Reconsidering Ethics and Politics

Both Eloise Buker and Melissa Orlie are concerned with how to construct an ethical politics in the contemporary world. Both adopt a broadly conceived “postmodern” perspective to accomplish this goal. But the similarity between their respective books ends there. One of Eloise Buker’s central goals is to describe the position she advocates in concrete political terms. Her political position is clear and illustrated with numerous real world examples. Melissa Orlie’s book, on the other hand, is more theoretically sophisticated, but the politics she advocates is ill defined. Although her theoretical scope is broader, the politics it entails remains indistinct.

The first thing that should be noted about Eloise Buker’s book is that it is very ambitious. Her intent is to both describe and advocate what she calls “conversations” between feminism, the law, science, and the postmodern. Anyone familiar with contemporary feminist theory knows that these “conversations” have been extensive; reviewing them entails reviewing a substantial portion of contemporary feminist theory. Although Buker limits her survey to works published since 1980 by US scholars, hers is nevertheless a daunting task. Buker accomplishes this task admirably. Her discussions provide a useful summary of these vital aspects of feminist theory.

But Buker intends to do much more than summarize these aspects of contemporary feminist theory. She wants, first, to argue for the viability and usefulness of the approaches of feminist jurisprudence, feminist science and feminist postmodernism. Second, she wants to argue for a specifically political application of these approaches. Her argument here is, unlike that of many political theorists, very concrete. She offers particular political instances of these positions and relevant political examples to illustrate her points.

Buker defines the aim of her book as using these three conversations to negotiate politics by focusing on justice, truth, and ethics. She begins with the assumption that theory building is necessary for political work. Uniting her discussions in these three areas is her emphasis on narrative. Buker argues that constructing new narratives can change political practice, bring new perspectives into politics, and give a voice to marginalized groups. Thus in her discussion of feminist jurisprudence she argues that feminists are rebuilding legal discourse and thus how the law effects citizens. She suggests a number of concrete ways in which feminist jurisprudence has and continues to reshape legal discourse, revealing bias and offering new methods for legal decision-making.

In her discussion of feminist science and feminist postmodernism Buker moves into more unconventional territory. Like many other feminists, Buker tries to debunk the notion that science tells the one true story about reality. Instead she asserts that science tells one story. Both aspects of this statement are radical (as she herself admits, p.104). That science is only one story among many and that it is a “story” both fly in the face of the ideology of science. Against this ideology Buker argues that the story metaphor can “generate new and more complex criteria for judging the merits of scientific work” (p.113). Buker wants to link science and politics both by making science politically responsible and by bringing the “truth” of science into politics as one truth among others.

Buker’s definition of postmodern feminism is one that many feminists, perhaps even many postmodern feminists, would question: “postmodern feminism offers a way of seeing our moral codes as articulations of what we take to be the good in our cultural heritage” (p.141). Buker persuasively defends postmodern feminism against its many critics, then goes on to argue that it offers metaphors that can be used to suggest new public policy alternatives: hybrid selves, bodies, geography, and language. She concludes by offering a model of ethics suggested by postmodern feminism: “Postmodern feminism brings politics down to the everyday because it involves the politics of daily living” (p.202).

Buker’s book is not only ambitious, it is optimistic. She believes that the narratives she advocates can and will change politics in the US. I am most...