Virtue Ethics By Aristotle And Feminist Ethics

David, a six- year old boy, has recently been playing with his sister’ s toys: Barbie dolls, dressing-up, and kitchen sets. David’s parents do not like him doing this and therefore forbid him from playing with these “girl” toys. They give him cars, action figures and guns. Carl is David’s uncle and one night he is babysitting David and notices him playing with the forbidden toys. Carl is aware of the parent’s disapproval and also knows that David will probably tell his parents. The question being discussed is what should Carl do? Throughout this paper, I’m going to discuss two different approaches on Ethics: Virtue Ethics by Aristotle and Feminist Ethics by Alison Jaggar.
Virtue Ethics according to Aristotle bases morality on the virtues that …show more content…
I love the feminist ethics argument in that it doesn’t specify what is gender specific. It’s both empowering girls and boys to defy stereotyping and become who they want to be regardless of outside opinions. We as a nation are built on this standard that will take years to break. If people are more accepting of decisions children want to make for themselves, it creates a more independent child. Therefore, resulting in a happier more well- grounded child. Some possible objections to the feminist argument would be something like if David decided he wanted to play with boy toys wouldn’t that be his own decision and therefore, not be anything negative. To this objection I respond by modifying the argument. David’s parents have already shown their disapproval of the “feminine” toys. The damage to David has already been done in that he may only be doing what his parents want. This can cause a disconnect between who David is when his parents aren’t around, for example, when Carl is babysitting him and when they are around. He could only be doing what his parents want and confusing that with what he wants. A possible objection to Virtue Ethics could be that it’s subjective as to what virtues are learned and those same virtues could be taught by playing with boy toys and Carl not letting him play with the “girl” toys. To this objection, I respond with biting the bullet. The objection applies, however, David’s relationship with Carl will suffer because David will view Carl as a bad guy because he’s not letting him play with the toys he wants to play with. All in all, I still believe Carl should let David play with the feminine