Taste and the Household

Janet McCracken is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Lake Forest College. She is the author of Thinking About Gender: A Historical Anthology.

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroduction PART I: The Domestic Aesthetic Foundation of Moral Reasoning 1. What Is the "Domestic Aesthetic"? Phenomenological Intimacy and DistancePhenomenological Distance and the Concept of AlienationDecorative Art and the Domestic AestheticThe Life of a HouseholdIntimacy, Drama, and RespectWomen's Roles and the Domestic Aesthetic 2. That Moral Reasoning is Developed through the Exercise of Domestic Aesthetic Skill Reflection and Moral LearningPracticing JudgmentPractice and Play 3. Platonic and Aristotelian Ethics and the Domestic Aesthetic PlatoAristotlePART II: Theory, the Domestic Aesthetic, and the Historical Relativity of Moral Reasoning 4. Postmodernity and Character An Unsatisfying FreedomMacIntyre's Criticisms of Modern EthicsMaterial Conditions and the Historical Relativity of Values 5. Ethics and the Labor Theory of Value Back to MacIntyre: Rethinking the Effect of the EnlightenmentMillKantThe Development of the Labor Theory from LockeSmithMarx 6. Language and Oppression; Thinking and Working Poststructuralist Disappointments: Baudrillard, Barthes, and LurieBourdieu's DistinctionLanguage and the Domestic AestheticPeirce and the Later WittgensteinPART III: Techniques of Vagueness 7. Fashion Tactics and the Phenomenological Distance Weird SignsThe Phenomenology of Fashion TacticsFashion Tactics and Entertainment 8. Mass Production, Nationalization, Advertising, and Vagueness Mass Production and NationalismLinguistization and AdvertisingAdvertising, Gender, and Domestic AestheticsThree Tricks of the TradeThe Art CommercialPART IV: Women, Character, and Domestic Aesthetic Choice 9. Four Representative Women Characters The FeministeThe ModelA False DilemmaA Brief History of the Woman-of-the-HouseThe MomThe Working Woman Conclusion: Motherless, Friendship, and Criticism NotesBibliographyIndex

"I like the author's insightful analyses of the moral importance and moral implications of everyday domestic choices. I especially like McCracken's criticism of the 'phenomenological distancing' and 'techniques of vagueness' of contemporary culture and her relating her ideas to points in Plato and Aristotle. She takes a fresh and interesting approach to the problem of moral choice, showing the relevance of ordinary domestic matters to grand, traditional, ethical topics like virtue, skill, and happiness." — Donald C. Abel, editor of Fifty Readings in Philosophy