Moving beyond the traditional feminist ethics of care, Bell places an existential conception of liberation at the heart of ethics, arguing that only an ethics of freedom sufficiently allows for feminist critique and opposition to a status quo imbued with violence. The writer offers a critique of Artistotelian, utilitarian and Kantian ethics, analysing each approach from feminist perspectives, and showing how each fails women and others who resist oppression. Drawing upon Sartre's works, Bell also develops ideas of freedom, love and playfulness. She proposes a theory of ethics that affirms freedom and its value against claims concerning happiness, universalisability and the determinism of nature, natures and needs, while postulating ideals in such a way that they do not easily become co-opted as supports for oppression.

Author Biography

Linda A. Bell is professor of philosophy at Georgia State University.