Queer Relationality is an approach to understanding relationships that challenges traditional ethical theories of duty, care, and responsibility by emphasizing the importance of individual identity, desire, and pleasure. It was developed by queer theorists such as Judith Butler and Eve Sedgwick in the late twentieth century as a way of challenging dominant normative assumptions about gender and sexuality. Queer Relationality rejects the idea that all people are heterosexual and/or cisgender and instead recognizes that there is a wide range of possible identities, desires, and ways of relating to others. This article will explore how Queer Relationality can be used to challenge traditional ethical theories of duty, care, and responsibility.
Duty
Traditional ethical theory often focuses on what individuals owe to one another based on their roles and relationships.
Parents have a duty to provide for and protect their children, employers have a duty to pay employees fairly, and citizens have a duty to obey laws.
Queer Relationality suggests that these duties may not apply equally across different relationship types. Someone's obligations toward someone else may depend more on the specific context of the relationship than on broader social structures.
A parent may feel more duty-bound to care for a child who has special needs or disabilities than they do toward a healthy child. Similarly, two partners may choose to prioritize each other's needs differently depending on their own unique circumstances and preferences.
Care
Care ethics also emphasizes the importance of relationships but from a slightly different perspective. Rather than focusing on what individuals owe each other, it considers how we should act towards one another out of concern for our shared humanity. In this model, caring for others involves attending to their needs in order to promote their flourishing.
As with duty, Queer Relationality questions whether care should always take precedence over other concerns.
Some people might prioritize their own happiness and well-being even if it comes at the expense of their partner's, while others may prioritize their partner's needs even if it means sacrificing their own.
Responsibility
Traditional theories of responsibility often focus on individual accountability and moral responsibility for actions. This approach assumes that everyone is capable of making rational decisions about right and wrong and that individuals are responsible for their choices and actions.
Queer Relationality challenges this assumption by recognizing that relationships can be complex and messy. People may not always have complete control over their thoughts or feelings, and their identities and desires may change over time. As such, it suggests that responsibility should be shared between individuals rather than assigned solely to any single person.
Queer Relationality offers an alternative way of understanding relationships and ethical obligations that challenges traditional assumptions about gender, sexuality, and identity. By emphasizing the importance of individual desire and pleasure, it calls into question the validity of traditional approaches to duty, care, and responsibility. While these models remain useful in certain contexts, they may no longer be sufficient when applied to all relationships.
How does queer relationality challenge traditional ethical theories of duty, care, and responsibility?
Queer relationality challenges traditional ethical theories of duty, care, and responsibility by introducing new notions of agency, intimacy, and power dynamics that go beyond established binaries such as self/other, male/female, dominant/submissive, inside/outside, normal/abnormal, etc.