Ethics of Care

Articulations of the Ethics of Care

Feminist scholars have articulated the ethics of care, particularly in Carol Gilligan's 1982 book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development; Mary Field Belenky, Blythe McVicker Clinchy, Nancy Rule Goldberger, and Jill Mattuck Tarule's 1985 book Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice and Mind; and Nel Noddings's 1984 book Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. All three publications focus on “women's ways of knowing” and the subsequent moral decisions that follow. Feminist scholars argue that this way of knowing creates an “ethics of care” that values care giving of others and the practice of relating to and maintaining a connection with others.

Characteristics of Ethical Caring

The characteristics most associated with caring as an ethical perspective are responsiveness, sensitivity to others, acceptance, and relatedness. Responsiveness to others includes responding to others to acknowledge, value, and affirm them, while also being careful to listen to and observe others to understand their behavior. Sensitivity to others means taking care to identify and attend to others' needs, desires, and perspectives, which is fundamentally about validating others. Acceptance entails allowing people to feel “psychologically safe” or free to communicate their wants, feelings, needs, and beliefs. Finally, relatedness emerges from a caregivers' view of the self as connected to or interdependent with others. This sense of interdependence requires a caregiver to act cooperatively or in relationship with others.

Alternative to Moral Reasoning

In terms of moral reasoning, an ethics of care offers an alternative to moral reasoning grounded in justice, explained most notably Lawrence Kohlberg's [Page 363]work. Kohlberg argued that ethics of justice requires people to engage in moral decision making by carefully considering the abstract rights of the people involved and choosing the solution that seems to harm the least number of people. As a result, moral decision makers focus on an abstract, universal approach to moral decision making that seeks autonomy, fairness, and equality. Feminists argue that this is a masculine or male-biased mode of reasoning that is most often associated with “men's ways of knowing.” Gilligan argued that she heard a “different voice” or way of knowing when she interviewed girls and young women about their moral decision making. Primarily based on her interviews with 29 women in their abortion decisions, Gilligan argued women ground moral reasoning via particular cases and in their relationships and responsibilities to others, rather than on universal principles. As such, Gilligan argued a care perspective is grounded in a context-based approach that works to maintain connections with others and prioritizes nurturing, caring relationships.

Critiques of Tradition

The traditional ethics of care was critiqued for its essentialism (the belief that there is a real, true essential nature for women or a biological femininity), the failure to attend to power issues embedded in caring, and its exclusion of men. In response, contemporary care proponents retain the characteristics of the traditional care perspective, but now suggest that ethics of care arises out of women's location as subordinates in culture, as well as that care arises out of particular, material, social, and historical conditions of women's subordinate positions in patriarchal culture.

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