemed remiss in her dependency work duties than an elderly man who is in the same position and who makes the same decision. 5. For a related discussion of obligations to come to the aid of the vulnerable, see Walker 1998, 78-95. 6. I am not endorsing this assessment of dependency work. But both the minimal entrance requirements and the low pay of dependency workers suggest that, despite feminist protests, most people continue to regard dependency work as unskilled and ll1enial. 7. This conclusion is, I believe, at odds with the implications of Eva Kittay's claim that dependency workers are not self-originators of valid claims (Kittay 1999,94-95). Since dependency workers are obligated to press claims on behalf of their charges, they are not self-determining agents. But if work that requires one to speak on behalf of others whose claims one does not personally endorse is incompatible with autonomy, criminal lawyers who defend serial rapists (presumably) are never autonomous. If Kittay replies that these attorneys voluntarily agree to do this work but dependency workers do not, I would point out that, as I have argued, people have much more choice about taking on dependency work than Kittay acknowledges. 8. I suspect that Kittay's views about the ethics of dependency work leave her without a principled way of solving what she calls the coercion problem," for it appears that one can have binding obligations within an unjust institution. 9. Notice that if the pay scale for default dependency work determines what hired dependency workers earn, their vulnerability to secondary dependency w-ill not decrease unless the default workers are paid quite lavishly and required to pay their workers at the same rate that the government pays them. 10. As Kittay points out, publicly financed dependency work would also reduce dependency workers' vulnerability to exploitation and domination (Kittay 1999, 42). By improving dependency workers' exit options from marriages and similar partner relationships and empowering women to leave abusive partners, this program would expand wOll1en's autonomy in their love and sexual relationships. Although this is unquestionably a worthy goal, it is important to be clear that achieving it would not expand women's autonomy-that is, their entrance, allocation, or exit options-vis-a-vis default dependency work unless women took to threatening to leave their partners and their charges as a bargaining chip in negotiations over dependency responsibilities. If Bubeck and Kittay are right about the ethics of dependency work, this would not be a morally acceptable scenario. /I

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11. No doubt, Kittay would point out that she supports early gender-neutral education in dependency work skills and also that her scheme offers all those who are good at dependency work and who want to do it the opportunity to do it under fair conditions, whereas some of Bubeck's conscripts will not be well-suited to dependency responsibilities. I suppose, hovvever, that Bubeck would counter that the conscripts will receive training and that those who prove temperamentally unfit to serve would receive care exemptions and be sent to the military, where they . belong. 12. For trenchant criticism of this privatization of dependency work, see Bubeck (1995, 225-29, 231-35) and Walker (1998, 87-89). 13. For some suggestions about refiguring womanhood in ways that would affirm women's autonomy with respect to decisions about motherhood, see Meyers (2002, 56-57).

13

+ Feminine Mortality Imagery: Feminist Ripostes

[Marilyn Monroe] had a personality. That's why she killed herself. She was thought of as being only an object by too many people. So I'm trying to de-objectify the object in us and say we're both mind and body. Hannah Wilke (1978), quoted in Robert McKaskell (1995, 15) People want others to be the object of their desire. But I became the subject and the object, objecting to this manipulation.... People often gave me this bullshit of, "What would you have done if you weren't so gorgeous?" What difference does it make? ... Gorgeous people die as do the stereotypically "ugly." Everybody dies. Hannah Wilke (1985), quoted in Amelia Jones (1998, 193) My body has gotten old.... [M]y art is about loving myself. Hannah Wilke (1992), quoted in Joanna Frueh (1996, 150)

n postindustrial, middle-class America, death is a taboo subject. Despite the best efforts of sensible psychologists, bioethicists, and estate planners to induce people to confront mortality squarely, very few people want to think about it, and far fewer know how to speak about it. I Shrewd entrepreneurs parlay the silence and fear surrounding death into opportunities to develop new markets. To assuage modem mortality anxiety, an array of profitable businesses now propagates a fantasy of mastery over human biology. Cosmetic surgeons, spa and gym operators, personal trainers, weight

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loss experts, and pharmaceutical companies conspire to persuade people that indefinitely prolonged youth is theirs for the asking, provided that they have enough disposable income to pay the fees. Cryonics organizations dramatically raise the stakes by promising to abolish death itself. The commonplace cruelty of imputing blame to people who become ill or whose health, strength, or vigor declines attests to the allure of this fantasy of mastery. Notwithstanding the blandishments of t11e death denial industry, of course, everyone knows deep down inside that death is inescapable. Indeed, this eventuality is at once so fearsome and so completely alien to anyone's experience that people are compelled to represent it but can only represent it figuratively. In this chapter, I review two key strands of western mortality imagery. Different though they are, both the earth mother and the femme fatale are culturally transmitted motifs that join femininity to death. Rooted in ancient mythology and superficially reworked to appeal to contemporary sensibilities, these feminine representations of death continue to circulate unabated. Perhaps this imagery remains psychologically potent in part because death is banned from private conversation as well as from public discourse. 2 Whatever the explan.ation, the tenacity and vitality of imagery that identifies womanhood with death is cause for alarm. Attuned to the insidious influences of misogynist syll1.bolic systems, a number of important feminist artists indict these macabre appropriations of femininity and mount a multipronged campaign of counterfiguration. I analyze both tl1.eir rhetorical strategies and the relations between their artwork and feminist goals. In pursuing the topic of feminine mortality imagery, I am not denying that the history of western mortality discourse includes ll1.asculine as well as feminine representations of death. Karl Guthke documents an extensive pictorial and literary cacl1.e of masculine death imagery. Male knights, coachmen, lovers, and an.gels bring death, as does the skeletal, scythe wielding grim reaper who is often, but not always depicted as male (Guthke 1999, 13, 15,28-29, 52, 100-103). According to a 1970 psychological study, most Americall.s picture death as a man (Guthke 1999, 31).3 Yet, Guthke finds that during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, femi= nine mortality imagery rose to greater prominence than ever before (Guthke 1999, 173). Because this heightened rhetorical identification of femininity with death occurs at precisely the time when childbirth became safer and there ceased to be an empirical correlation between women's reproductive lives and an increased risk of dying, this shift in the cultural imaginary is disturbing-all the more so because it is easy to understand why death is associated with masculinity. Throughout human history and most devastatingly in the twentieth century, war has functioned as a ubiquitous, male-doll1.inated method of geopolitical aggrandizement and population control. Very few women have served as soldiers-legitimized killers and legitimate ~~~!~~~

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lethal assault. Virtually all of the women who l1ave died in wars have beel1 noncombatants. Since men have monopolized the economy of institutionalized death dealing, which includes capital punishment as well as war, it is surprising that western cultures purvey elaborate symbolic systems that represent death in various female guises-notably, stories of cyclical feminine nature, the felnme fatale, and the angel of death. In contrast, "our-side-of-the-war" imagery preserves the masculine alliance with control and dignity by accenting heroes, not corpses. l'he displacement of death onto feminine imagery is not innocuous, for it fuels misogyny and strengthens patriarchal social structures. It deflects attention from the deadly side of men's warrioring and thus occludes morally questionable practices of organized violel1ce. Moreover, because feminine mortality imagery associates womanhood with arbitrary and unknowable Otherness, women pay a concealed price for this displacement. When a woman's face and body begin to show signs of aging, she becomes "obscene"-a patently offensive sexual being devoid of redeeming social value (Sontag 1979, 474). Infertile and ugly-a ghastly harbinger of the grave-the aging woman is to be shunned. As women's rights expanded in the United States, mortality rhetoric concomitantly, and possibly not coincidentally, intensified the Othering of femininity. None of this was lost on the feminist artists whose careers began to flourish dllring Second Wave Feminisn1. These artists developed six principal strategies of feminist visual insurgency: 1) Politicization ren10ves an idea from its familiar symbolic formula-

tion(s) and locates it in the nexus of real social injustice. 2) Recontextualization separates a conception from its usual network of associatiol1S and inserts it into a more credible, but overlooked set of associations. 3) Revaluation replaces a conventionally assumed negative valuation with a dissident positive valuation. 4) Mimesis imitates a discourse or practice so exaggeratedly that the disvalues embedded in th.e discourse or practice are exposed. 5) Transposition extracts a system of meanings from the discourse or medium in which it is usually couched and transfers it to another discourse or medium where its absurdity becomes evident. 6) Humanization demonstrates the humanity of a group of people who have been Othered without disregarding human diversity. None of these strategies is altogether independent of the others. Still, I treat them separately both to clarify the modes of counterfiguration available to discursive dissidents and to point out the pitfalls associated with different tactics.

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The first four of these strategies are familiar to feminist audiences, and the first two are also familiar to popular audiences. Complementing the work of numerous feminist artists, including Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz, Barbara Kruger, Annie Leibovitz, and Alice Neel, journalists and advertisers occasionally politicize or recontextualize gendered mortality imagery. Major feminist theorists who pioneered the strategies of revaluation and mimesis include Nancy Chodorow and Luce Irigaray. Among the feminist artists who signed onto these strategies to critique traditional feminine mortality tropes are Ana Mendietta, Matuschka, and Audrey Flack. I survey all of this work. In my view, however, the fifth and sixth strategies-transposition and humanization-are the most radical and trenchant, and Hannah Wilke's late work best exemplifies them. I argue that Wilke's transposition of earth mother and femme fatale imagery onto her own terminally ill body demonstrates both the absurdity of representing mortality in these ways and the harm this discllrsive gambit inflicts on women. Moreover, I urge that Wilke's self-portraiture humanizes female embodiment in a way that advances feminist objectives. Before I analyze feminist artists' counterimagery, however, it is necessary to clarify what they are up against-what they are contesting. Thus, I begin by describing two prime types of culturally entrenched, feminine mortality imagery.

FEMININE MORTALITY IMAGERY

Feminine mortality imagery is found throughout history and throughout the world. In these representations, themes of cosmic proportions commingle: the "wanting" female anatomy, the "engulfing" maternal flesh, the "vengeful" female agent, the "angelic" feminine character, not to mention the "fusion" of eroticism and death. How these themes are personifiedhow they are visually portrayed and how they are conveyed in narrativesdepends as much on immediate social exigencies as it does on inherited traditions. Cataloguing the sometimes subtle, sometimes blatant differences between the ways in which diverse cultures in succeeding epochs deploy feminine imagery to capture their shifting understandings of death is far beyond the scope of this chapter. 4 I aim only to remind readers of two paradigmatic feminine personifications of death: the earth mother and the fenune fatale or, to use updated colloquial labels, "the girl you want a longterm relationship with" and "the girl you want to have sex with."s That male college students of my acquaintance produce recognizable descriptions of these iconic figures and readily name them convinces me that these images remain in currency within a sizable American social stratum. Presumabl)T, feminist artists zero in on this pair of images for this very reason.

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Earth mother imagery linking maternity to mortality is rooted in ancient cultures spanning distant continents-in Indian mythology, Kali; in Aztec mythology, Tlaltecuhtli; in Greek mytholology, Persephone (Guthke 1999, 17-18). What th.ese feminine figures have in common is that they conjoin fertility and life with motherhood, on the one hand, and barrenness and death with the absence of mother love and women's old age, on the other. By turns, the earth mother blesses agriculture with warmth and sunshine and then curses it in dark and frozen winter. A well-known, albeit corrupt, version of the Persephone myth connects this figure to reproductive sexuality (Graves 1974, 89-92; B. Walker 1983, 786). Demeter is originally a benign goddess presiding over crops and harvests. However, the kidnapping and rape of her daughter, Core, transforms her temperament. Smitten by Core, Hades asks Zeus for permission to marry her. But because Zeus waffles, Hades takes matters into his own. hands, sexually assaults Core, an.d abducts her to the underworld. When Demeter learns what has happened to her daughter, she takes revenge by conden1ning the crops to wither and forbidding the trees to bear fruit. Worried about the resulting famine and the risk of rampant hun1an starvation, Zeus seeks to mollify Den1eter, but she holds out for the return of her daughter. Eventually, Zeus agrees to let Core return from the underworld provided she has not yet "tasted the food of the dead." Demeter accepts this deal, and Core is about to be released when Hades' gardener declares that he saw Core eat seven pomegranate seeds. Despondent at this setback, Demeter refuses to lift her curse and forces Zeus to resume negotiations. Finally, they agree that Core will return to earth to be with her mother for nine months of the year and will spend the remaining three months beyond the reach of Demeter's love in th.e underworld with Hades. To designate her position as queen of the underworld, she is given the name Persephone. Persephone embodies a cyclical cOl1ception of femininity: from motherhood, which is equated with life, to postmenopausal sterility, whicl1 is equated with death. The crops flourish when she returns to the embrace of mother love. Yet she descel1ds to the underworld, not as an unwilling captive, but as the queen who commands its deadly power. An ancient earth mother or "long-term" relationship candidate, Persepl10ne represents both life and death, and she also represents exchange between the realms of the living and the dead. The spiritual commerce she personifies is a precaution against mayhen1 and suffering. The feminine cycle she personifies is relentless and inevitable. Persephone's story offers little consolation to us fretting mortals. Whereas her life revives every year, our lives have a linear, one-way trajectory.6 The seasons n1ay repeat their sequel1ce forever, but we will die permanently. It's nice to think that new life will replace us, but it's not nice to think that we won't witness it. From the viewpoint of real women, moreover, this

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figuration of death is pernicious. To the extent that women are perceived and perceive themselves through the Persephone schema, their lives are over once life-giving/childbearing ends. Alienated from her mother and aligned with her lover Hades, Persephone represents the horror of personal annihilation. Perhaps that is why some postmenopausal women welcome reproductive technology that gives them hope of becoming pregnant and giving birth, and why many more aging women will stop at nothing to turn back the wrinkle clock and pass as still-fertile women. The Persephone trope leaves them no other way to associate themselves with life and dissociate themselves from death. Could there be any more wretched fate than being cast as a living incarnation of death? A common rationale for feminine mortality imagery is that women are identified with nature and with the cyclical seasons of nature and that death is natural (Guthke 1999, 190). However, this collocation of associations cannot explain the femme fatale who is associated with violent or, if not violent, premature death. Venus is a remote ancestor of the femme fatale-that "girl you want to have sex with." Like Persephone, Venus has a maternal aspect, for she has borne a son called Cupid. But her reputation rests on star turns in her trademark seductress role. Her come-hither voluptuousness promises uninhibited sex, not devoted love. Deceptive, scheming, and unfaithful, Venus does not let moral scruple stand in the way of good sex. Under Venus's sponsorship, devotees of her cult in Rome (starting before the Common Era and continuing into the first century c.E.) elevated eroticism to a religious rite. Seeking spiritual transcendence in sexual ecstacy, they conceived of death as orgasmic union (B. Walker 1983, 1043). Thus, the figure of Venus unites joyous sensuality with sublime mortality. Other femme fatale tales dispense with spiritual bliss and position men who succumb to a femme fatale's art as patsies with overactive glands. Homer provides a classic example of this kind of femme fatale in the Odyssey. Circe, a falcon goddess, is a predatory virtuoso of symbolically redolent spells. She entices men to her palace, woos them with drugged delicacies and wine, and turns them into swine (Graves 1974, 358-59). Christian moralists subsequently interpreted this episode in Odysseus's journey as a cautionary fable warning us against the temptations of transitory worldly pleasures and exhorting us to dedicate our lives to pious abstemiousness. Viewed as a personification of the vanitas theme, Circe is the progenitor of countless descendants-greedy, narcissistic, hedonistic women who face a choice between their licentious ways and worshipping the true god. The path they are following leads to irredeemable death and damnation; the alternative leads to salvation and eternal life? Whereas Venus's worshippers pursue erotic exultation and rapturous mortality, Jesus's worshippers despise women who inspire such yearnings and use images of them as reminders of the brevity of life and the dreadful finality of death.

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In film nair, the femme fatale reaches her apotheosis: elusive, unpredictable, wily, manipulative, promiscuous, lethal femininity. Her availability and her irresistibility overturn the "natural" order of male control and female submission and wreck the social order of monogamy. Her charms obsess men, but her flagrant sexuality masks fraudulent passion. Her unapologetic and ruthless pursuit of l1er ends endangers whomever she deigns to take into her bed. In The Last Seduction (John Dahl 1995), the femme fatale, Bridget/Wend)!, is criminally sexy, criminally callous, and just plain criminal. By the concluding scenes of the film, she has killed her husband, Clay; framed her lover, Mike, on murder charges that will probably lead to his execution; and secured her future as a carefree woman of means. Whereas Circe relents and allows Odysseus to escape and return to Penelope, today's femme fatale gives no quarter. Pleasure with her at your peril. Figurations of the monstrous feminine-the vagina dentata and the castrating bitch as well as the femme fatale-demonize women's eroticism by branding it a portent of death. Detached from reproduction and the confines of marriage and motherhood, feminine sexuality is a wicked, destructive force. Preachy treatments of this theme kill off the fen1me fatale to punish her for her depraved transgressions. Yet, she triumphs in a sense, for she never repents or disavows her conquest. The lineage of Adricu1 Lyne's Fatal Attraction (1987) can be traced to Renaissance vanitas paintings. Instead of propagandizing for Christianit)', though, Fatal Attraction pushes bourgeois family values. In her femme fatale mode, Alex sets the action in motion by coming on to Dan-an all-round "great guy" and first-rate earner who, availing himself of a masculine prerogative, takes up Alex's invitation to a one-night stand while his wife and child are away visiting her parents. After the weekend idyll, Dan gets a nasty shock from Alex when she refuses to be cast aside gracefully. The film then follows Alex as she discovers she is pregnant, descends into venomous madness, and escalates the torments she inflicts on Dan and his adorable family. Rejecting the idea of an abortion, Alex strives to become a life-giving earth mother-to extend her relationship with Dan, to have his baby, and to replace his wife, Beth, in their suburban home. But she uses the n1eans of the iciest femme fatale. The climax of Fatal Attraction has Alex trying to slaughter Beth with a blltcher knife, Dan trying to drown Alex in a bathtub, and Beth shooting Alex dead when he fails. The true earth mother slays the femme fatale rLm amok and restores the monogamous family order.

FOUR RESISTANCE STRATEGIES

Politicization, recontextualization, revaluation, and mimesis are the four most widely used methods of undercutting culturally entrenched feminine representations of mortality. The first two of these discursive insurgency

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tactics have broken out of feminist artworld circles and made illroads in journalism and advertising. Although revaluation and mimesis have fOl.md comparatively few ol.ltlets in pop'ular media, promillent fenlinist artists have embraced them. Politicization withdraws attention from the symbolic link between femininity and death and redirects attelltion to how deatll is socially linked to gender. To counteract the sensationalistic, victim-blaming, fear-mongering media coverage of the Hillside Strangler serial rape and murder case, Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz conceived a legendary street performance Cllm media event, In Mourning and in Rage (City Hall, Los Angeles, 1977). One woman was costumed entirely in red, and nine women were shrouded head-to-toe in 7-foot-high black coshlmes and held contrasting red shawls. They stood before banners reading "IN MEMORY OF OUR SISTERS" and "WOMEN FIGHT BACK." They spoke texts crafted to commu.nicate complex fen1.inist analyses via quotable sound bites. The texts connected the Hillside Strangler case to other Widespread forms of violence against women, condemned the disgracefully shoddy reporting on these crimes, and provided women with ilLformation about activist and support networks. This performance work received extensive media coverage, and it is credited with shaming the media into marketing a more responsible brand of journalism regarding women's issues (Lopez and Roth 1994, 149; Reckitt and Phelan 2001, 126). In Mourning and in Rage is part of a sizable body of feminist artwork that politicizes mortality. The reality is not that beguiling, l.lnprincipled womell lure men into death traps. The reality is that violent, woman-hating mel1. attack women witl1. impunity all the tinle. With the tacit blessing of the legal al.lthorities, they create al1. environment in which women must live with th.e offilupresent danger of violence. Barbara Kruger politicizes mortality from another angle. With characteristic succinctness, she reminds viewers tl1.at in the vast majority of cases, men have declared and fought wars and that tl1.e death toll of wars exceeds human comprehension. "Busy Going Crazy" (1989) solders together the rhetorical CirCl.litry linking masculinity, militarism, and death. This photomontage depicts two erect-that is, phallic-bullets against a backgrol.uld in which a gigantic, blurred skull is looming. The message is unmistakable: Death is most perspicuously personified by those who have done most of the killing. Photojournalism that exposes rape as a war crime and the war-related deaths of women (and children) complements and reinforces Kruger's message. Women do not aptly symbolize death-dealing, for female fatality rates are disproportionately and, in many respects, criminally high. Feminist recontextualization attacks earth mother imagery that relegates postmenopausal women to representing mortality. Annie Leibovitz photographs visibly aging women-including Christiane Amanp0l.lr, Katharine Graham, Alison Estabrook, Ruth Bader Ginsbl.lrg, Sandra Day

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O'Connor, Karen Fedrau, and Madeleine Albright-in the context of their work and their accomplishments as workers (Leibovitz 1999, 72-73, 101, 126-27, 209, 226-27, 238). Alice Neel's Nude Self-portrait (1980), which she painted at the age of eighty, shows her at work with a paint brush in one hand and a rag in the other. 8 Barbara Kruger sardonically recontextualizes a close-up, black-and-white photograph of Eleanor Roosevelt using five white texts on red backgrounds ("Untitled (Not Ugly Enough)," 1997). The largest text, which is affixed across Roosevelt's ch.eek in the center of the square photograph, reads, "Not ugly enough." The four other texts, which frame the edges of the photograph, read: "Not silent enough," "Not silly enough," "Not sexy enough," and "Not useless enough." By contrasting the image of this renowned humanitarian and activist with the cultural norms of femininity that she so admirably forswore, Kruger compels viewers to dwell on Roosevelt's extraordinary contributions to the cause of social justice and to grasp the utter triviality and complete irrelevance of her alleged ugliness and her reproductive superannuation. Although advertising and women's magazines are by no means in the vanguard of feminist consciousness, they are beginning to include marginally older age cohorts in fashion layouts. The editorial pages of women's magazines, where models ranging in age from fourteen to twenty-one are the norm,9 are hesitantly experimen.ting with older models. In articles on the virtues of the "little black dress" in the December, 2002 issues of Marie Claire and Oprah, the models, all of whom are identified by their professions, range "inclusively" up to forty years old. Several clothing manllfacturers have run advertisin.g campaigns featuring visibly aging female models. In 1999, DKNY used a model with deep wrinkles and steel gray h.air. But the advertisements cushioned the impact of her"advanced" age by putting her in the company of her "daugh.ter"-that is, by emphasizing h.er former fertility and the vitality of her relationship with the next generation. Eileen Fischer's "Women. Change the World Every Day" campaign (2002) uses some models who are "older," but exceedingly "well-preserved." This trend may be helpful, for it legitimates aging women's desire to wear fashionable clotlLing and to be perceived as physically attractive. However, in the same way that Cosmopolitan and Vogue are notorious for using models whose beauty and slenderness are beyond the reach of most young women, the magazines and advertisements for which"older" women model champion ideals of graceful" aging that are unrealistic for most middle-aged women. 10 Recontextualization's amenability to cooptation in the mass media helps motivate feminist attempts to reconfigure the values associated with gender and death. Ana Mendietta and Matuschka are key proponents of revaluation. Their work differs, however, with respect to the feminine symbolisn1 they seek to revalue. Mendietta revalues death, whereas Matuschka revalues bodily signs of mortality. II

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In 1961/ Mendietta/s Cuban parents sent their twelve-year-old daughter into exile alone. Upon arrival in the United States, she was placed in an orph.anage in Iowa (Hess 2001/ 342). Mendietta/s art memorializes this devastating separation from her parents, her cultural identity, and her h.omeland, and it analogizes her personal loss to all women/s lost connection to the Great Earth Mother (Lopez and Roth 1994/ 184; Schneider 1997/ 119). A major theme of her art is reunion with the earth (her Cuban birtllplace) and dissoh.ltion into nature (death) as a precondition for life (overcoming the traun1a of exile) (Hess 2001/ 347; Raine 1996/241-45). To make her Siluetas series, Mendietta traced the outline of her prostrate body on the ground at geologically and geographically evocative locations. At those sites she then sculpted impermanent effigies of her own bodymade, for example, of snow, flower blossoms, and fireworks. Her earth/body works transform corporeal solidity into an impress or relief that adverse natural forces will erode and ultimately obliterate. Mendietta embraces the symbolic association of womanhood with death, but she construes death and therefore womanhood in a favorable light. Her Siluetas series appropriates the Persephone myth to elegize her bond with the lan.d from which she was exiled. These mystical and beautiful creations represen.t death as satisfying a profound longing for reconnection, and they make as good a case as can be made for the primitive potency and indelibility of the hun1an bond with. th.e natural environment. Still, it seems to me that visually resurrecting the repose of the resorbancy and dorlnancy phases of the Persephon.e narrative ill serves women, for most Westerners are not at all receptive to Mendietta/s interpretation of mortality. Whereas she associates death with regaining lost connections, they regard death as terminating love, friendship, and many other kinds of valuable connection to the world. Consequently, decoupling the image of infertile femininity from mortality anxiety seems more likely to benefit women. Matuschka/s art abjures Men.dietta/s commemorative "dance of death." Instead she celebrates the conquest of death and demands a recalibration of beauty standards to include the bodies of women who survive. At the age of thirty-seven, Matuschka was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy. After completing her treatment/ she began photographing her partially nude body in color. In the best known of these images, "Beauty Out of Damage/" Matuschka assumes a familiar pose from the runway mannequin repertoire. ll With her face in profile and her hands behind her lower back, she turns her torso away from the camera just enough to accentuate the curve of her bosom and hip. She wears an elegant white sheath, and her hair is wrapped in a swathe of white chiffon the long ends of which waft to one side of her body. Because Matuschka looks like a fashion model (in fact, she briefly took up this profession in 1977) and because her pose, garment, and the

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lighting of the shot replicate the conventions of fashion photography, this image could be mistaken for a page from the most highfalutin fashion magazine. Except for one detail-the dress covers only the left side of Matuschka's chest and leaves the side where her breast was removed bare. The scars left by fighting a potentially fatal disease need not imply inner corruption al1d mortality. Quite the opposite, this image declares, they should be incorporated into our culture's conception of acceptable, deathdefying feminine embodiment. Whereas revaluation Lillcovers socially repressed values, mimesis exposes the disvalues hidden in culturally normative rhetorics. Photorealist painter Audrey Flack is an adept practitioner of mimesis.l 2 She specializes in appropriating and exaggerating traditional feminine mortality imagery until its artificiality and bad faith are plain to see and its pretensions are quashed. Specifically, Flack takes on the tradition of feminine vanitas imagery. The bluntest sixteenth-century renditions of this theme identify the ephemerality of worldly goods with. feminine beauty and represent the vice of excessive attachment to these goods as a woman gazing into her mirror. Emaptured by her own image, she loses sight of the inevitability of death and the bleak, irrevocable fate awaiting those who neglect spiritual concerns. Flack's Marilyn (Vanitas) (1977) conjures with the appurtenances of the vanitas tradition, but it spurns the tradition's religiosity and sexism. 13 Flack's canvas is jam-packed with symbolically weighty objects, many of which she ironically depicts as if they were floating in the pictorial space. Symbolizing death, there are ripe fruits that will rot, a rose that will wither, an hourglass that will run through, an antique pocket watch that will wind down, a lit candle that will burn out, a snapshot of two youngsters who will grow old, and a page of a calendar that will soon be obsolete. Symbolizing l1.arcissism, there is a mirror in a baroque gilt frame, a compact mirror, a crystal perfume bottle, a tube of red lipstick, pots filled with colored gels, and a pearl necklace. Set upright in the midst of all this garishly colored and gleaming paraphernalia is a coffee table book about Marilyn Monroe. A black-and-white photograph of Monroe's vibrant, smiling face fills one page of the open book. The text on the opposite page recounts a story Monroe told about running away from an orphanage. Although she expected to be punished when she was caught, the h.eadmistress treated 11.er kindly-hugged her and (of all things!) powdered her nose. Interpreting Monroe's story, the author of the depicted book comments that it is emblematic of an artist in the making-a child realizing that "one could paint oneself into an instrument of one's will." As if to corroborate this interpretation, Flack inserts a fine brush in the central space defined by the other pictorial elements. The hovering brush, which could be for oil painting or lip outlining, drips carmine teardrops that could be paint or nlakeup. Or blood?

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In Flack's painting, the photographic image of Momoe is reflected in the fancy table mirror. Unlike the women depicted in traditional vanitas paintings, however, Momoe is not seeking out her own image. The reflection is entirely contingent on her surroundings. Far from being an innate vice, Marilyn (Vanitas) urges, women's preoccupation with their appearance is contingent on the patriarchal social system that objectifies them. They did not choose to occupy the chair at the vanity table, and mastery of the vanity trademarks them for subordination. Despite her talent and beauty, Momoe did not create her public persona, nor did she pick her own roles. Hollywood required her to epitomize the dumb, blond, "stacked" movie star-the mid-twentieth century, Western reinvention of Venus. Flack reproduces the photograph of Momoe in her satirical painting because Momoe's poignant life story turns the femme fatale plot inside out. Momoe did not doom men. They doomed her. Condescended to, manipulated, and betrayed by movie industry executives and trophy hunting lovers, the seemingly brassy, supposedly stupid, actually fragile sex goddess died under suspicious circumstances. Whether she swallowed an overdose of barbiturates or someone put the empty vial in her hand to cover up a murder, there is no doubt that Momoe was destroyed by a society that reduced her to a fantasy for men's delectation. The image of this iconic suicide/homicide victim inverts the message of classic vanitas paintings. Debunking the myth of women's narcissistic depravity and their lethal power over men, Flack represents the mortal perils of femininity and trounces patriarchal culture for putting women in this bind. The artworks and rhetorical strategies discussed above aspire to produce a feminist oppositional gaze-a critical stance toward cultural givens concerning gender. They replace mythology with politics. They underscore women's accomplishments and downplay women's appearance issues. They contest standards of identity and beauty. They take traditional gemes hostage and force them to yield up their secrets. Under the pressure of politicization, recontextualization, revaluation, and mimesis, "self-evident truths" about gender and death transmogrify into vicious, misogynist falsehoods. Moreover, these artworks endow receptive viewers with a repertoire of critical skills that have wide application. To adopt an oppositional stance is always to ask, What's left out of this picture? At whose expense? Politicization, recontextualization, revaluation, and mimesis are tools that anyone can use to address these questions in other discursive contexts. To be sure, feminists need adversarial aesthetics. Still, they also need a positive aesthetic of the female body. A constructive feminist gaze would supply ways to see the female body in a positive light without denying the inevitability of its dying. In her last work, Hannah Wilke takes on this formidable task.

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TRANSPOSITION In her last years of life, Hannah Wilke created Intra-Venus-a masterpiece of transposition that lets loose an unsurpassable critique of Western culture's practice of figuring death as a woman and that advances an altogether differel1t understanding of time and female embodiment. In IntraVenus, Wilke wrenches culturally normative conceptions of gender, mortality, medicine, and art from their accustomed framing, and by relocating them in radically different mediums, she dislocates and reinvents them. Composed of vulvar ceramics arranged on black grids, medical equipment fashioned into lugubrious sculpture, watercolor self-portraits of her miniaturized face and her gnarled hands, "Brushstrokes" made by pasting clumps or wisps of her sloughed-off hair onto paper, and photographs of Wilke taken while she was being treated for (and dying of) lymphoma, Intra-Venus was exhibited posthumously in 1994.14 Most of the life-size color photographs th.at were shown in the original exhibition are paired to create dyptichs; two are presented singly; there is one trypticl1. Each photograph is identified by the date it was taken, but they are not organized chronologically. To be sure, these images describe the COllrse of Wilke's disease. But, more importantly, they probe key motifs in art history as well as popular conceptions of the death-dealing sex goddess and the death-denoting postmaternal crone. Wilke transposes pictorial tl1emes from the "high" and the "low" cultural imaginary onto her own expiring body. By amalgamating these source materials, she creates liminal imagery of a body that is as agentic as it is moribund. The transpositional rhetoric of the Intra-Venus photographs is analogous to that of Zen koans. Koans are paradoxical statements that Zen masters assign to meditating novices for the purpose of jolting them out of the terms and relations of normal and unavailing logic-the framework that makes the koaIl seem unintelligible and nonsensical. Wilke's visual koans spur viewers to abandon the patriarchal, thanatophobic logic that makes her imagery seem degrading and ghoulish. In most of Wilke's images, she is entirely or partially nude. Exposed as she is, these images engage with a preeminent subject of Western art historythe idealized female nude-and also with the heterosexual pornography industry's chief selling point-the objectified female nude. Every photograph in the Intra-Venus Series shows the effects of cancer and cancer treatment on Wilke's body-the bulge of a tumor, the bruised, sutured, bandaged, darkened skin, the bloated form, the apparatus of implanted needles and tubing. At the same time as these images engage with the regnant, high/low traditions of the female nude, then, they take on one of the most taboo topics in Western culture-death. The strategy guiding the whole Intra-Venus Series is to inscribe the conventions of the female nude onto the corporeal ravages

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of terminal disease in order to subvert the idees fixes encoded in the figures of the earth mother and the femme fatale. Within patriarchal logic, the female nude signifies fertility and life, infertility and death, or amoral sexuality and death. Any image of an unclothed female body that violates cultural assumptions about what a potential mother looks like must represent death. The Intra-Venus Series ridicll1es this visual code, for the photographs of Wilke represent neither life-giving nor death-dealing. It may be tempting to see the Intra-Venus Series as depicting the mortificatiorl of the flesh, the depletion of desire, and the negation of subjectivity and agency. But reducing these images to the theme of impending death. would seriously distort them. Undeniably, the Intra-Venus Series shows Wilke's body in extremis-a deteriorating organism. Likewise, the medicalization of her body-its objectivization and brutalization through treatment-is by no means incidental to Wilke's work. Nonetheless, these photographs do not portray a person handing over a passive body to the medical authorities, nor do they portray a person resigned to imminent death. They map a reconfiguration of Hannah Wilke's space of what-canbe-done. Within this space, Wilke, who is both the artist and the subject of th.e photographs, improvises a segment of her life. She poses for the camera in allusive and arresting ways. She discloses some of her responses to the construction society places on her situation. She opposes dominant gender rhetoric. Although she sometimes appears exhausted, her body is articulate-a message-packed perpetrator of outrage and an uncompron1ising agitator for change. Collectively, these images represent a working artist wl10 stopped savaging gender cliches and mind-fucking h.er viewers only when she died. The photographs Wilke chose for the Intra-Venus Series challenge the cultural representation of death as an infertile, time-altered female body by representing a creative nonreproductive woman in the throes of making unprecedented artwork. In the context of the larger installation, IntraVenus, Wilke's emphasis on agency is even more evident. Instead of mourning her lost hair, she turns it into drawings. Instead of hiding the syringes and pill bottles that became her lifelines, she constructs sculptures. Instead of desexualizing her body, she places nude and seminude photographs of it in the company of throngs of vulvar sculptures. Instead of lamel1ting the effects of cancer treatment on her face, she uses watercolors to discern l1ew meaning in it. Still, it is important to examine individual works in the Intra-Venus Series, for each extends and enriches Wilke's critique in specific ways. Consider a dyptich, Intra-Venus Series No.1 (figure 1). This work juxtaposes "June 15, 1992," one of Wilke's most searching inspections of her body under treatment, and "January 30, 1992," which is a visual joke.

Figure 1

Intra-Venus Series No.1, Hannah Wilke © 2003 Donald Goddard, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York. Chromagenic supergloss prints on two panels 71 1h" x 47 1h" each.

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In "June 15, 1992," Wilke sits erect on her hospital bed, and the photograph shows her head-on. A black sweater warms her shoulders and arms; a lace-edged, white nightgown is pulled down around her waist to expose her upper body. Above her left breast, thick bands of white tape secure a large clear plastic patch that keeps infection out of the permanent wounds made by needles connected to tubes. Another plastic patch surrounds her right forearm. The skin of her thickened torso is mottled with red splotches. This much is ·unambiguous. Nothing else about the image is. Because Wilke is wearing a surgical/shower cap, viewers cannot know whether she is covering a bald (or balding) head, or taking precautions to protect the needle wounds from germs that lurk in hair. Intentionally or not, she also references a chef's toque, a surgeon's scrubs, and a lady's mob cap from the early years of the American Republic. Her face is most mysterious of all-head held high, sunken eyes looking straight ahead, n1.outh slack. To me, this looks like the grim face of a person who is marshaliI1.g every iota of her grit and strength to sit up straight long enough to have this picture taken. I kinesthetically feel the needle tugging at the tender skin of her chest, yet I see no appeal for sympathy. What I see is Wilke's pain and her staunch resolve to surmount that pain in order to make her embodied subjectivity visible. I5 Ominously, her headgear casts a black mushroom shaped shadow on the wall behind her. The right panel of this dyptich, "January 30, 1992," contrasts sharply with its mate. Here, Wilke is completey nude and performing a balancing act. Standing against a bright white wall, she has placed a white pot containing multicolored flowers on her head. Moments after letting go of the pot, her arms still held high in a symmetrical angular position that frames the precariously positioned pot, the shutter clicks. Her face does not communicate with her audience, for she is concentrating on holding her pose and keeping her prop from crashing to the floor. Commentators have suggested a variety of interpretations of this image. Wilke could be Carmen Miranda in the midst of a musical romp (Isaak 1996, 223); a caryatid demurely but valiantly holding up a building (Smith 1994); a figure supporting an urn in an Egyptian frieze. On the surface, tl1.en, "January 30, 1992" records a goofy trick that invites playful speculation. On closer examination, though, the work is riddled with dissonance. The image includes signs of health and sex appeali.e., Wilke's long dark hair and full underarm and pubic hair. Yet, there is a large, white, rectangular bandage plastered on each side of her hips, and fluid from the wounds they cover has seeped out and discolored these bandages. Moreover, the pot of flowers she is juggling is a "Get Well" gift-a fixtllre of hospitals, nursing homes, and hospices.

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This statuesque figure stages a girlie show and a medical documentary in a single shot. The two panels of Intra-Venus Series No. 1 feature the same woman, the same body, the same artist. Yet, they seem to be completely at odds. One panel almost dares viewers to look-Persephone is with Hades. Everything we most fear is packed into a single image. Hieronymous Bosch redivivus. The other is far more palatable because the patient is entertaining us-Persephone is with her mother. Perhaps she herself is having fun. At any rate, the image parodies publicity snapshots from burlesque reviews. Is the right-hand panel conjoined with the other to stop viewers from fleeing-to lure them into studying the left-hand panel? Maybe, but I doubt that's the whole explanation. These clashing images expose the cognitive and emotional limitations that Western culture's standard gender imagery promotes. A naive American museum goer viewing the right-hand panel alone would find it easy to suppress the information conveyed by the bandages and the flowers because this individual has been primed to dwell on Wilke's circus stunt played in the nude. It's a surefire formula for success-amusement plus titillation. Who would think this has anything to do with disease and impending death? The panel to its left breaks down viewers' resistance to registering the significance of the bandages and the floral arrangement. Evidently, the subject of both images is seriously ill. Likewise, without the cues provided by the right-hand panel-the highly contrived performance and the concentration on the woman's face-naive viewers might well construe the left-hand panel as an atrocious affront to their sensibilities and consequently overlook the agency that careful scrutiny of this image reveals. Together, I am suggesting, these images call into question an interdependent duo of cherished cultural theses: 1) Women's creativity is synonymous with maternity, and 2) the nonreproductive female body naturally symbolizes death. This dyptich contravenes both of these misogynist calumnies, for it spotlights Wilke's artistry-her creative agencyapart from motherhood and despite her life-threatening condition. Wilke's tryptich, Intra-Venus Series No.3, could have been inspired by this stanza from William Butler Yeats's "Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop": A woman can be proud and stiff '!\Then on love intent; But Love has pitched his mansion in The place of excrement; For nothing can be sole or whole that has not been rent. The Collected Works ofW. B. Yeats, Vol. 1,259-60.

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In Yeats's poem, love is represented from the masculine point of view. Indeed, Yeats compresses a veritable litany of masculine fantasies about female sexuality into this brief passage-the woman's need to be ravished, her disgusting, dangerous genitals, and her desire for phallic unity. Wilke takes exception to this point of view in Intra-Venus Series No.3 (figure 2) by excavating the views about death and femininity that l1ndergird it. The center and right-hand panels represent two faces of the mythical femme fatale-the regal object of desire and the beaver shot. The left-hand panel shows the femme fatale using the toilet. This work rends femme fatale imagery in the interest of releasing women's eroticism from masculine phantasms and androcentric strictures. For"August 9, 1992," Wilke strikes a pose that echoes both classical marble statues of the goddess Venus and pinup photos. Nude except for a pair of slippers, Wilke stands before the camera. By putting her weight on one foot and jutting her hip to one side, she recreates the sinuous line of a sophisticated vamp. To accentuate this effect, she splays the elegantly manicured fingers of her right hand against her stomach and perches her left hand on her left hip. Yet, she is completely bald, and her pubic hair is sparse. Undismayed, she cocks her head back and gazes disdainfully down at the camera/viewer. This image is a melange of femme fatale code transposed onto Wilke's swollen, bruised body. The hairless pudendum resembles that of the classic, stylized female nude. This genre is a traditional vehicle for male genius. Yet, in this work, Wilke herself is the artist, and she has a few bones to pick with this tradition. So she does the convention of the bald pudendum one better with the addition of a hairless head. Of course, neither of these details attests to artistic greatness, for both are unwelcome side effects of pharmaceutical treatment. The slinky pose and bare breasts are typical of the timeworn tradition of the male masturbation stimulus. But Wilke wears terrycloth scuffs that are about as sexy as a goose down parka. Also, she reverses the current porn ideal of enormous, gravity-defying breasts attached to a slender body by presenting instead a Rubenesque body with normal breasts. Wilke selectively min1ics the femme fatale's seductive style, but she simultaneously enlphasizes the care sh.e bestows on herself. In need of a little pampering after her medical ordeal, she indulges in the only grooming luxury available to her-a manicure. To be sure, her manicure complies with current feminine beauty norms. However, in the context of this picture, which derides imagery designed to appeal to the patriarchal n1ale gaze, her long, polished fingernails look more like talons than emblems of glamor. The femme fatale, sporting this sole accoutrement, laughs at her killer reputation and glares down at the fools who believe in it.

Figure 1

Intra-Venus Series No.3, Hannah Wilke © 2003 Donald Goddard, courtesy of Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York. Chromagenic supergloss prints on three panels, 71'h" x 47'h" each.

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"February 15, 1992" directly confronts the allied illlage of the vagina dentata. Here Wilke is lying flat on her back in a bathtub in a position similar to the one women aSSUllle for gynecological exams. At the far end of the tub, a stream of water flowing from the faucet cleanses the few remaining strands of her long hair. At the near end of the tub, her anus and genitals are exposed. Here is the ailing Wilke posed for a snatch. shot while soaking up the waters of the fountain of youth-a lllultiply contradictory image. With her eyes closed, lying in a sepulch.ral, white, enamel basin, Wilke could be trying out the tomb. But a Roman sarcophagus is no place for a miraculous spring that restores youtl'l. These incompatible elements join forces to explode the fantasy of eternal youth and beauty that propels cosmetic surgery clinics to soaring profitability.l6 In the same image, Wilke contentiously foregrounds her sex. This is as defiant, flagrant, and untrammeled as female carnality gets. Yet, Wilke's desexualizing gynecological posture contained within an ordinary bathtub spoofs the phantasm of merciless incisors hidden inside the visible female genitalia waiting to castrate hapless male lovers. Pace Freud, women are not castrated; they do not envy the penis; and they have no need to compensate for any lack of their own by castrating men. Neither the protocols of prurience nor the fiction of the vagina dentata survives the outlandish combination of visual allusions in "February 15, 1992." The left-hand panel of Intra-Venus Series No. 3 gives the coup de grace to the myth of the death-dealing femme fatale. In "August 17, 1992," the pseudo-sex goddess and porn star is still nude, but now a tether of chemotherapy tubing constrains her movement. Seated on a portable hospital toilet, Wilke slumps with exhaustion. No longer scornful, the femme fatale's face wears a sweet and patient but strained expression. Here, then, is the cultural imaginary's vision of death at the l'lands of a ferocious, sexually rapacious woman.-urinatiI'lg, defecating, and suffering like al'lYbody else. Six montl'ls before her own death, Wilke gives the lie to the equivalency of erotic ecstasy and ecstatic death. The right-hand and center panels of Intra-Venus Series No. 3 demolish cliches of femme fatality by transposing them onto the body of a woman who is struggling against cancer. Pumping confidence-enriched in.fusions of Venus's spirit into her own veins by making art and enjoying the small pleasures of a good manicure and a refreshing hair wash, Wilke dispatches the clicl'le of feminine self-hatred. The left-lland pallel adds a sobering and l1eartrending dose of reality to the tryptich, for Wilke is now under the care of oncologists-too full of noxious drugs to assume allusive poses or to treat herself to lllLlndane pleasures. Still, her creative elan does not fail her, for she is moved to conceive this riposte to centuries of femme fatale imagery. In Intra-Venus Series No.3, Wilke, the indefatigable

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artist and impresario of feminist critique, presides over a three-act dramatization of the absurdity of the misogynist coupling of death (and specifically mortal danger to men) with unfettered female eroticism. Transposing feminine personifications of death onto a dying female body makes the implications of culturally entrenched gender/death schemas flare into consciousness. By putting these systems of imagery on a collision course with the appearance of a terminally ill woman, the Intra-Venus Series visually intensifies the contradictions between culturally sanctioned mortality imagery and real feminine mortality until it hurts to contemplate them. As Joanna Frueh observes, "Wilke seduces her audience into terror and pain, the inescapability of death, the suffering behind the mask of lovely flesh, the 'exotic' grace of change" (Frueh 1996, 152). In. addition, the images comprising this series demonstrate how loading the burden of representing death on presumptively nonmaternal female bodies morbidifies perception of women classified as postmenopausal earth mothers or femme fatales. Wilke addresses many more then1es in the Intra-Venus Series than I have space to discuss here. I maintain, however, that it is a signal virtue of Wilke's last work that it critiques the twin evils of earth mother in1agery and femme fatale imagery so incisively that it is hard to see how anyone could experience th.is work and remain convinced that these systen1s of in1agery betoken anything deeper or more valid than misogyny.

HUMANIZATION

Humanism is a term that typically sends feminists running for cover. In both the history of ideas and the history of art, the ostensibly gender-ne1.1tral human subject regularly proves to be a man. The Man of Reason, for instance, really is a man, not a person of either sex (Lloyd 1993a). The human body looks much more like Michelangelo's David than Hannah Wilke. It is complete, strong, competent, and self-sufficient. The female body, as Freud so maddeningly, but memorably put it, is castrated-lacking, weak, helpless, dependent. This second-rate body is disqualified from representing the human-a biological category that also functions as an honorific entwined with an ideal. It is with considerable trepidation, then, that I venture the suggestion that humanization is a feminist dissident discursive strategy and that Wilke uses it effectively in Intra-Venus. Suzanne Muchnic attempts to situate Wilke's work in relation to humanity: Intra-Venus "pits the horrors of disease against the resilience of the human spirit" (Muchnic 1996, 142). To my miI1d, however, this characterization n1isses Wilke's insights. It is true, obviously, that the IntraVenus photographs confront us with our universal vulnerability to disease

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and death-a dying body as Every Body. However, I doubt that using a female body in extremis to demonstrate that death is the great leveler" serves any feminist purpose. Besides, Wilke's work is too animated to support this reading. Moreover, it is undeniable that humanity does not endow everyone with the power to face the depredations of disease and medical treatment cheerfully or heroically. Sometimes the human spirit is resilient. Sometimes it isn't. For me, what is most salient about Wilke's Intra-Venus ph.otographs is that they describe an extraordinary individual in precise and vivid detail. They convey her caustic wit, her zany verve, her passion for her art, and her unshakable aesthetic and political beliefs. By giving viewers access to her own disquieting idiosyncracy, Wilke affirms the humanity of each unduplicatable, incompletely fath.omable subjectivity and personality. In highlighting Wilke's love for her work and her love for herself as the creative force behind that work, Intra-Venus testifies to the value of loving one's doing-in-life, whatever it may consist in. It is in these respects that I believe Wilke succeeds in humanizing her conspicuously female body and in articulating an understanding of the value of humanity through her embodiment. It is an important goal of feminism to bring visual culture to the point where an image can be perceived as both specifically female and generically human. Yet, this aspiration may seem misguided and futile, for archaic thinking about agency and gender makes it seem incoherent. Western veneration. of independent, rational agency as the hallmark of humanity goes all the way back to ancient Greece. Although it has always been assumed that elite men fulfill this conception of agency, all women have historically been perceived as passive, governed by emotion rather than reason, dependent on men, and depended on by children. Classed as defective agents, women can hardly be exemplary humans. Wilke's portrayal of her stl.,lnning individuality and her resolute agency in the most taxing spheres of life and at the least expected time of life closes the book· on this slan.der. It is high time, she implies, that men and their grandiose self-representations ceased to own generic humanity and began to be seen as specifically male and yet generically human. To steer perception of the male body in that direction, Wilke introduces competing images of en1bodied agency. The ambitions of Intra-Venus are not limited, however, to opening a space conducive to rejiggering perception of the female body. This work also makes an incomparable contribution to the development of a positive feminist gaze-a perceptual template that encompasses the full scope and rich variety of women's agency. If feminism is committed to achieving equality for women-equal humanity, as opposed to similarity to men-Hannah Wilke's Intra-Venus strides boldly toward that goal. 17 Ii

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NOTES 1. Notoriously (and often tragically), American physicians have difficulty discussing death with their patients and treating dying patients who demand candor from them. 2. It is important to bear in mind that culturally transmitted materials are never simply replicated in individual psyches, for unconscious defenses and fantasies process these inputs in distinctive ways (Chodorow 1995,517-20; Meyers 2002, 5-11). 3.. I have argued elsewhere that the emaciated male they picture is a feminized masculine figure, but I shall not rely on that claim here (Meyers 2002, 164). 4. Guthke (1999) does an impressive job of inventorying these variations in both masculine and feminine mortality imagery in Western societies. 5. I suspect that they would say "the girl you want to fuck" if they weren't in a classroom or talking to a professor. 6" I leave aside mythologies of reincarnation and the migration of souls, as well as fantasies of immortality among space aliens. I note as well that trying to appease the dead is highly unlikely to do us any good now or later. 7. For representations of this message, see Hans Baldung, Vanity, 1529, Alte Pinokothek, Munich and Death and the Woman, 1517, Kuntsmuseuill, Basel; also see George de La Tour, The Penitent Magdalen, seventeenth century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. 8. For a reproduction of this work, see www.aliceneel.comjg8 j g8lslf80.html. 9. Private communication with Kathryn Kleugel. 10. Not surprisingly, pharmaceutical advertising is far more likely to feature images of typical-looking, aging women. Although on its face this advertising may seem retrograde, it is worth noting that one connotation of pharmaceutical use is good medical care and longer, healthier living. Perhaps, however, that association explains why very few women of color appear in these ads. Because advertising agencies presume that these women are poor and uneducated, the ads don't solicit their business. 11. A reproduction of this image can be found at www.matuschka.netjmatuschka .html. The photograph was published on the cover of the New York Times Magazine, Aug. 15, 1993, and it was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. 12. Cindy Sherman is another important exponent of this strategy. The movie Death Becomes Her (Robert Zameckis, 1992), which stars Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn, is a rare instance of subversive, mass marketed mimesis. 13. For a reproduction of Marilyn (Vanitas), see the cover of this book or www.audreyflack.com. 14. Wilke was born in 1940 and died at the age of fifty-two in 1993. The installation, Intra--Venus, was first exhibited at Ronald Feldman Fine Art, New York City, Jan. 8-Feb. 19, 1994. 15. It is possible to see this work somewhat differently. Roberta Smith characterizes it as follows: "Heavy with sadness, she looks right at the camera as if to say: 'Look. See what I'm going through'" (Smith 1994). 16. Lucas Cranach, the elder depicted the fountain of youth in Der Jungbrunnen (1556, Gemaldegallerie, Berlin). As Cranach imagined it, grey-haired women with

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sagging breasts lower themselves (or are lowered) into the pool, wade halfway across it, and begin to swim at the halfway point as their hair turns golden and their breasts become firm and round. On the other side, they are greeted by courtly gallants who escort them to dressing cabanas. Once they have dressed and put up their hair, they join the ongoing party and resume their love life. I have no reason to believe that Wilke meant to send a barb in the direction of this particular painting, but "February 15, 1992" provides a solid critique of the desire to make this fantasy a reality. 17. I am grateful to Marc Nochella for making the photographic archives of Hannah Wilke's exhibitions at Ronald Feldman Fine Arts available to me. Although he is in no way responsible for my interpretation of Intra-Venus, I thank him for conversations that I believe helped me to avoid some blunders. I also thank Francoise Dussart, Kristie Fleckenstein, Elizabeth Grosz, Susan Hum, and Margaret Walker for comments on an earlier draft of this work.

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Index

abjection, 78 abortion, xiii, 119/ 260-62, 271n3, 281 Addelson, Kathryn, 11/ 74n25, 125/ 131 Afghan women, 83 African-Americans, 17-21/ 44n26, 45n36,67-68/81-82/91nI2/133n4, 149,226/231-37,251n25;women, 17,21 agency: adolescent, 87-89, 207-9, 214-17, 251n35; and women, 296; emancipatory, 8-9; intentional, 78, 161; morat 113, 140, 161, 169-76; politicat 15, 25-26, 33; psychocorporeal, 77/ 81-89 agent, xvi, xviii, 5, 7, 54, 56, 62, 70, 72n7,72nl1/97, 103-19, 139-41, 163/ 169, 191/223/272n7,278 aging: and women, 280-83, 297nl0. See also tropes alienation, xvii, 28, 45n33, 61, 74n27, 145/ 210/ 217-22/ 227/ 258; from the body/61 allocation options, 268-70 ambiguous genitalia, 206/ 219/ 223nl androgyny, 130 311

anger, 67, 85, 139-55/ 156n7 anti-semitism, 44n26, 187 anxiety, xvii, 60/ 67/ 130/ 153/ 275/ 284 Appiah, Anthony, 20/ 43n18, 44n26, 47n45 Aristotle, 77, 101 attacks, verbal and pictorial. See speech, abusive Aubry, Erin, 81-82 authentic attributes, 27/ 49, 54/ 56/ 70 authentic desires, 21-22, 35 authenticity, 21/ 38 authority, 21/ 30, 63-64/86, 95, 121/ 192-95/215/220,229/264 autonomy: augmenting educational programs, 205/214/222; competency, xvii, xviii, 10-11/ 16/ 31, 32, 39-42/ 46n39,64,70,75n39,95,104-9, 133n1, 176-77; degrees off xviii, 9/ 70, 258; episodic, 8/ 11; maternal, 257-71; illoral, 95/ 101-9; personat 3-11/ 22-25; pockets ot 8/ 48n57; political, 22-26; programmatic, 8-11; retrospective, 50/ 62-63; withinculbure, 205, 214-22

312

Index

autonomy skills, 11, 39-41, 48n56, 58-62,70, 75n32, 75n35, 205, 217-22; consensus-building skills, 220; critical skills, 162, 221, 286; empathic skills, 114; imagination skills, 219, 221; interpersonal skills, 5, 59, 73n18, 133n1, 218; volitional skills, 10, 70 .autonOIT1Y, theories of: historical account of, xv, 4-9, 14-15; latitudinarian account of, 64, 205, 209-14; personal style theory, 50; processual account of, xviii, 27, 221-23; restrictive account of, 205-13; retrospective account of, 62-63; value-laden account of, 211-12,220-22 Babbitt, Susan, 44n27, 73n22, 79, 210-11,221-22 Baier, Annette, 90n3, 113, 134n7, 162, 177n12 Bartky, Sandra, xi, 77-82, 91n15, 154, 250n9 beauty, 82-89, 91n12, 138, 165, 252n41, 283-86,292,294 Beauvoir, Simone de, 4, 28, 45n35, 101 belief-mediated distress, 233-35, 252n41 Beneath the Veil, 83 Benhabib, Seyla, 42n4, 75n38, 160, 174-77 Benjamin, Jessica, 129 Benson, Paul, 72n13, 73n15, 74n32, 211-12, 221, 223n3 Berlin, Isaiah, 56 bigotry, 68, 243 bitterness, 83, 139-54 blame, 24, 46n39, 148,170,276 body-hatred, 83-87 Brison, Susan, 72n8, 73n23, 76n40, 79, 85-86, 133, 144, 178, 220, 250n9, 255n71 Bruner, Jerome, 179n47 Bubeck, Diemut, 257-71, 271n3, 272n10, 273n11, 273n12 Butler, Judith, 43n14, 43n20, 47n45, 130, 236, 291

cancer, 82, 284-94 capital punishment, 277 capitalism, 82-83, 245-46 Card, Claudia, 44n27, 169, 170 care perspective, xiii, 96-109, 119-20, 156n4,226,262-65 censorship, 236-37, 247, 254n71 childcare, 4-5, 8,28-29, 61-63, 82, 89, 95-100, 113-25, 135n10, 135n11, 154, 156n4, 163-64, 184, 188,207,213-21, 226-28, 251n25, 251n35, 264, 269, 272n4, 282, 296. See also dependency work Chodorow, Nancy, 43n19, 73n20, 74n31,98-99, 112-14, 129, 133n2, 136n14,136n19,278,297n2 Christman, John, 62-66, 74n26, 74n27, 177n9 Circe, 280, 281 circumcision through words, 87, 215 class, xi, 5, 15-30, 42n6, 81-85, 113-18, 138,205,218-19,226,235,260-63, 272n4 clitoridectomy, 205, 209. See also female genital cutting commitment: emotional, 6-7, 131; ownership of, 66; shallow, 7; to impartial reason, 101, 117, 120; to intimates, 164, 168; to values, 21, 24, 52,60,79-80,258-61 compassion, 36,54, 134n8, 141, 144, 156n6 compensation, 216, 238-48, 265, 266, 267 Constitution, U.S., 75n38, 123, 201n8, 238 contraception, 119, 260-62, 271n3 convictions: and social self, 68; considered, 122-25, 131-33; deeply held beliefs, 6-9, 193, 222; moral, 24, 106 Cornell, Drucilla, 45n30, 75n38, 78, 130, 179n36,249n1, 249n3, 250n10 cosmetic surgery, 82, 84, 91n12, 219, 294 counterimagery, 129, 278 Crenshaw, Kimberle, 16-17, 24, 28, 43n8, 156n3

Index critical legal studies, 226 critical race theory, 15, 46n41, 225-28, 254n70 critique, 28, 59, 127, 205; cultural, 30, 36; feminist, 257, 295; of mortality tropes, 275-96; social, v-xiv, 25-26, 37, 46n44, 70,81, 164,210,214; somaticized, 79 culture: cultural autonomy, 185-86, 200n4; cultural cogency, 186; cultural destruction, 185, 194-95; cultural dissidence, 31, 128; cultural evolution, 185-87, 192-96, 200n3; cultural homogeneity, 187, 198; cultural perpetuation, xviii, 183-200, 200n6, 216; collective rights of, 193 cultural pluralism, 183, 196, 200; cultural traditions, 184, 189, 223; repertories of concepts, and, 218; intercultural borrowing, 31, 193; shared beliefs and practices, and, 186-87, 192,217-18; valorize some autonomy skills, 218 Damsky, Lee, 89, 91n14 death, 195, 275-97, 297n1 Delgado, Richard, 228, 236, 250n10, 251n34 dependency: claims, 263; relationship, 260-63, 270; work, 257-71, 271nl, 272n6, 272n7, 272n9, 272n10; autonomy and, 257, 262, 268, 271n2; compensation for, 265; exit options and,261,268-71,272n10; internalizing interests of charges, 264; maternal welfare agency, 265-70. See also childcare desire: conflicting, 16, 34, 36; firstorder, 35, 210, 212; intelligibility of, 24; ordering of, 35-37 determinism, xiv, 34, 169 difference principle, 112, 119-14 discrimination, 24-5, 123-24, 157n8, 226,251n25 disidentification, 36, 47n50 dissident, 31, 127-28, 204, 213, 277; dissidence, v-xiv, 25-26, 37, 46n44,

313

70, 81, 164, 210, 214; dissident speech, 113, 128-33, 136n18 Double, Richard, 64, 74n28 Dworkin, Ronald, 196, 201n9, 236, 252n43 eating disorders, 87-89, 90n9 elder care, 259-60, 272n4. See also dependency work. emotional attitude, 138-55, 156n4; interpretive conventions, 146-47; vanilla, 142-44, 150-54; vindaloo, 147-55 empathy, 98, 113-22, 126, 133n2, 133n3, 134n5, 134n8, 135n11, 146, 154, 219-34, 246, 250n15, 251n35, 254n65; broad,231-32,237,248,251n28; empathic capacities, 112-16, 121, 134n8; incident-specific, 231-32; projective, 231, 251n28 equal opportunity, 19,226 eroticism: as fusion with death, 209, 278-81,292,295 ethnicity, xi, 15-30, 42n6, 183-200 ethnocentrism, 188, 221, 233, 236, 239, 253n53 family: alternative structures, 269-71; heterosexual, 264 Fatal Attraction, 281 female genital cutting, 203, 207, 215 feminine body norms, 80-85, 87-89 feminist artists, 275-96 five-dimensional self, 49-53, 57-62, 70-71. See also self-narrative Foucault, Michel, 60-61 Frankfurt, Harry, 16, 34-41, 47n46, 47n52,47n54,47n55,71n4 free will, xiv, xvi, 34-37, 51, 169-70 freedom, xii, xv, 6, 34, 80, 82, 135n13, 185, 195-98, 201nll, 237, 252n35, 259-71, 271n2 Freud, Sigmund, 3, 19, 75, 127, 129, 163, 178n14, 206, 294-95 Frye, Marilyn, 145-46, 149, 154 future generations, 45n37, 113-21, 134n8, 135n10, 135n11

314

Index

Gatens, Moira, 78 Gates, Henry Louis, 237, 252n46 gay men, as parents, 270 gender: biased systenlS, xi-viii, 24; differentiated morality, 98-100; ed autonomy skills, 218; and death, 282-96; and psychocorporeal agency, 77-81; and work, 257-71, 271n2, 272n4; binarism, 82, 86, 206-7; childrearing practices, 262; identity, 43n19, 46n41, 98-100, 206-7; norms: discriminatory, 268; masculine, 21, 77; patriarchal, 82; pronatalist, 268; reassessment of, 29; Western, 155n3, 219; portrayal as a category, 15-20; segmented social structures, 262; social sanctions, 262; systems of imagery, 123, 129-31, 166. Gilligan, Carol, xiii, 95-109, 120, 156n4, 263 goals: personal, 24, 48n56, 52, 164; social, 196-200, 201n9, 201n11. Goodin, Robert, 263 Grosz, Elizabeth, 78, 298n17 group: based identity, 17-18,28,43; membership, 17-28, 33, 45n38, 46n44, 138; oppressed, 26, 212; privileged, 15, 24-25, 45n33, 47n49, 47n51, 156n6; social, 14, 16, 22-35, 44n26, 44n27, 45n33, 46-47, 79, 113, 126, 128, 132, 140-55, 156n3, 156n6, 169, 184, 228-49, 254n70; voluntarist, 189 guilt, 60, 67, 242 Guthke, Kart 276-80, 297n4 Herman, Barbara, 120, 129, 134n5, 139, 144, 154 Homer, 280 homophobia, 233, 236, 239, 253n53 hooks, bell, 165 humiliation, 67, 133n4, 145,234 hypersensitivity, 139, 147-54 identification, 7, 17, 25, 35-36, 47n50, 184, 207-10, 276

identity, viii-xvi, 4, 65, 71, 75-84, 98, 108,126-27,160-71,206-10,215, 223, 255, 284-86; contrarian view of, 21,27, 32; group, 22-30, 35-36, 42n6, 43n7; imaginative reconstruction of, 115, 120; individual, xvii, xviii, 34, 44n26, 47n44, 48-52, 78; intersectional, 15-30, 32-36,40, 43n6, 44n24, 44n27, 45n31, 46n44; personal, 15, 18-21, 27, 45n32, 46n42, 108-9, 188-89; personalist view of, 21-22; psycho-corporeal, 77-86; selfascribed, 26 impartiality, 25, 45n31, 97-110, 111-33, 134n8, 134n9, 135n11 infibulation, 79, 207-8, 215, 219, 220, 223n1; re-, 208-12. See also female genital cutting injustice, attunement to, 235 integration: bidirectional, 212; jazz improvisation and, 33-34, 39, 86; psychological, 34-40, 47n51, 48n56, 47n54, 67, 187, 197, 210; pyramidal structure of, 37. See also wholeness integrity, 7, 25, 47n51, 52, 96, 103, 162, 164,185,198,213,246,247 intelligence, 44n26, 50-51, 57-61, 151 intimates, 5, 52, 80, 103, 134n8, 143, 156n4, 164 Intra-Venus, 287-96, 297n14, 298n17 Irigaray, Luce, 129, 278 Islam, 207, 215 Jaggar, Alison, 145-46, 149, 154, 157n9, 219 James, Henry, 121, 154 Jewish cultural identity, 183-88 just savings principle, 112, 117-21, 135 justice, xiii, xix, 15, 19, 24, 41, 103, 104, 106-7, 111-22, 134n8, 135n11, 136n16, 136n18, 167,213,217, 226-27, 235, 243, 255n71, 263,283 Kali,279 Kant, Immanuel, xv, 49, 95, 107, 169, 178n26

Index Kekes, John, 137-39, 144, 154, 155n1 Kittay, Eva, 129, 133, 140, 156n3, 157n9,200n5, 257n1, 262-71, 271n3, 272n7, 272n8, 272n10, 273n11 knowledge: embodied, 85-89; nonpropositional, 73n22, 79,211; social network of, 54; socialpsychological, 63. See also selfknowledge Kohlberg, Lawrence, 95-96, 103, 105 Kristeva, Julia, 42n4, 78, 112, 125-32, 136n14, 136n15, 136n19 Kruger, Barbara, 278-83 Kuhn, Thomas, 125 Kupperman, Joel, 133, 137, 200, 251n30 Labowitz, Leslie, 278, 282 Lacan, Jacques, 15, 78 Lacy, Suzanne, 278, 282 Lawrence, Charles, 95-96, 228-42, 249n2, 250n13, 250n18, 250n20, 250n24, 251n25, 252n44, 253n51, 253n54, 253n55, 253n56 Leibovitz, Annie, 278, 282 Lenny Bruce argument, 236 Lorde, Audre, 145-53 Lugones, Maria, xi, 17-18, 28, 42n3, 47n45, 144, 232, 251n31 Madonna, 81-82, 165,269 Martin, Rex, 245, 253 Marx, Karl, 3, 261 Matsuda, Mari, 43n12, 225-28, 249n2, 250n11, 250n14, 250n17, 250n21, 251n34, 254n71, 255n71 Matuschka, 278-85 maximin principle, 123-24, 135n12 McClure, Kirstie, 17, 28, 43n11, 43n12 McFall, Lynne, 137, 145-49 McGhan, Meredith, 83-88 Mendietta, Ana, 278, 283 metaphor, 16-18, 24-28, 127, 136n17, 150,173,229,231,269 Mill, John Stuart, 189 mimesis, 278, 281-86, 297n12 Moody-Adams, Michele, 208, 217-21

315

moral: concepts, 123, 138-44, lSI-55, 155n2, 156n3, 156n5; development, xiii, 95-96; identity, 139, 149, 164, 255n71;idioms, 139, 140, 144, 154; individuality, 168, 177; judgments, 112, 122, 138, 172; knowledge, 161, 166-76; perception, 125, 137-55, 155n1, 155n3, 156n4, 156n6, 231; heterodox, 31-32, 44n27, 138-39, 146, 151-55; psychology, 26, 37; rationalism, 144; reflection, xii, 97, 104, 112-33, 133n1, 134n8, 134n10, 135n11, 136n16, 136n19, 144, 156n5, 212; subjects, xii, xiii, 113, 121, 131-33,138, 154, 161-76;theor~ 104,125, 155n2, 163, 167-68,225 Morgan, Kathryn, 82, 88-89, 130, 156n3 motherhood, 21,28-30, 268, 273n13, 279, 281, 291 mothers: and dependency work, 6-9, 257-71; and female genital cutting, 207-9, 219-20; as ideals of womanhood, 129; as nontraditional role models, 100; cultural representation of, 257-59; emotional attachment to, 98; normalization of, II, 268-69; working,67-68 Mouffe, Chantal, 18, 28, 43n11, 43n14 Muchnic, Suzanne, 295 narrativity theory, 160-76 narrator, 160-61, 172-76 Nee!, Alice, 278, 283 Nelson, Hilde, 43n7, 75n38, 76n40, 160, 172, 179n36 normative heterosexuality, 82 Nussbaum, Martha, 47n56, 121, 137, 141-44, 154, 160, 177n1

Odyssey, 280 akin, Susan Moller, 119-20, 134n8, 134n9, 134n10, 219, 265, 271n3 original position, 97, 102, 106, 108, Ill, 117-24, 131, 134n8, 136n18 Orlan, 88

316

Index

paranoia, 139, 147-54 Persephone, 279-91 Piper, Adrian, 44n29, 115, 134n5, 141, 232, 249n2, 250n9, 251n32 play, 22, 33-34 population control, 276 poststructuralism, xvi, 22, 27, 78, 82, 172 post-traumatic stress disorder, 79, 85 pregnanc~28, 135n12,249,260 prejudice, xviii, 4, 44n29, 101, 112, 126-32,139-44,220,234,243,253, 269 procreation, 8, 82, 135n11, 262, 268 proprioception, 78 psychoanalytic feminism, 53, 112 Pynchon, Thomas, 154 race, xi, 15-30, 42n6, 43, 81, 124, 134n6, 155n3,230-31,244 racism, 17, 21, 29, 148-49, 229-42, 251n25, 253n53; aversive, 79 rational choice theory, xv, 78, 84, 119, 120 rationality, 9, 51-53, 74n27, 98-101, 119,122,162,218,226 Rawls, John, 71n3, 95, 97, 102-24, 131-33, 134n6, 134n7, 134n8, 134n9, 135n13, 136n18, 167, 178,200n2, 201n11, 245-49, 253n59, 255n71 Reece, Gabrielle, 81 reflective equilibrium, 104-7, 112-13, 122, 131, 136n18 repression, 83, 125-30, 136n14, 172, 199,207 responsibility, iv-xiii, 17, 22-24, 51, 54, 96-98, 107-9, 113, 121, 135n11, 140, 148,159,169,170-72,194,196,200, 233,239,260,263,267 responsibility reasoning, 107-9 rights, xiii, xviii, xix, 4, 19, 61, 96-111, 124-25, 183, 190-200,200n8,201n9, 201n11,216, 225-49, 249n3, 251n35, 252n50,253n58,254n62,254n68, 255n71, 263-67, 277; as conscious commitments, 227; basic, 197, 200, 225-32, 245-49; claim, 238, 245-48;

countervailing, 247; customary, 244, 245; equal, 124, 135n13, 139, 226, 248; institutional, 248; property, 235, 245; to a fair trial, 248; to personal safety, 248; universal, 96, 249. See also speech, free rights perspective, 96-101, lOS, 109, 119-20 Ross, W. D., 168, 178 Schechtman,~arya, 75, 160 Scheman, Naomi, 43n7, 47n51, 73n17, 75n38,145,220 self: authentic, 3, 6-10, 16,21-27, 34-42,69-70, 75n35,213; competency-based view, 41; autonomous, 3, 10,26,29,30,38, 50-54, 74n24, 74n27; decentered, 112, 132; divided, 19, 50-60, 67-71, 72n7, 162-66, 178n14;embodied, 50-71, 74n24 162-66; intersectional, 13-42, 44n24; relational, xv, 50-71, 73n18, 162-65, 178n14; social, 50-71, 72n7, 112, 162-65; transparency, xii, 14,26, 131, 137, 163; true, 3, 6, 19, 66, 95, 101-9; unitary, 50-71, 71n3, 74n27, 162-65; unity of, 111 self-alienation, 66-67, 171, 214 self-betrayal, xvii, 66, 70, 171 sel~concept, 15, 19,23,26,31,33 self-contempt, 25, 44n27, 210 self-defense, 61, 73n23, 85-6, 90n8, 103, 187-89 self-definition, xvii, 16-22, 27-42, 44n27, 46n40, 48n56, 69, 175-77,205 intersectional, 31-33 self-determination, viii-xii, 14, 64, 169-70, 177,209-14, 258. See also autonon1.y self-discovery, 16,22, 34-41, 49-50, 57-59,64-69,175-77,205,210,222 self-esteem, 23, 88, 148, 232 self-knowledge, 16-26, 32, 38-41, 52, 60, 178, 212, 220. See also selfconcept self-narrative, 51, 71 72n9,75n37, 160-61, 165-77

Index self-understanding, xvii, 13, 21, 32-33, 53, 127. See also self-discovery sexism, xi, 17,21, 156n3, 233, 236, 239, 253n53,271,285 sexual division of labor, 257-70 sexual harassment, xiii, 67, 146, 151, 157n8,238, 253n53,253n57, 254n67 sexual orientation, 15-30, 42 shame, xii, 25, 44n27, 67, 108 Sherman, Nancy, 137-41, 297n12 Sidgwick, Henry, 167 Sigmund Freud argument, 236 social contract theory, xviii, 113, 140 social stratification, 15, 19, 23, 26, 79 socialization, 3; coercive, 212; false beliefs and, 212; oppressive, 212-13, 221, 223n3; traditional feminine, 3-11,20,52,64,95,98,99,100,101, 102, 103, 163, 212 Sousa, Ronald de, 140 speech: abusive, 229-49, 253n53, 253n57,253n58;codes,237-41,248, 252n47; free, 229-39, 244-49, 254n70; hate, 225-49, 252n41, 253n53, 254n67,254n69, 254n71 Spelman, Elizabeth, xi, 42n3, 115, 144-49,231-32, 250n19,251n29, 251n31 Stefancic, Jean, 228, 250n10 subjectivity, 14, 19, 25-27, 51, 68, 80, 120,126-27,141-49,159-73,219-20, 229-32, 250n9, 288, 290,296 sympathy, 114-15, 133n3, 156n6, 290 Taetzsch, Lynne, 165-66, 178n17 Talvi, Silja, 88-89 The Last Seduction, 281 theoretical-juridical model, 125, 167-68 Thomson, Judith Jarvis, 233-34, 245, 252n37,253-54 tradition, 17,28-29, 71n4, 111-12, 124, 134n5, 155, 163, 167, 187, 189, 193, 196,205,207,213-16,222,237, 255n71, 264,278,285, 287, 292 transformative experiences, 211, 221-22, 224n7

317

trigger savings principle, 118-21, 135n10, 135n11, 135n12. Seea~ojust savings principle tropes, 15-18, 24, 26, 28, 32, 36, 47, 66, 127, 130, 143, 160, 278, 280; articulation, 28; border dweller, 18, 28,29; internal population of person-like entities, 43n7; crash, 17, 24,28-29, 35; earth mother, 276-82, 288, 295; femn1e fatale, 276-95; heterogeneity, 47n44; infertile, timealtered female body, 288; intersectional, 44n24, 46n44; membership, 35 trust, 65, 74n32, 86, 90, 105-6, 130, 143, 174,212,227 universalizability, 107 utilitarianism, xviii, 111, 134n9 vanitas imagery, 280-86 Venus, 81 volition, second order, 37, 210-12 vulnerability, xvii, 14, 36, 62, 86, 96, 113,131,164, 185, 193,200n4, 233-41, 248, 263, 272n5, 272n9, 272n10,295 Walker, Margaret, 74n25, 75n38, 76n40, 125, 133n1, 137, 155n2, 157n9, 160, 164-77, 211, 272n5, 273n12, 279-80, 298n17 war, 276-82 Weston, Kath, 269 wholeness, xvii, 41, 86-89, 75n35 Wilke, Hannah, 275-78, 286-96, 298n17 Williams, Patricia, 91, 133n4, 227-28, 230-34, 250n4, 250n6,250n8, 250n12,250n16, 250n23, 251n42 Williams, Regina, 91n12 Williams, Serena and Venus, 81, 91 Williams, William Carlos, 129 Women Living under Muslim Laws, 215 xenophobia, 126, 221