Lesson: Understanding Oppression as a Critique of Hedonism
After teaching the hedonism of Bentham and Mill in my Introduction to Ethics class, I often assign Marilyn Frye’s classic feminist essay “Oppression.” (I got this idea from the late, great Claudia Card). This serves two pedagogical purposes for me. First, it exposes my intro students to excellent feminist philosophy without relegating it to its own “feminist ethics” unit at the end of the semester. Second, it offers a fascinating critique of hedonism (even though that is not the main point of the essay).