Spelman on the Household as Repair Shop

2024-2 Feminist Ethics

 

While reading Spelman’s article, I was wondering whether the aim of the paper is to explain society (particularly the household) using the concept of Homo reparans, or to criticize this very notion. According to Spelman, “there is a powerful and fascinating case for regarding Homo sapiens as Homo reparans” in the sense that objects (including ourselves) and relationships are prone to breaking, decaying, unraveling, and falling apart, thus necessitating repair (Spelman 2004: 43). Admittedly, there is a resemblance between repairing a car, healing (both physical and psychological) wounds, and maintaining social relationships (Spelman 2004: 44, 47-48). In this regard, one might tend to think that “like cars, humans need not just maintenance but also repair if they are to keep on functioning. […] If there is any analogy at all between the repair of automobiles and the repair of persons, we ought to be able to specify what function is being restored when the repair of persons or some aspect of them is taking place” (Spelman 2004: 48-49).

However, I believe we ought to ask whether people have any functions as essential properties in the first place. It is natural to assume that artifacts like cars or screwdrivers have their functions constituting their essence. But a problem immediately arises when this idea is applied to human beings. This analogy risks endorsing a form of (bad) essentialism by implying that human beings possess essential functions (or potentiality to actualize such functions) as good citizens or workers. This essentialism is problematic, as it historically justified constraints on human freedom. For instance, it is inappropriate to characterize the essence of women as reproduction. In page 50, Spelman asks: “But is repairing the worker to be able to function in the workplace compatible with repairing him or her to be able to function as citizens?” However, it is not even clear whether the notion of citizens or workers essentially have functions or whether those functions are to be restored or repaired. Interestingly, Spelman seems to express the similar worry in several passages (“Although cars can’t be violated by attempts to repair them […] there are moral constraints on our attempts to repair others, to “straighten them out” against their will” (Spelman 2004: 48)). Therefore, it was somewhat unclear to me why Spelman holds this analogy.

 

Reference

Spelman, Elizabeth (2004). The household as repair shop. In Cheshire Calhoun (ed.), Setting the moral compass: essays by women philosophers. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 43-58.