It is based on the needs of human relationships. Has it lived up to expectations so far? Reading Summary 7 “The Ethics of Care as Moral Theory” by Virginia Held describes to us what a caring person is like. You prefer a wide definition don’t you? I would recommend reading the conclusion entitled “Caring Relations” on pp. And as I have recently argued in an article in ‘Ethics and Global Politics’, I think it is a better foundation for international law than are the traditional moral and political theories with their Hobbesian assumptions about states. Virginia Held (b. "Attending to and meeting the needs of the particular others for whom we take responsibility." As a requirement on justification, impartiality is not trivial because it imposes that differential treatment be justified on the basis of a relevant difference. View reading summary lesson 7.docx from PHI 2604 at Miami Dade College, Miami. View reading summary lesson 7.docx from PHI 2604 at Miami Dade College, Miami. With an outlook guided by care we will be steadily reminded that our goal must be to reduce the use of violence. Virginia Potter Held (born October 28, 1929) is a leading 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. The implications of the ethics of care for transformations of society are very dramatic. She thinks that its hard to know which are the right questions to be asking but easy to see that neoconservatives have been wrong on all foreign policy since Vietnam and that the US is more deluded than bewildered these days. While this is an interesting starting point for rethinking the domain of justice, it is hard to figure out how it generates a wider theoretical framework. But I think it would be a mistake to forget the feminist origins of these ways of thinking, or to overlook the feminist goals embedded in them. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. In part I of this book, I develop the ethics of care as a moral theory or approach to moral issues. VH: The values incorporated into this care can be reflected on. In The Ethics of Care, Virginia Held presents a comprehensive account of the current state of discussion in care ethics, a theory on which she has been working for some time.1 Care ethics differs from the alterna-tive moral theories of Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, and virtue theory in a number of ways, according to Held. While the question as to whether the care approach is preferable to others remains open, another looms in the background: is the ethics of care an autonomous 'moral theory'? And I see it as the more comprehensive view. The Kantian Christine Korsgaard has placed reciprocity and human relations at the heart of Kantianism. Because of this basic claim, the ethics of care is certainly hospitable to the relatedness of persons, but does it represent the best theoretical framework to account for it? Department of Philosophy 3:AM: What made you become a philosopher? In The Ethics of Care, Virginia Held presents a comprehensive account of the current state of discussion in care ethics, a theory on which she has been working for some time.1 Care ethics differs from the alterna-tive moral theories of Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, and virtue theory in a number of ways, according to Held. Hence, it is hard to see exactly on which basis the ethics of care opposes impartialist moral theories. Violence is most obviously antithetical to care. Want updates? Why not go Marxist or anarchist? The first part of the book is devoted to the definition of care ethics as a distinct theoretical approach that represents an alternative to moral theories such as Kantian ethics and utilitarianism. It was not addressing the problems that really mattered, and it seemed to me to be an intellectual luxury. Finally, the ethics of care adopts a relational conception of persons, which is in stark contrast to Liberal individualism. Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. She thinks the strength of her ethical position is that it is based on experience and that it should be equally considered from the point of view of the recipient as well as the provider and it implies a lot of liberal values. I’m very sympathetic to aspects of Kantian ethics, for instance that actions should be judged by the intentions with which we act. VH: Historically, it was through paying attention, often for the first time, to caring activities, especially mothering, that the ethics of care was developed. VH: I think care is a more fundamental and a wider concept than friendship. Some parts of philosophy are more like mathematics and science than like other humanities, so perhaps these are relevant comparisons. When the You even see it as playing a decisive role in global politics, so that for example the current crisis in the Eurozone would benefit from a dose of care. VH: I agree that we need to bring ethical discourse into economic theory, in the sense that economic processes ought to be evaluated morally. 3:AM: Now this ethics of care could well be seen as a ‘feminist ethic’ and you’re well known for writing about that. Yes they should value efficiency, and competition can often be helpful, but other values than profit should be given priority. Onora O’Neill has argued that justice and care are not opposed. VH: More deluded than bewildered, perhaps. I think it plausible to see Kantian ethics and utilitarianism as expansions to the whole of morality of what can be thought appropriate for law and for public policy. Help | Contact Us | Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Image Credits | Creative Commons (CC) license unless otherwise noted, Built with WordPress | But as an attempt to place the ethics of care on the same footing as other moral theories, Held's argument fails to show that the defining concerns of care ethics cannot be adequately addressed by other theories. 1929) We will need care when we are old and frail. Justice, or fairness, should not be absent in these relations, but it doesn’t have priority here. On the other hand, if care is treated as a background value that should inform personal relations, it can be accommodated within impartialist moral theories. As men assume more responsibility for caring for children and engage more equally in other caring activities, I think they are quite capable of appreciating the values of care. 40 years on, is the US still bewildered? J.G. 3:AM: You approach feminism to remind us about the pernicious omissions and commissions that make traditional liberal theories of ethics fatally flawed. The need for a neat definition of the concept of care and its distinctive domain of competence becomes particularly urgent as Held accounts for social issues in the second part of the book. Yes, the ethics of care is better than other moral theories at handling many global problems, such as the vast migrations of care workers that are occurring. 3:AM: An alternative to your care ethics position is the ‘civic friendship’ ethic proposed by Sibyl Schwarzenbach. I agree that in the wider culture, “the market” has taken on mythical proportions as it is imagined to be capable of achieving best outcomes without requiring that we bring in moral considerations. "The Ethics of Care as Moral Theory," written by Virginia Held, evaluates the ethics of care as an alternative to All of the major philosophers have always written from the male perspective. VH: I’ve been very influenced by Marxism in the past. Ethics of care, also called care ethics, feminist philosophical perspective that uses a relational and context-bound approach toward morality and decision making.The term ethics of care refers to ideas concerning both the nature of morality and normative ethical theory. Contrary to some other supporters of care ethics, Held does not intend to replace justice with care. I’ve always found anarchism too unrealistic about human beings. The activity of care involves meeting the needs of another, with sensitivity and responsiveness. When the I’d have thought these days it’s been difficult to get ethics into any policy discourse. 3:AM: We’re in a continuous state of war and terrorism is the justification for lots of it. 3:AM: In her recent ‘Tanner Lectures’ the economist Diane Coyle argued that we need to bring back ethical discourse into economic theory and that economists were at fault for mistaking market mechanisms for distributing ideas and materials and describing the processes of making stuff with markets as arbiters of value. Most importantly, Held raises some concerns about the limits of rights-based political discourse, and proposes that we focus on care in order to overcome such limits. Good care requires respect for others, including for their individuality and often developing freedom. Can you say something about this and how that particular contrast works? Virginia Potter Held is a leading 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. The fifth defining feature of the ethics of care concerns the conception of persons and requires a more careful examination. Feminists should understand that the structures themselves have to change. (For example, the requirement of impartiality imposes different demands on us in the domain of duties of rights and in the domain of duties of virtues, respectively.) Why is your approach preferable? This seems to be close to what you are arguing for. Her polemics is directed against (i) an abstract decision procedure in ethics, (ii) the normative requirement of impartiality, (iii) the requirement of impersonality, and/or (iv) the priority of universal and general rules. ndpr@nd.edu, The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, Global. So how do you get from care to justice in your system? Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. Several Kantian philosophers have insisted on the moral relevance of emotions and the intimate union of love and respect, and have made room for care and trust. But care is more fundamental. 1929) We will need care when we are old and frail. This same requirement is at stake when we evaluate the epistemological and normative contribution of emotions. Another advantage of the ethics of care is that it has no need to appeal to religion, which can be divisive, whereas the experience of care really is universal. Haber, M. S. Halfon, New York/Oxford 1998, 21. 42-43 first. Imagine, as a thought experiment, a society that really did make childcare of central importance, and economic or military power of more marginal interest, or that paid kindergarten teachers more than bank executives. She claims that such "dominant moral theories as utilitarianism and Kantian ethics are built on the liberal model of social relations between strangers" (80). And the neoconservative influence on foreign policy has been almost entirely a bad influence. The centrality of respect for persons in Kantian ethics is appealing, but can too easily be combined with notions of negative freedom such that we respect people by just leaving them alone. This lack of dialogue is unfortunate because it deprives the reader of the grounds for an adequate assessment of both care ethics and Kantian ethics. They use the weapons available. The ethics of care (alternatively care ethics or EoC) is a normative ethical theory that holds that moral action centers on interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue. 3:AM: I guess what might seem strange to some is that you continue to work in the liberal tradition even though liberal individialism seems anathema to you. The ethics of care is only a few decades old, yet it is by now a distinct moral theory or normative approach to the problems we face. VH: I don’t find it satisfactory merely to add some considerations of care to the traditional moral theories for reasons similar to why it is not enough to simply insert women into the traditional structures of society and politics built on gender domination. Second, from an epistemological perspective the ethics of care values emotions, and appreciates emotions and relational capabilities that enable morally concerned persons in actual interpersonal contexts to understand what would be best. I have argued in The Ethics of Care that education, healthcare, childcare, and the production of culture, ought not to be in the market, where economic gain has the highest priority. It is thus fair to say that Kantians appear to share the very same concerns for the interdependence and relatedness of persons that are endorsed by the ethics of care. Have things changed in the intervening time to an extent that you’d reject some of the things you set out there, or add stuff? Held seems to say that dominant theories deploy a kind of abstraction that is detrimental to moral understanding because it requires the denial of moral partialities. ethics, hinders a woman’s ability to become autonomous, and reinforces traditional gender roles. First, "the focus of the ethics of care is on the compelling moral salience of attending to and meeting the needs of the particular others for whom we take responsibility" (10). 3:AM: In 1962 you wrote a report on the ethical attitudes in the USA. It is a type of system that explains that being a good person is when someone helps other people as well as improving current relationships. What sort of approach does your care ethics take in economics? Do we end up losing the common use of ‘care’ for a more term of art, technical use, as is the wont with philosophers? It’s closer to the social contract model of agreements between equals voluntarily entered into, a model that plays such a central and often misleading role in political theory and then is expanded, often wrongly in my view, to the whole of moral theory. In The Ethics of Care, and in quite a few subsequent papers, I’ve come to have what I think is a much better picture of it as an alternative moral approach. Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. DOI:10.1093/0195180992.003.0002. These theories recognize caring as an ethically relevant issue. In part II I explore the implications of the ethics of care for political, social, and global questions, considering also how such at-tempts to use the theory should allow in turn for improvements in it. You wrote Feminist Morality: Transforming Culture, Society, and Politics back in 1993. By the time I graduated, however, I had travelled in Europe and become directly aware of the horrors of war, and I became disillusioned with philosophy. Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. This uncertainty in relating justice and care and their domains of competence reveals a tension between, on the one hand, the claim that the ethics of care may be accorded priority or at least offer a wider normative network for justice and rights-based discourse, and, on the other hand, the less ambitious claim that they each have their own niche. As far back as the Bible, most major writings have always been geared towards men. People are less hesitant to take moral positions or positions that might be considered based on ideology, but I think the positions taken are often wrong. 3:AM: You note that virtue ethics seems at times to have some things in common with care but nevertheless think care is a superior approach? How different would the political landscape of terrorism look if your ideas were taken into the policy arena do you think? Essays on The Work of Virginia Held, ed. Most women, and increasingly men, have also had a great deal of experience providing care, especially for children. Why do you think it is so hard, and what questions are beginning to feel like the ones we should be asking? Progress has been slow, but to someone my age it has been significant. Such a disposition can be viewed as a virtue. Virginia Held explores how feminist theory is changing contemporary views of moral choice. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. While a graduate student at Harvard, Gilligan wrote her dissertation outlining Reading Advice: The first part of this reading can be somewhat overwhelming in that Held reviews many people’s definitions of care. The concerns of care are much more compelling. And it implies that markets and market values should be appropriately limited, and that market values should not be increasingly the dominant values, as in the U.S., in areas where other values should have priority, such as in childcare, healthcare, education, and the production of culture. Virginia Held is arguing for an ethics that is unique and focuses on care. I think it is a strength of care ethics that it is based on experience. I’m interested in your idea of wide and narrow definitions of ‘terrorism’ guiding our thinking. Whether Kantian ethics is well-equipped to address this concern crucially depends on how we frame the requirement of universality and impartiality. As a normative ethical theory, an ethics of care (or care ethics) promotes the recognition that what matters to people is not mere survival as independent autonomous persons. I’d like to read more novels but I rarely do. A similar concern arises as we consider the fourth feature, that is, the re-conceptualization of the distinction between the private and the public. Powered by CUNY, Welcome to the CUNY Academic Commons website for the Ph.D. program in Philosophy at the CUNY Graduate Center. Yes I see the legal and political as importantly different, and both as significantly different from the contexts of family and friendship. No one can exist without having been cared for. The ethics of care is only a few decades old, yet it is by now a distinct moral theory or normative approach to the problems we face. Insofar it rejects the claim that ethical theory requires a complete rational decision procedure, the ethics of care finds more supporters than Held anticipates, as very few philosophers agree that ethical theory is designed to offer a complete decision procedure, and there is ample discussion about the consequences of completeness. What I object to is the prevalent way it is seen as applicable everywhere and to everything, or as the way to think about all sorts of domains where it doesn’t belong, or only belongs in very limited ways. This calls for a more precise definition of both concepts. Virginia Held It may be thought that the ethics of care has developed important insights into the moral values involved in the caring practices of family, friendship, and personal caregiving, but that the ethics of care has little to offer in dealing with violence. 100 Malloy Hall As an independent theoretical approach, the ethics of care is not yet justified. The moral theory known as “ the ethics of care” implies that there is moral significance in the fundamental elements of relationships and dependencies in human life. It is difficult to adequately judge the real promise of the ethics of care as defended by Held particularly because she does not take very seriously her (alleged) opponents. This was experience of which women had a great deal and most men rather little. 3:AM: I guess the ethics of care guides much of your thinking here: what kinds of answers have you to these questions? VH: I spend more time reading the New York Times than I wish I did, but I find it so hard not to! VH: As you say, the position of women in academic philosophy is improving. But it is hard to see how. Can the Ethics of Care Handle Violence? VH: It’s often hard to know if we are asking the right questions in a lot of domains, but perhaps especially so with violence and terrorism because so much of the discussion has been distorted by strongly identifying with those on “our side.” Frequently, in violent conflicts, both sides think that violence is being used against them and that they themselves are using violence to defend themselves. Third, "the ethics of care rejects the view of the dominant moral theories that the more abstract the reasoning about a moral problem, the better because the more likely [to?] So I guess I’m wondering whether we need feminism to get the theory, or is the point that in enacting the theory of care we’re implicitly engaged in feminism? This is because labor markets as traditionally understood are fundamentally very different from caring labor markets. The neoconservatives have been wrong about just about every foreign policy issue from Vietnam to Iraq, and yet they continue to have a thoroughly outsize influence. Whether moral reasoning takes the form of a procedure or not, it requires some kind of abstraction. EoC is one of a cluster of normative ethical theories that were developed by feminists in the second half of the twentieth century. She thinks all the time about the nature of care relations, meeting the needs of others, and how paying attention to these things has radical transformational implications. But you defended the idea of an applied ethics. Many questions in economics are straightforwardly empirical rather than normative or moral, but we ought to ask routinely about the moral justifiability of economic arrangements and activities. After a year of graduate work in Europe, I left philosophy for a decade and worked for a political magazine in NYC. Caring relations should be guided by the ethics of care, which we can best understand and which is most applicable in contexts of families and friendship. The history of ethics shows it to be a very biased enterprise. Very roughly, what men have done in public life has been deemed important and relevant to moral theory, and what women have done in the household has been considered irrelevant.

Part I Care and Moral Theory 1.

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