Kant & Hobbes on Women (was shirtless helots & neo-asceticism)

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

Justin wrote:
>That woulld mean, for K, that they would be incapable of free and moral
>action, that is, they would not be human. I don't think he thought that. And
>if he did--the passages you quote can be understood as diescriptions of the
>state of the law at the time rather than advocacy of the inferiority of women
>and its proper subordation--it was inconsistent with his theory, which
>demands treating women as equals to men.

I have already mentioned that Kant thinks women should not have "civil
personality" (and the same goes for servants, hirelings, etc.); women have
a "purely inherent existence" as servants, etc. do; and the head of
household should have "a right to persons akin to a right to things" and he
can bring back his wife, children, and servants "in his control by his
unilateral choice" if they run away.  Kant's refusal to accord rights to
women is based upon his conception of women's lack of practical reason:

*****   The content of woman's great science, rather, is humankind, and
among humanity, men.  Her philosophy is not to reason, but to sense.  In
the opportunity that one wants to give to women to cultivate their
beautiful nature, one must always keep this relation before his eyes.  One
will seek to broaden their total moral feelings and not their memory, and
that of course not by universal rules but by some judgment upon the conduct
that they see about them.   (Kant, _Observations on the Feeling of the
Beautiful and Sublime_)   *****

While Kant is not as obsessively misogynistic as Rousseau, his verdict that
women are by nature unable to reason and judge for themselves as men can is
clear.  The conception of women as devoid of reason (if not sense) and the
denial of women's political rights went hand in hand for most Enlightenment
philosophers.

In contrast to Kant, Hobbes, one of the few materialists in the history of
philosophy, does not believe in the natural inequality between men and
women.  On the contrary, in the Hobbesian state of nature, men and women
are not only equal, but women, not men, have the "parental dominion" over
children:

*****   The right of dominion by generation is that which the parent hath
over his children, and is called PATERNAL; and is not so derived from the
generation, as if...the parent had dominion over his child because he begat
him....For, as to the generation, God hath ordained...there be always two
that are equally parents....And whereas some have attributed the dominion
to the man only, as being of the more excellent sex, they misreckon in it.
For there is not always the difference of strength, or prudence between the
man and the woman, as that the right can be determined without war.  In
commonwealths, this controversy is decided by the civil law; and for the
most part (but not always), the sentence is in favour of the father,
because, for the most part, commonwealths have been erected by the fathers,
not by the mothers of families....

If there is no contract, the dominion is in the mother.  For in the
condition of mere nature, where there are no matrimonial laws, it cannot be
known who is the father unless it be declared by the mother: and therefore
the right of dominion over the child dependeth on her will, and is
consequently hers.   (Hobbes, _Leviathan_)   *****

A believer in practical equality of all human beings in the faculties of
minds and bodies, Hobbes doesn't offer a typical justification of women's
subordination based upon the alleged natural inequality of sexes.  Instead,
he provides a materialist explanation for the subordination of women in
"commonwealths": "because, for the most part, commonwealths have been
erected by the fathers, not by the mothers of families...".  Hobbes doesn't
use his reasoning to argue for gender equality in "commonwealths" -- far
from it; however, his materialism is preferable to Kant's idealism, in that
Hobbes at least doesn't spin a theory that naturalizes gender oppression in
an effort to reconcile the subordination of women (and the working class)
with the pretended universalism of laws & reason.

Yoshie