Virginia Held

Virginia Held
Held in 2013
Born
Virginia Potter Held

(1929-10-28)October 28, 1929
Mendham, New Jersey, U.S.
DiedMay 26, 2026(2026-05-26) (aged 96)
Philosophical work
InstitutionsColumbia University, Hunter College, CUNY Graduate Center
Main interests
Ethics of care, feminist ethics, morality of political violence

Virginia Potter Held (October 28, 1929 – May 26, 2026) was an American moral, social, political and feminist philosopher whose work on the ethics of care sparked significant research into the ethical dimensions of providing care for others and critiques of the traditional roles of women in society.

Education and career

Held received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University in 1968 and worked at Hunter College as lecturer (1965–69), assistant professor (1969–72), associate professor (1973–77), and full professor from 1977 until her retirement in 2001. Held was affiliated with the CUNY Graduate Center in 1973, and served as deputy executive officer of the Philosophy program at the CUNY Graduate Center from 1980 to 1984. She also served as president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2001–2002.

She was named Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York – Graduate Center and Hunter College in 1996.

Held defended care ethics as a moral framework distinct from Kantian, utilitarian, and virtue ethics. She held that care is fundamental to human institutes and practices, indeed to our survival, as illumined by the Tong and Williams quote: "There can be no ju[s]tice without care…for without care no child would survive and there would be no persons to respect."

Her work on the morality of political violence viewed through the window of the ethics of care has also been significantly influential.

Personal life and death

Held was born in Mendham, New Jersey, on October 28, 1929, and died on May 26, 2026, at the age of 96.

Selected works

Books

  • Held, Virginia (1970). The Public Interest and Individual Interests. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 9780465067732.
  • Held, Virginia; Morgenbesser, Sidney; Nagel, Thomas (1974). Philosophy, Morality, and International Affairs: Essays Edited for the Society for Philosophy and Public Affairs. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195017595.
  • Held, Virginia (1989). Rights and Goods: Justifying Social Action. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226325880.
  • Held, Virginia (1993). Feminist Morality : Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 9780226325934.
  • Hunter College Women's Studies Collective, Virginia Held; et al. (2005). Women's Realities, Women's Choices: An Introduction to Women's Studies (third ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195150353.
  • Held, Virginia (2006). The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global (second ed.). Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195325904.
  • Held, Virginia (2008). How Terrorism is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence. Oxford New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195329599.

Chapters in books

  • Held, Virginia (2008), "Gender identity and the ethics of care in globalized society", in DesAutels, Peggy; Whisnant, Rebecca (eds.), Global feminist ethics: feminist ethics and social theory, Feminist Constructions, Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, pp. 43–58, ISBN 9780742559103.

Journal articles

Encyclopedia articles

  • Feminism and Political Theory in The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy
  • Rights: Moral and Legal from A Companion to Feminist Philosophy
  • Feminist Social and Political Philosophy in Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement (1997).
  • "Power" in Blackwell Dictionary of Business Ethics
  • Mass Media, Moral Pluralism in Encyclopedia of Ethics

For further works see C.V.

References

  1. 1 2 Saunder-Sault, Maureen (2011). Care Ethics. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  2. 1 2 Norlock, Kathryn; Pascoe, Jordan (2009). Zalta, Edward N.; Nodelman, Uri (eds.). Feminist Ethics. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
  3. ↑ Smiley, Marion (June 1999). "Norms and Values: Essays on the Works of Virginia Held". American Political Science Review. Archived from the original on June 10, 2014. Retrieved December 30, 2013 – via HighBeam Research.
  4. 1 2 Held, Virginia. "Virginia Held Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Retrieved June 25, 2013.
  5. ↑ Virginia Held, The Ethics of Care 2006, p. 17
  6. ↑ "How Terrorism Is Wrong: Morality and Political Violence". Times Higher Education. Retrieved June 25, 2013.
  7. ↑ Karen, Kovach (2005), "Held, Virginia Potter (1929–)", in Shook, John R. (ed.), The dictionary of modern American philosophers (4 volume set), Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, pp. 1083–1084, ISBN 9781843710370
  8. ↑ "In Memoriam: Virginia Held". American Philosophical Association. June 3, 2026. Retrieved June 3, 2026.
  9. ↑ Held, Virginia. "Feminism and Political Theory", in The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy, ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.
  10. ↑ Held, Virginia. "Rights: Moral and Legal", in A Companion to Feminist Philosophy, Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1998.
  11. ↑ Held, Virginia. "Feminist Social and Political Philosophy", in Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement, New York: Macmillan, 1997.
  12. ↑ Held, Virginia. "Power." Def. P. Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics. 1 ed. New York: Macmillan, 1998. Print.
  13. ↑ Held, Virginia. "Mass Media" and "Moral Pluralism", in Encyclopedia of Ethics, New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1992.