Virginia Potter Held (October 28, 1929 – May 26, 2026) was an American moral, social, political and feminist philosopher whose work on the ethics of care sparked significant research into the ethical dimensions of providing care for others and critiques of the traditional roles of women in society.
Education and career Held received her Ph.D. in philosophy from Columbia University in 1968 and worked at Hunter College as lecturer (1965–69), assistant professor (1969–72), associate professor (1973–77), and full professor from 1977 until her retirement in 2001. Held was affiliated with the CUNY Graduate Center in 1973, and served as deputy executive officer of the Philosophy program at the CUNY Graduate Center from 1980 to 1984. She also served as president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 2001–2002.
She was named Distinguished Professor at the City University of New York – Graduate Center and Hunter College in 1996.
Held defended care ethics as a moral framework distinct from Kantian, utilitarian, and virtue ethics. She held that care is fundamental to human institutes and practices, indeed to our survival, as illumined by the Tong and Williams quote: "There can be no ju[s]tice without care…for without care no child would survive and there would be no persons to respect."Virginia Held, The Ethics of Care 2006, p. 17
Her work on the morality of political violence viewed through the window of the ethics of care has also been significantly influential.
Personal life and death Held was born in Mendham, New Jersey, on October 28, 1929, and died on May 26, 2026, at the age of 96.
Selected works
Books
Chapters in books
Journal articles
Encyclopedia articles Feminism and Political Theory in The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political PhilosophyHeld, Virginia. "Feminism and Political Theory", in The Blackwell Guide to Social and Political Philosophy, ed. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers, 2002.
Rights: Moral and Legal from A Companion to Feminist PhilosophyHeld, Virginia. "Rights: Moral and Legal", in A Companion to Feminist Philosophy, Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell, 1998. Feminist Social and Political Philosophy in Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement (1997).Held, Virginia. "Feminist Social and Political Philosophy", in Encyclopedia of Philosophy Supplement, New York: Macmillan, 1997. "Power" in Blackwell Dictionary of Business EthicsHeld, Virginia. "Power." Def. P. Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Business Ethics. 1 ed. New York: Macmillan, 1998. Print. Mass Media, Moral Pluralism in Encyclopedia of EthicsHeld, Virginia. "Mass Media" and "Moral Pluralism", in Encyclopedia of Ethics, New York: Garland Publishing Inc., 1992.
For further works see C.V.
References
External links
Virginia Held Papers - Pembroke Center Archives, Brown University