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Care Ethics: Origins and Motivations: by Dr. Anumita Shukla

Care Ethics originated from the work of Gilligan and Noddings, who argued that women approach ethics differently than men, prioritizing care, relationships, and responding to needs rather than following abstract moral rules. Gilligan developed this view in response to Kohlberg's research, which found that women's moral reasoning was deficient compared to men's focus on fairness. The feminine approach, as seen in responses to dilemmas like Heinz's, focuses on care and response rather than principles. Later contributors like Noddings and Slote further developed theories of caring relations and motives as the basis for ethics. Care Ethics contrasts with traditional theories through its relational rather than rational focus, and emphasis on concrete situations over abstract principles.

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Mayank Bora
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122 views

Care Ethics: Origins and Motivations: by Dr. Anumita Shukla

Care Ethics originated from the work of Gilligan and Noddings, who argued that women approach ethics differently than men, prioritizing care, relationships, and responding to needs rather than following abstract moral rules. Gilligan developed this view in response to Kohlberg's research, which found that women's moral reasoning was deficient compared to men's focus on fairness. The feminine approach, as seen in responses to dilemmas like Heinz's, focuses on care and response rather than principles. Later contributors like Noddings and Slote further developed theories of caring relations and motives as the basis for ethics. Care Ethics contrasts with traditional theories through its relational rather than rational focus, and emphasis on concrete situations over abstract principles.

Uploaded by

Mayank Bora
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Care Ethics: Origins and Motivations

By

Dr. Anumita Shukla


1. Introduction

Traditionally, the field of Normative Ethics is taken to be exhausted by three broad kinds
of theories: deontological (Kantian) ethics, consequentialist ethics, and (Aristotelian)
virtue ethics. But, now there is a fourth possibility, namely Care Ethics, which is an
attempt to formulate a valid alternative to traditional moral theories that upholds the
feminine approach to morality.

Care Ethics originated in the works of Gilligan (1982) and Noddings (1984) who argued
that women seem to approach ethical issues in a way distinct to how men do. In brief,
the idea was that women’s approach is marked by care, sentiments and the influence of
relationships, whereas men approach morality in an objective, emotionally dissociated,
rationalistic and rule-oriented way. Care Ethics is the normative ethics based on this
feminine alternative to the traditional moral theories.

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2. Gilligan against Kohlberg on Moral
Development

Gilligan’s work on Care Ethics began as a critical reaction to her teacher


Lawrence Kohlberg’s psychological understanding of moral development.

Kohlberg on Moral Development:
– Three levels (with two stages each) of moral development centred around the
notion of fairness. Based on 18 year research on boys aged 10 till they reached
the age of 28.
– Women as morally deficient: On Kohlberg’s scale most women never developed
further than the second level.

Gilligan’s Response:
– Women did not display an incomplete or deficient developmental curve based
on fairness but a complete and non-deficient one although based on a distinct
moral value: care.
– Gilligan’s alternate model in terms of developing care.
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3. Heinz’s Dilemma

●
Kohlberg presented the following moral dilemma for girls and boys to
respond to which has come to be known as Heinz dilemma:
A woman suffering from a terminal disease is advised by the doctors that one
particular drug might save her. Heinz is that woman’s husband who makes
every attempt to acquire that medicine but the druggist refuses to part with
the drug at a price Heinz can afford. Heinz tries to steal the drug a er being
refused by the druggist. Thus the dilemma revolves around stealing
(generally) recognized as an immoral act and not stealing (leading to the
death of his wife). How is Heinz to decide between the two?
●
Distinct formulations of the moral problem in girls and boys: “What
ought I to do” versus “How should I respond”.
●
The masculine approach and traditional deontic theories, the feminine
approach and the need for an Ethics of Care.
4
4. Further Developments


Noddings on the Significance of Caring Relations:
– While Gilligan’s focus was on highlighting that women approach morality differently than
men and that the feminine perspective is best understood in terms of Care, Noddings
was the one who looked to build a theoretical understanding of Care and Care Ethics.
– Noddings further emphasized the significance of relationships for Care Ethics and sought
to base Care Ethics taking Caring Relationships as morally basic. She differentiated
between Natural Caring and Ethical Caring with, engrossment, motivational
displacement, and reciprocity, taken as important marks of Ethical Caring.

Slote on Caring Motives:
– Slote thinks we can derive evaluation of actions on the basis of the presence or absence
of Care in the motives behind them.
– An action is right in as much as the motive behind the action is marked by the presence
of Care.

Other Important Contributors: Peta Bowden (1997), Elizabeth Diemut Bubeck (1995), Virginia Held
(2006), Joan Tronto (2009), etc.

5
5. The Contrast Between the two Moral
Approaches

In the justice-based theories the agent abstracts away from concrete situations and
concrete individuals and instead rationally applies universal moral principles in order to
determine what course of actions would be moral. This to the care ethicist is a
fundamental misunderstanding of the role of the moral agent. To the care ethicist the
moral agent is bound by concrete relations and responding to concrete individuals. The
agent does not apply moral principles; rather, the agent is lead by his or her relationship
with the concrete other and the other’s specific needs in the specific situation.

To sum up the differences between the two approaches noted in the literature:

Rational vs Relational/Sentimental

Abstract vs Concrete

Public Sphere vs Private Sphere (Guided by principles vs guided by care/responding to
needs)

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