Politics of the Ordinary

What is an ethics formulated in a "different voice" ? This book
develops the connection between ordinary language philosophy,
represented by Wittgenstein and Austin, and the ethics of care. Care
is at once a practical response to specific needs and a sensitivity to
the ordinary details of human life that matter. The Ordinary has been
variously denied, undervalued, or neglected - not taken into account -
in theoretical thought. Such negligence, I propose, has to do with
widespread contempt for ordinary life inasmuch as it is domestic and
female. The disdain stems from the gendered hierarchy of objects deemed
worthy of intellectual research. One important aspect of ordinary
language philosophy is its capacity to call our attention to human
expressiveness as embodied in women's voices. It thus provides the basis
for a re-definition of philosophyas attention to ordinary life, and care
for moral expression. This book proposes nothing less than a paradigm
shift in ethics, with a reorientation towards vulnerability and a shift
from the "just" to the "important."