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Now that I'm getting a little cranked up, I want to say more about Virginia Held and a feminist perspective on ethical theory.

First of all, Held believes that the moral experience of women is partially different from that of men. For example, women are mothers and men are not. She also believes -- and I can't see how anyone can deny this -- that the unique elements in women's moral experience have been almost entirely left out of the historical development of moral theory. And finally, Held argues that if we were to incorporate women's moral experience into our moral theories, it might very well change those theories considerably.

I have already asked what would happen to contractarianism if the experience of mothering were considered in developing moral theory. We can expand that question somewhat. What would happen to moral theory in general if women's experience of caring for other people and the relationships between people were moved to the center of our concerns?

It may be true that the great theoretical traditions of Kantianism, utilitarianism, and contractarianism would all require significant modification if we began to incorporate women's experience. And that might have profound implications for our ideas about rights, including property rights.