This thesis develops a critique of the methodology of mainstream academic moral philosophy,based on insights from feminist and more generally anti-oppressive political thought. The thesisconsists of two parts.In the first, I loosely characterise a certain dominant methodology of philosophy, one basedon giving an important epistemological role to existing, 'pre-theoretical' moral attitudes, such asintuitions. I then argue that such methodologies may be critiqued on the basis of theories thatidentify these moral attitudes as problematically rooted in oppressive social institutions, such aspatriarchy and white supremacy; that is, I identify these attitudes as ideological, and so a poorguide to moral reality.In the second part, I identify and explore of a number of themes and tendencies fromfeminist, anti-racist, and other anti-oppressive traditions of research and activism, in order to drawout the implications of these themes for the methodology of moral philosophy. The first issue Iexamine is that of how, and how much, moral philosophers should use abstraction; I eventuallyuse the concept of intersectionality to argue for the position that philosophers need to use less, anda different type of, abstraction. The second major theme I examine is that of ignorance, in thecontext of alternative epistemologies: standpoint epistemology and epistemologies of ignorance. Iargue that philosophers must not take themselves to be well placed to understand, using solitarymethodologies, any topic of moral interest. Finally, I examine the theme of transformation in moralphilosophy. I argue that experiencing certain kinds of personal transformation may be an essentialpart of developing accurate ethical views, and I draw out the political implications of this positionfor the methodology of moral philosophy.
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