Introduction
Patricia Smith (1956–) is a US philosopher of law whose work has helped to define American feminist legal theory and to clarify certain issues in legal thought and in liberalism more broadly. The majority of her published work can be grouped into three main categories: feminist legal theory, concerns regarding the distinction between acts and omissions, and the intersections between liberalism and both feminism and philosophy of law.
Feminist Legal Theory
In Feminist Jurisprudence (1993b), Smith outlines a picture of feminist thought broadly as a rejection of patriarchy, or pervasive and systematic male/masculinist domination, reflecting the vocabulary and perspectives of 1980s and 1990s liberal feminist understandings. She argues that this rejection of patriarchy is what all versions of feminism and feminist thought share, along with a commitment “to foster open dialogue that allows the expression of diverse views and gives particular attention to eliciting views not...
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References
Smith P (1989) Recklessness, omission, and responsibility: Some reflections on the moral significance of causation. South J Philos 27(4):569–583
Smith P (1990) The duty to rescue and the slippery slope problem. Soc Theory Pract 16(1):19–41
Smith P (1991) The duty to rescue and willful disregard. Soc Theory Pract 17(3):457–468
Smith P (ed) (1993a) The nature and process of law: an introduction to legal philosophy. Oxford University Press, New York
Smith P (ed) (1993b) Feminist jurisprudence. Oxford University Press, New York
Smith P (1993c) Family responsibility and the nature of obligation. In: Meyers DT (ed) Kindred matters: rethinking the philosophy of the family. Cornell University Press, Ithaca/New York, pp 41–58
Smith P (1994) Individualism and social responsibility: reflections on recent work by French and May. Soc Theory Pract 20(3):363–380
Smith P (1995) Feminist legal critics: The reluctant radicals. In: Caudill DS, Gold SJ (eds) Radical philosophy of law: contemporary challenges to mainstream legal theory and practice. Humanity Books, Amherst, pp 73–87
Smith P (1996) Feminist jurisprudence. In: Patterson DM (ed) A companion to philosophy of law and legal theory. Blackwell, Malden
Smith P (1998) Liberalism and affirmative obligation. Oxford University Press, New York
Smith P (2000) Persistent problems, illusions of progress, and mechanisms of marginalization. In: Estes Y, Farr AL, Smith P, Smyth C (eds) Marginal groups and mainstream american cultures. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, pp 96–110
Smith P (2003a) Omission and responsibility in legal theory. Leg Theory 9(3):221–240
Smith P (2003b) The silent constitution: affirmative obligation and the feminization of poverty. In: Schwarzenbach SA, Smith P (eds) Women and the United States constitution: history, interpretation and practice. Columbia University Press, New York, pp 108–124
Smith P (2004a) Intolerance and exploitation: civic vice, legal norms, and cooperative individualism. In: Sistare CT (ed) Civility and its discontents: essays on civic virtue, toleration and cultural fragmentation. University Press of Kansas, Lawrence, pp 59–70
Smith P (2004b) Liberalism as an antidote to stereotyping. In: Baehr AR (ed) Varieties of feminist liberalism. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 30–46 of electronic version at ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/unca/detail.action?docID=1249478
Smith P (2005) Four themes in feminist legal theory: difference, dominance, domesticity, and denial. In: Golding MP, Edmundson WA (eds) The blackwell guide to the philosophy of law and legal theory. Blackwell, Malden, pp 90–104
Smith P (2009) Feminist philosophy of law. In: Zalta EN (ed) The stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition). https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2009/entries/feminism-law/
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Burchard, M. (2019). Smith, Patricia. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_307-1
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