Held, “Non-contractual Society” PHIL 219 Held, “Non-contractual Society”

Virginia Held (1929-) Virginia Held is a prominent American feminist and moral philosopher. Until her retirement, she held joint positions at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She’s best known for the development of a very influential normative moral theory known as “Care Ethics.”

”Non-contractual Society” (1987) The essay we’re discussing is a contribution to social and political philosophy. In it, Held articulates a vision of the social resistant to the prevailing contractarian view. The contractarian view, on her account, makes certain assumptions about individuals and the nature of the political that are not universally true. More specifically, they, “…overlook or…discount in very fundamental ways the experience of women” (1010c2).

In the Grip Held begins her essay by characterizing the main features of this ‘prevailing view.’ It consists in part of assumptions about human beings as, “…independent, self-interested [Hobbes] or mutually disinterested [Rousseau] individuals” (101oc1). It also consists of prevailing assumptions about various forms of social relations; namely, that they are best understood as contractual. These contractual relations include forms of government, economic relationships, and cultural relationships (‘the marketplace of ideas’). Finally, it has come to dominate even our thinking about our moral commitments. As Held characterizes it, this view has come to dominate much of our thinking about ourselves and our social/political existence.

In Contrast As pervasive as this view may be, Held believes it stands in stark contrast to the realities of our social and political existence. Echoing concerns we’ve seen with the help of Marx, Held observes that, “Actual societies are the results of war, exploitation, racism, and patriarchy, far more than of social contracts” (1010c2). As Marx would insist, though we often think of the employment relationship as one of free choice (so called ‘at-will’ employment) the worker is not a contractual equal to the capitalist, and cultural products are far too often reduced to the form of disposable commodities.

An Alternative Account Held is not just repeating the critiques of Marx or other social critics. Rather, she is suggesting a very different alternative, “I will take the point of view of women, and especially mothers, as the basis for trying to rethink society and its possible goals” (1010c2). As she goes on to observe, there is a long tradition of social/political theorizing that, though it has ignored the specificity of motherhood, has understood the social and political as rooted in familial relations. While acknowledging that there is likely more to say about the social than can be articulated on this basis, the dominance of the (essentially masculinist) contractarian approach is usefully contested by a focus on the specificity of [an aspect of] women’s experience. Obviously, not all women are mothers, and Held is clear that she is not trying to speak as ‘universal woman.’ Rather she addresses herself to mothering, understanding it as something both men and women can do. Just as obviously, mothering is itself a socially constructed activity, and we thus must be careful to distinguish actual practices (which may reflect the influences of contractarian thinking/patriarchy) from possible ones (what mothering might be like outside of the ‘grip’).

Outside the Contract The attempt to think of the social on the basis of mothering, outside the confines of the contract, gets an initial boost from the recognition that, according to traditional social/political theory, women and children were no part of the contract. Held refers to Rousseau’s account of the contract as an example. Despite his concerns about inequality, Rousseau did not hesitate to enshrine the inequality of men and women at the heart of his contract (cf. 1012-13). Held accounts for the ease with which women have been excluded from the contract by their close identification with mothering, which traditionally has been viewed as an essentially biological function. As Held notes, ‘mothering’ extends far beyond biology. It encompasses protection, care, language acquisition, survival skills, moral inculcation, encouraging independence, etc. (1013c2). None of this seems readily appreciable from the perspective of the contract.

Inside or Outside? One common response to this sort of analysis by feminist philosophers has been to argue for the expansion of the contract to include women. More recently, the suggestion has been made that we should reverse this argument, insisting that, “…we should export to the wider society the relations suitable for mothering persons and children” (1014c2). As Held makes clear, this would amount to, “...explor[ing] what relations between children and mothering persons should be in non=patriarchal socieities, and to consider how a transformed household might contribute to a transformed society” (1015c1).

Non-Patriarchal Families As Held observes, research into alternative family structures and parenting styles was relatively new in 1987, but it has been an active research area for social scientists for at least 40 years. However, it’s difficult even for researchers to avoid the gravity of patriarchal family structures, and there are a number of conceptual and empirical obstacles that remain. Just as significantly, as this excerpt from a New York Times article from March 31st, 2017 reminds us, general attitudes about patriarchal family structure are and will likely continue to be variable.

A Conceptual Question In addition to these empirical challenges, there is an important conceptual question that must be addressed, “…what are the possibilities of remaking society by remaking what have been thought of as ‘personal’ relations” (1015c2)? The answer lies in the assumptions of contractarian thinkng, which treats persons and socieites as abstractions, thus rendering any account of their relations abstract. In fact, of course, personal and social relations are not abstract. They are concrete and complicated. As a result, there is always a gap between theory and fact. We can close this gap if we start not with abstractions but with real, concrete relations like mothering.

Mothering (pt.1) We need to analyze the dimensions of the mothering relation. It can’t be conceived of as a contractual relationship. It has in fact been typically non-voluntary for mothers throughout most of human history and is still non- voluntary for many mothers. It is always non-voluntary for children. It is a ‘blind’ relationship in that neither party knows what they are getting into in advance. It is typically a non-reciprocal relationship. It can’t be conceived as a free market relationship. In market relationships, everything is impermanent and replaceable. The mothering/parenting relationship is permanent and while many people can mother, mothering can’t be disposed of. The mothering relationship exhibits equality of consideration, but that is substantially different than equality of rights. The rights of the individuals involved in the mothering relationship do not exhaust the moral concerns addressed by the relationship.

Mothering (pt. 2) The moral obligations revealed in the mothering relationship are ‘thick’ ones. We can’t satisfy them by observing a principle of non-interference (think Locke or Rousseau). The individuals involved in the mothering relationship cannot be properly conceived of as ‘independent.’ The child certainly isn’t, and neither is the mothering person. We don’t start as independent individuals that have to figure out how to tie ourselves to each other. We are always already ‘tied’ and have to figure out how to individuate ourselves. The mothering relationship offers a new model of power. Mothering power is not power over others, it is rather empowering others.

Mothering and Morality Held draws some important connections between this account of the dimensions of mothering and her normative moral theory: Care Ethics. As she notes, for someone like Hobbes, morality emerges on the basis of a shared vulnerability. Mothering is a response to vulnerability as well, but the vulnerability is not a shared or common one. It is rather that particular vulnerabilities of the object of mothering, considered in concert with the particular resources available to the mothering person. One lesson: “…morality must connect with the actual context of real, particular others in need” (1020c1). Another comes to us from the position of the child, vulnerable in their need, “...we should probably none of us forget what it is like to lack power” (1021c1).

Mothering and Society What would a society modeled on the mothering relationship look like? Held has offered some suggestions, but most of her observations are negative in character. It certainly wouldn’t look like a society predicated on a ‘contract’ between isolated, abstracted individuals. It would require a radical rethinking of our notion of the social, of the distinction between the citizen and the state, of the private and the public, and of equality and the law.