Contentsimage 1image 2image 3image 4image 5image 6image 7image 8image 9image 10image 11image 12image 13image 14image 15image 16image 17image 18image 19image 20image 21image 22Issue Table of ContentsPhilosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 1, Winter, 1990Front Matter [pp.1-2]Facing Diversity: The Case of Epistemic Abstinence [pp.3-46]Harming Future People [pp.47-70]Is Women's Labor a Commodity? [pp.71-92]Morality and Nuclear Weapons Policy [pp.93-106]Back Matter [pp.107-107]Is Women's Labor a Commodity?Author(s): Elizabeth S. AndersonSource: Philosophy & Public Affairs, Vol. 19, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 71-92Published by: WileyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265363Accessed: 29-09-2016 20:11 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article:http://www.jstor.org/stable/2265363?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusteddigital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information aboutJSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttp://about.jstor.org/termsWiley is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Philosophy & Public AffairsThis content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 20:11:41 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/termsELIZABETH S. ANDERSON Is Women's Labor a Commodity? In the past few years the practice of commercial surrogate motherhood has gained notoriety as a method for acquiring children. A commercial surrogate mother is anyone who is paid money to bear a child for other people and terminate her parental rights, so that the others may raise the child as exclusively their own. The growth of commercial surrogacy has raised with new urgency a class of concerns regarding the proper scope of the market. Some critics have objected to commercial surrogacy on the ground that it improperly treats children and women's reproductive capacities as commodities.' The prospect of reducing children to con- sumer durables and women to baby factories surely inspires revulsion. But are there good reasons behind the revulsion? And is this an accurate description of what commercial surrogacy implies? This article offers a theory about what things are properly regarded as commodities which supports the claim that commercial surrogacy constitutes an uncon- scionable commodification of children and of women's reproductive ca- pacities. WHAT IS A COMMODITY? The modern market can be characterized in terms of the legal and social norms by which it governs the production, exchange, and enjoyment of The author thanks David Anderson, Steven Darwall, Ezekiel Emanuel, Daniel Haus- man, Don Herzog, Robert Nozick, Richard Pildes, John Rawls, Michael Sandel, Thomas Scanlon, and Howard Wial for helpful comments and criticisms. i. See, for example, Gena Corea, The Mother Machine (New York: Harper and Row, I985), pp. 2I6, 2I9; Angela Holder, "Surrogate Motherhood: Babies for Fun and Profit," Case and Comment go (I985): 3-I i; and Margaret Jane Radin, "Market Inalienability," Harvard Law Review ioo (June I987): I849-I937.This content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 20:11:41 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms72 Philosophy & Public Affairs commodities. To say that something is properly regarded as a commodity is to claim that the norms of the market are appropriate for regulating its production, exchange, and enjoyment. To the extent that moral princi- ples or ethical ideals preclude the application of market norms to a good, we may say that the good is not a (proper) commodity. Why should we object to the application of a market norm to the pro- duction or distribution of a good? One reason may be that to produce or distribute the good in accordance with the norm is to fail to value it in an appropriate way. Consider, for example, a standard Kantian argu- ment against slavery, or the commodification of persons. Slaves are treated in accordance with the market norn that owners may use com- modities to satisfy their own interests without regard for the interests of the commodities themselves. To treat a person without regard for her interests is to fail to respect her. But slaves are persons who may not be merely used in this fashion, since as rational beings they possess a dig- nity which commands respect. In Kantian theory, the problem with slav- ery is that it treats beings worthy of respect as if they were worthy merely of use. "Respect" and "use" in this context denote what we may call dif- ferent modes of valuation. We value things and persons in other ways than by respecting and using them. For example, love, admiration, honor, and appreciation constitute distinct modes of valuation. To value a thing or person in a distinctive way involves treating it in accordance with a particular set of norms. For example, courtesy expresses a mode of valuation we may call "civil respect," which differs from Kantian re- spect in that it calls for obedience to the rules of etiquette rather than to the categorical imperative. Any ideal of human life includes a conception of how different things and persons should be valued. Let us reserve the term "use" to refer to the mode of valuation proper to commodities, which follows the market norm of treating things solely in accordance with the owner's nonmoral preferences. Then the Kantian argument against commodifying persons can be generalized to apply to many other cases. It can be argued that many objects which are worthy of a higher mode of valuation than use are not properly regarded as mere commodities.2 Some current argu- 2. The notion of valuing something more highly than another can be understood as fol- lows. Some preferences are neither obligatory nor admirable. To value a thing as a mere use-object is to treat it solely in accordance with such nonethical preferences. To value a thing or person more highly than as a mere use-object is to recognize it as having someThis content downloaded from 128.205.114.91 on Thu, 29 Sep 2016 20:11:41 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms73 Is Women's Labor a Commodity? ments against the colorization of