| This dissertation provides a critical feminist ethical evaluation of the globalization debates that currently permeate academic and popular discourse. The study offers an original typology of four competing theories of globalization—neoliberal, development, earthist, and postcolonial—as a way of reading the globalization discourse. The thesis also engages in an analysis of the different visions of “the good life” inherent in these divergent theories of globalization. The author argues that our moral task is to ensure that globalization proceeds in ways that honor creation and life and that any theory of globalization ought to be grounded in values that prioritize a democratized understanding of power, encourage care for the planet, and further the social well-being of people. These three values form the normative grid used to evaluate the competing claims present in the different discourse streams.; The chapters delineating the four theories of globalization begin by situating each perspective within the historical framework most commonly accepted by that position, followed by a presentation of the ideological assumptions that inform each perspective. The chapters then move to an articulation of each position's understanding of what globalization should look like, including the strengths and weaknesses of present forms of globalization as viewed from that particular standpoint. Each chapter concludes with a presentation of the position's vision of the good life as expressed through the values most closely associated with human moral agency, teleology and human flourishing. |
