Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: The Domestic Aesthetic Foundation of Moral Reasoning
1. What Is the "Domestic Aesthetic"?
Phenomenological Intimacy and Distance
Phenomenological Distance and the Concept of Alienation
Decorative Art and the Domestic Aesthetic
The Life of a Household
Intimacy, Drama, and Respect
Women's Roles and the Domestic Aesthetic
2. That Moral Reasoning is Developed through the Exercise of Domestic Aesthetic Skill
Reflection and Moral Learning
Practicing Judgment
Practice and Play
3. Platonic and Aristotelian Ethics and the Domestic Aesthetic
Plato
Aristotle
PART II: Theory, the Domestic Aesthetic, and the Historical Relativity of Moral Reasoning
4. Postmodernity and Character
An Unsatisfying Freedom
MacIntyre's Criticisms of Modern Ethics
Material Conditions and the Historical Relativity of Values
5. Ethics and the Labor Theory of Value
Back to MacIntyre: Rethinking the Effect of the Enlightenment
Mill
Kant
The Development of the Labor Theory from Locke
Smith
Marx
6. Language and Oppression; Thinking and Working
Poststructuralist Disappointments: Baudrillard, Barthes, and Lurie
Bourdieu's Distinction
Language and the Domestic Aesthetic
Peirce and the Later Wittgenstein
PART III: Techniques of Vagueness
7. Fashion Tactics and the Phenomenological Distance
Weird Signs
The Phenomenology of Fashion Tactics
Fashion Tactics and Entertainment
8. Mass Production, Nationalization, Advertising, and Vagueness
Mass Production and Nationalism
Linguistization and Advertising
Advertising, Gender, and Domestic Aesthetics
Three Tricks of the Trade
The Art Commercial
PART IV: Women, Character, and Domestic Aesthetic Choice9. Four Representative Women Characters
The Feministe
The Model
A False Dilemma
A Brief History of the Woman-of-the-House
The Mom
The Working Woman
Conclusion: Motherless, Friendship, and Criticism
Notes
Bibliography
Index