‘The Caring Person’ subject of the David Norton Memorial Lecture, Nov. 19

8:51 a.m., Nov. 12, 2003--Feminist philosopher Virginia Held, Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York Graduate School, will be the featured speaker for the 2003 fall David Norton Memorial Lecture, at 7 p.m., Wednesday, Nov. 19, in the Clayton Hall Conference Center. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Held, considered a feminist with a revolutionary perspective on women in society, will lecture on “The Caring Person.”

In her book “Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society and Politics,” Held suggests that social, political and cultural institutions are based on masculine ideals of morality, different from feminist morality. She examines the effects feminist morality can have on social values and its implications for altering standards of freedom, democracy, equality and personal development. She contends that the culture of feminism could provide a fresh perspective on contemporary social problems.

Held also authored “The Public Interest and Individual Interests“ and “Rights and Goods: Justifying Social Action.” She has taught at Yale, Dartmouth and UCLA and is currently working on a number of essays on the ethics of care and the challenges it presents to standard moral theories.

The Norton lecture series is supported by the David Norton Memorial Fund, the Master of Arts in Liberal Studies Program, the Department of Philosophy, the Class of 1955 Ethics Endowment Fund and the Makaguchi Foundation.

Article by Barbara Garrison

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