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Feminist ethics-which examines women's values, experiences, and decision-making processes-is an area of moral philosophy that has been slow to attract the interest of planning ethicists. Feminist approaches to ethics share several commonalities, including an emphasis on care and empathy rather than rights and justice, and a balance between freedom and responsibility. Six approaches tofeminist ethics are critically analyzed here. The common themes are then applied to those areas of planning most amenable to ethical analysis: normative planning theory, planning techniques, administrative role definition, plan making, and professional ethics in everyday decision-making.

Planning is a moral endeavor in which planners must make ethical choices. To investigate the issue of values in planning, this paper examines the ethical views of planning students and practitioners. Responding to a fifteen question survey, the two groups of respondents differed significantly in assessing the morality of a number of planning issues. Professional planning experience tended to diminish these differences between the two groups. Variables such as gender seemed to have little explanatory power. An enhanced role of ethics in planning curricula and professional practice should shed light on these discrepancies and focus attention on the substantive moral content inherent to the field.

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