Aquinas, Feminism, and the Common Good (Moral Traditions Series)

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Summary: Virtue Ethics Feminist Style
Review: Aquinas, Feminism, and the Common Good by Susanne M. Decrane (Georgetown University Press) it is widely recognized that postmodernism has shaped contemporary approaches to theology and ethics) Given this fact, a writer must make clear at the outset the ways in which she responds to the postmodern challenge regarding the use of classic texts and universal claims. However, the issue is not as simple as responding to a singular postmodern challenge. Rather, the postmodern critique of modern, liberal, Enlightenment-based convictions holds within it a range of orientations toward purported universal truths. This book is a response to these postmodern positions. At the same time, it offers a constructive method for retrieving a classic text from the Christian tradition-Thomas Aquinas's principle of the common good-from a feminist, liberationist perspective, and applying this text to contemporary issues in women's health care in the United States.
Some postmodern positions reject many, most, or sometimes all classic texts as no longer relevant or usable because they bear the enduring (some would say imprisoning) presumptions of the contexts in which they developed and which render the texts otiose, having little or no cultural, philosophical, scientific, sociological, religious, or ethical bearing on the current situation. From a feminist perspective, the misogyny identified in many classic texts-or the negative presumptions about women (and nonwhite persons) embedded in universal claims-appears so blatant and/or pervasive, that it seems impossible to find in these texts any contribution to the human project. This is also true for most feminist scholars in the Christian tradition who find in the classic texts-especially, but not limited to, the Scriptures-and in many Christian doctrines judgments about women presented as universal truth claims that in themselves are denigrating and untrue, and which have functioned historically to justify social, economic, and religious relationships of power that are extremely harmful to women. In the face of this critique, some Christian feminist scholars withdraw the designations "canonical" "authoritative," or "revelatory" from Christian texts or from parts of texts that reveal insupportable presumptions and judgments about women. Rosemary Radford Ruether's now classic statement represents this position:
Whatever denies, diminishes, or distorts the full humanity of women is, therefore, appraised as not redemptive. Theologically speaking, whatever diminishes or denies the full humanity of women must be presumed not to reflect the divine or an authentic relation to the divine, or to reflect the authentic nature of things, or to be the message or work of an authentic redeemer or a community of redemptions.
Other Christian feminist scholars have responded to the scriptural and doctrinal aspects of the Christian tradition that denigrate the dignity of women by withdrawing from the Christian tradition altogether, judging it to be irredeemably misogynistic.
Postmodernity has given rise to another trajectory. Here, efforts to find rapprochement between diverse views-such as Hans-Georg Gadamer's notion of the "to and fro" of conversation as a model of interpretation, and David Tracy's effort to bring the wisdom and values of a theological tradition into the public arena-are rejected. Rather, the classic texts and traditional doctrines (and traditional interpretations of the doctrines) of the community are given pride of place by the community or person. This approach finds expression in the Christian tradition in the writings of George Lindbeck. In his framework, priority is given to the Scriptures among the various sources for Christian theology, and reason and experience are given less weight.
Decrane's argument is that many of the postmodern critiques regarding the oppressive, crippling presumptions identified in many classic texts (as well as in traditional formulations of many Christian doctrines) are deeply needed in order to argue effectively against the texts, interpretations, and doctrines judged by women to be facile, erroneous, oppressive, and reductionistic. This critique is not simply a worthy intellectual exercise, but extends to a critique of systems, institutions, and policies that are based on these texts and doctrines and which have harmed women in particular. At the same time, however, a feminist, liberationist retrieval of the principle of the common good not only contributes to the project of feminist ethics but makes the Christian moral tradition richer by exposing the relevance and significance of the classic principle in a venue very different from its historical origins.
The more radical forms of postmodern relativism, which reject the possibility of virtually any universal claims, are a shortsighted response to the abuses of universal claims in the past. In fact, classic texts of a tradition may serve as sources of insight and wisdom if retrieved through a rigorous, critical process. To reject classic texts leaves the human community stripped of enduring sources of human wisdom and moral insight. In order to defend this claim, however, one must demonstrate a critical way to adjudicate and retrieve both classic texts and traditions that have been part of sustaining the oppressive social and religious systems against women. This is essential if one is to prevent merely cosmetic realignments of the same oppressive insights and conclusions.
In order to accomplish this, Decrane retrieves Thomas Aquinas's principle of the common good-a fundamental ethical proposition in the Christian (and particularly the Roman Catholic) tradition-and apply it to two issues in health care in the United States: women's health in general, and black women and breast cancer in particular. Retrieving this principle is significant in that it will demonstrate that a feminist, liberationist approach to ethics can accommodate and appropriate a universal claim that has seemed, for centuries, to oppress-not liberate-women.