Transcript for:
Ethics of Care Overview

alright guys welcome back today we're covering the ethics of care so the most majority this is gonna be focused on Held's book the author's ethics of care specifically the introduction the first two paragraphs or chapters rather um but I do want to begin by briefly looking at what the textbook has to say this is chapter 11 beginning on page 156 so it's basically talking about you know hey do women and men think differently about ethics and the main rub of this idea is not necessarily right um you know surely there's some differences there but what feminism and what a lot of people that focus on ethics of care might say is that instead it looks at those with the power and those without and different ways of knowing than what the mainstream is so at the very top of 157 and says female ways of thinking yield insights that have been missed in male-dominated areas thus by attending to a the distinctive approach of women we can make progress and subjects that seem stalled ethics is said to be a leading candidate for this treatment so there are some differences of whether it be social whether it be genetic you know what have you there are different ways of knowing mainly like what is in the mainstream way of thinking and what is in the way of thinking of those that don't fit into the mainstream right I mean this yields really interesting discovering when you look at something like Heinz's dilemma so this is talking about this example that Kohlberg gave of like this guy named Heinz his wife is about to die and there's this drug that'll cure but it's like $2,000 and the drug muling cost like $200 to make but the you know pharmacist or whoever created the drug is selling it you know 10x profit and Heinz only has $1,000 and he tries to negotiate and the pharmacist is like no either you give me two grand or I'm not giving you the drug and so the question is you know like hey is it morally alright for Heinz to then steal the drug so this problem of starting on 1 7 is known as Heinz dilemma we use it was used by Kohlberg and studying the moral development of children Kohlberg interviewed children of various ages presenting them with a series of dilemmas and asking them questions designed to reveal their thinking analyzing the responses Kohlberg concluded that there are six stages of moral development and this has become pretty famous and these stages the individuals conceives of rights in terms of stage one obeying Authority and avoiding punishment stage two satisfying ones own desires and letting others do the same through fair exchanges stage three cultivating one's relationships and performing the duties appropriate to one social roles stage 4 obeying the law and maintaining the welfare of the group stage 5 upholding the basic rights and values of one society and then st. stage six abiding by abstract universal moral principles so you can see here how it kind of goes from very basic simple concrete what you're given as an infant and you develop it into the more abstract ethereal Universal Universal Aiza Belinda principles so it continues by saying so if all goes well we begin life with the self-centered desire to avoid punishment and we end life with a commitment to a set of abstract moral principles Kohlberg however believed that few adults make it to stage 5 much less to stage 6 it's interesting because it's probably the stages five and six come from a lot of ethicist right like Bentham or mill or Conte and looking at what these great ethicists have said over the years and so like that's probably where five and six came from him the Kohlberg feel our own 158 Heinz dilemma was presented to an 11 year old boy named Jake I thought it was obvious that Heinz should steal the drug Jake explained for one thing a human life is worth more than money and if the druggist only makes thousand he's still going to live but if Heinz doesn't steal the drug his wife is going to die they asked why his life were worth more than money he said because the druggist can get a thousand dollars later from rich people with cancer but Heinz can't get his wife again why not because people are all different and so you couldn't get Heinz his wife again you know I'm fairly common a response may be that a lot of this would say it seems natural to be like well yeah human life is worth more than the drugs or the money but then Amy also 11 saw the matter differently should Heinz's steal the drug compared to Jake Amy seems hesitant and evasive she says well I don't think so I think there might be other ways besides stealing it like if you could borrow the money or make a loan or something but he really shouldn't steal the drug but his wife shouldn't die either if he sold the drug he might save his wife then but if he did he might have to go to jail and then his wife might get sicker again and he couldn't get more of the drug and it might be might not be good so they should really just talk it out and find some other way to make the money the interviewer asked Amy for their questions but she still will not budge she refuses to accept the terms in which the problem is posed and said she recast the issue as a conflict between Heinz and the pharmacist that must be resolved by further discussions in terms of Kolbert stages Jake seems to have advanced beyond Amy Amy as a response is typical of people operating at stage 3 where personal relationships are paramount Heinz and the pharmacist might work things out between Jake on the other hand appeals to impersonal principles a human life is worth more than mine Jake seems to be operating at one of the later stages but then Carol Gilligan criticizes Kohlberg's theory and she wrote a book called in a different voice this is on 159 and when she objects to what Kolbert says about Jake and Amy these children think differently she says but Amy's way is not inferior when confronted with Heinz's dilemma amy responds to the personal aspects of the situation as females typically - whereas Jake thinking like a male sees only a conflict between life and property that can be resolved by logical deduction Jace's of Jake's response will be judged at a higher level only if one assumes as Kolbert does that an ethic of principle is superior to an ethic of intimacy and caring but why should we assume that admittedly most moral philosophers have favored an ethic principle but most moral philosophers have been men the male way of thinking quote-unquote they appeal to impersonal principles abstracts away all the details that give each situation its special flavor women Gilligan says find it harder to ignore those details any worries of Heinz sold a drug he might save his wife then but if he did he might have to go to jail and then his wife SiC him and he couldn't get more of the drug genka reduces the situation to human life is worth more than money ignores all of this um so yeah I remember first studying this Heinz dilemma actually in grad school and I thought it was really fascinating and I found it quite particularly eye-opening works like oh yeah we had these value Laden beliefs like Kohlberg had of uh what is the superior ethical framework and instead it's realizing oh like some different people value different things like personal relationships over abstract principles and the messy details of particular instances and cases in the context instead of just stripping all that context away so yeah I don't know part of what I really appreciated about reading and studying the ethics of care is just like realizing how many value Laden beliefs I already have and just assume for granted because like you know this abstract principle it's like okay well that's really something that everybody holds like all major emphasis hold and then he realized ODEs just because all major ethicists come in with this particular value and that there's ways of thinking side of the mainstream of ethics they'll hold these different values instead of just something like abstract principles so it's something that I don't know I I took that Heinz dilemma to be rather mind-blowing um but maybe I'm making much ado about nothing all right moving on 162 the implications of moral judgment talking about family and friends it's a traditional theories of obligation or notoriously ill-suited to describe life among family and friends those theories take the notion of what we should do as morally fundamental but his buyer observes when we try to construe being a loving parent as a duty we encounter problems a loving parent is motivated by love not by duty parents care for their children only because they feel it is their duty their children will sense it and realize they are unlocked moreover the ideas of inequality and impartiality that pervade theories of obligation seemed deeply antagonistic to the values of love and friendship mill said that a moral agent must be a strictly impartial as a disinterested and benevolent spectator but that is not the standpoint of a parent or a friend we do not regard a family and friends as mere members of the great crowd of humanity we think of them as special the ethics of care on the other hand is perfectly suited to describe such relations the ethics of care does not take obligation or duty as fundamental nor does it require that we and partially promote the interests of everyone alike instead it begins with the consumption of moral life as a network of relationships with specific people and it sees living well as caring for those people attending to their needs and maintaining their trust so on one hand you might think okay well like if we were to treat all people equally and if that's something that you hold as a deeper value then the ethics of care isn't gonna make sense from you but if you've had an issue with utilitarianism or deontological ethics because of the way that they treat everyone equally anything that that is a failure on these mainstream ethical then all of a sudden ethics of care seems like a really strong alternative or you would want to take these mainstream alternatives and maybe give them an ethics of care twist or flair to it right alright 164 towards the bottom and that bear seems to have this in mind when she writes that eventually women fears will need to connect their ethics of love with what has been the Mint's theorists preoccupation namely obligation and so it is admitting at least varimax that there is some shortcomings of ethics of care mainly you know how should we care for or what is our obligation for all of humanity I think the exact example they gave was you know children across the world with HIV who you'll never come in contact with but you know maybe you can donate money to this organization that helps them and so like do we have an obligation well ethics of care if it only cares about like you know the family and clothes deep personal relationships like close friends then all the sudden it seems like there's no obligation there doesn't even talk about obligation and you know caring involves this relationship between the carer and the carry and so maybe this is a shortcoming of ethics of care and so an ethicist of care like a net bear says hey uh maybe we should emphasize the ethics of care but the way that we should treat general humanity at large should involve something like the obligation of mainstream ethics so maybe you can mold ethics of care and utilitarianism for example by saying yeah what we should focus on and prioritize family and our special attention to our friends and family but also we do have some sort of obligation to the stranger it's just not a caring relationship and so it doesn't get prioritized but it is still something that we have some sense of obligation for now whether or not ethics of care can actually handle this on its own or you need to couple it with some other sort of mainstream ethical framework is something that's often debated in fact Virginia held holds a different view on that we see what else I want to talk about now actually that's it for the textbook I think it's a solid introduction but all I was obviously going to be very different from what we're gonna be reading here with help so let's begin with the introduction I want to begin by reading starting with the second paragraph with interest in normative perspectives expanding everywhere from the outlines of egalitarian families and workplaces to the moral responsibilities of parents and citizens to the ethical evaluations of governmental and foreign policies the ethics of Karen offers hope to rethinking and more fruitful ways how we ought to guide our lives is potential being based on the truly universal experience of care that's a big aspect of it the universality of experiencing care every human being has been cared for as a child or would not be alive understanding the values involved in care and how its standards reject violence and domination are possible with the ethics of care and need not invoke religious believes to carry divisive baggage it does not rely on dubious claims about universal norms of reason to which we must give priority and all questions of morality instead it develops on the basis of experience reflection on it and discourse concerning it and understanding of the most basic and most comprehensive values it's already in just the beginning of the introduction held is saying hey here's how this ethical framework is very different from most ethical frameworks that you'll encounter from others and then moving on towards the bottom she's gonna start talking about what's different in each chapter so in Chapter one I make the case that ethics of care is a distant distinct moral theory or approach to moral theorizing not a concern that can be added on to or included within other more established approaches so this is you know in direct opposition what was being set towards the end of the chapter in our textbook so it's gonna be chapter one I mean yeah the latter is more controversial claim since there are similarities between that ethics of care and virtue ethics but in some focus on relationships rather than on the dispositions of individuals the ethics of care I argue is distinct so this is just briefly to touch on it this idea that virtue ethics and ethics of care are very similar and you know held here is that arguing or admitting as much but because of their different focus one being on dispositions the other you know are on your character the other being on actual relationships between people it is distinct and should be held as its own ethical framework but if you're gonna look at de ontology or utilitarianism earning formal consequentialism for that matter versus ethics of care it's gonna be tragically two more different than something like virtue ethics although they are still different alright and Chapter two I explore what care is what we mean or should mean by the term care I conclude that is both a practice or cluster of practices and a value or cluster of values so it's both practice and value or a cluster of practices in a cluster of values it takes place in existing caring practices to some extent although existing practices are usually embedded in unsatisfactory contexts of domination so this is where the feminism starts to take place or who has the power is the power equal between these relationships and it provides standards by which to evaluate these practices and to recommend better ones so just to briefly cover chapters four and five because that's what you'll be reading for the next class and developing the ethics of care contrasts have been drawn between care and justice in Chapter four I examined contrast between ethical theories based on justice or on utility and those based on care I consider the possible meshing of care and justice and the ways we might conceptualize how the pieces of unsatisfactory comprehend some moral theory should fit together chapter 5 contrast the assumptions and implications of epochs of care but those are traditional liberalism and defends the ethics of care against liberal critiques so if you want to read also you know chapters 3 and then 7 and so forth you can see what the entire book is about but that is beyond the scope of this class all I do find it to be a very interesting book I really enjoyed this again like just realizing like oh you can do that you can think of ethics in this different way oh yeah like all of these mainstream views of science or of any field of philosophy then we think is like decontextualized and stripped of value theories they're actually laden with already these values like the idea of science said it should be objective and should seek strictly the truth above all else you know we think oh this is the most objective way of doing things but in reality it's because we value truth or objectivity above something like usefulness right or egalitarian understanding so I don't know I think I really appreciated reading this book especially where I was in life just because it like it's almost like I had the treatment of being a fish in water and understanding what water was all these things I took for granted I made me question these things and realize how much do we already assume just in our everyday framework of things so that I mean that's one thing I really loved about this book I think a lot of the theories are really interesting uh to just lay out all my cards on this table although I will say like my main apprehension with reading this is that it doesn't seem like a cohesive framework it just seems more like piecemeal together of like different issues that are found in mainstream ethics so although like I think I agree with a lot of the things that are said in this book I'm again but like that so what like can't virtue ethics or de ontology or utilitarianism just respond to these critiques or adapt these critiques into their view what are you really actually offering that's distinct it's more of a negative book than a positive book in my opinion but also she talks about how this is right here at the very beginning only a few decades old compared to centuries with the other ones so maybe it's just it's an infancy and so it needs to distinguish itself from the others before you can actually build a solid theory or conception of an ethics of care anyways let's go ahead and move on right here the concept of care has the advantage of not losing sight of the work and fault and caring for people and not lending itself to the interpretation of morality is ideal but impractical to which advocates of the ethics of care often object care is both value and practice so already talked about that a little bit in the intro but looking at the differences between different concepts of care from like other people versus the ethicists of care so let's talk about features of ethics of care some advocates of the ethics of care resist generalizing this approach into something that can be fit into the form of a moral theory so I mean she's also talking about what I basically just said they see it as a mosaic of insights and value the way it is sensitive to contextual nuance and particularly era t'v rather than making the abstract and universal claims of more familial or familiar moral theories still I think one can discern among various versions of ethics of care a number of major features so here she is saying like look a lot of people think it's just a bunch of different things that all follow under the same kind of umbrella term ethics of care but it's not this uniform it's more this mosaic of insights and she's saying yeah that might be true that might not and in fact I think she's gonna argue that it shouldn't be that we should work towards making it more uniform but she's saying regardless from all these different mosaics we can see a number of major features so she's gonna start talking about them first a central focus of the ethics of care is on the compelling moral salience of attending to and meeting the needs of particular others for whom we take responsibility so that's a big difference or distinction there so coming down here morality is built on the image of the independent autonomous rational individual largely overlooked the reality of human dependence in the morality for which it calls so I mean if you look at Con Thien or a consequentialist ethics right it's like oh no we are these independent autonomous rational individuals and we don't really understand our inner dependency on one another the ethics of care attends to the central concern of human life and the lineage the moral views involved it refuses to relegate care to a realm outside morality but the ethics of care starts with the moral claims of particular others for instances of one child whose claims can be compelling regardless of universal principles so yeah the main objection she's gonna get into it a little bit more but like it comes from basically almost that what does that saying like no man is an island right and the main critique that she has these major ethical frameworks is it assumes that were these independent islands and the way that we treated each other in the public sphere right is how we should engage with one another we are independent we have mutual contracts of understanding you know social contract theory stuff like that but in reality it's like no we're all interdependent we can't claim that we are these islands um and these ethical frameworks don't understand that and like so that's why they're so bad at looking at the private sphere like how we should treat our family and our children and our close friends because it's only meant for the public sphere so maybe even like yeah like maybe it could be something like these general frameworks are good for going into the public market or engaging in politics you know or debate with other people but we can't have that as a end-all be-all of ethics so then second claim it's basically this idea that the ethics of care values emotion rather than rejects it so that's very different not all emotion is valued of course but in contrast with the dominant rationalist approaches such emotions as empathy sympathy sensitive sensitivity and responsiveness are seen as a kind of moral emotions that need to be cultivated not only to help in the implementation of the dictates of reason but to better ascertain what morality recommends even anger may be a component of the moral indignation that should be felt when people are treated unjustly or in you mainly and it may contribute to rather than interfere with an appropriate interpretation of the moral wrong there's not to say that raw emotion can be a guide to morality feelings need to be reflected on and educated but from the care perspective moral inquiries that rely entirely on reason and rationalistic deductions or calculations are seen as deficient the emotions that are typically considered and rejected in rationalistic moral theories are the egoistic feelings and undermine universal moral norms the favoritism that interferes with impartiality and the aggressive and vengeful impulses for its moralities to provide restraints the ethics of care in contrast typically appreciates the emotion and relational capabilities that enable morally concerned persons and actual impersonal context to understand what would be best since even the helpful emotions can often be misguided or worse as when excessive empathy or with others leads to a wrongful degree of self denial oh and benevolent concern crosses over into controlling domination we need an ethics of care not just care itself to say look like care is actually something that we value these emotions are actually things that we value but they can go too far so instead we need to have this ethics of care you know to relegate it and control it and not just these unbridled emotions themselves whereas these other views of you know ethics know morality think that actually morality or not morality but emotions are a deficiency right that we should be like Spock and she saying that's that's just wrong in its shipping way you know what makes us human third the ethics of care rejects a view of a dominant moral theories that the more abstract the reasoning about a moral problem the better because a more likely to avoid bias and arbitrariness the more nearly to achieve impartiality if accept care respects rather than removes itself and then claims of particular others with whom we share actual relationships we moving down and explaining it as Brian Barry expresses this view there can be universal rules permitting people to favor their friends in certain contexts such as deciding to whom to give all day gifts but the latter partiality is morally acceptable only because Universal rules have already so judged it the ethics of care in contrast is skeptical of such abstraction and reliance on universal rules and questions of priorities given to them and then moving down Annette Baer considers how feminists approached morality differs from the contine one and cons claims that women are incapable of being fully moral because of the reliance on emotion rather than reason cheering Swarek on conclude so much the worse for women we can conclude so much the worse for the male fixation on the special skill of drafting legislation for the bureaucratic mentality of rule worship and for the male exaggeration of the importance of independence over mutual interdependence so you know this what she calls the male mentality of you know attracting legislations being objective and distant and removed worshipping rules you know this cultic understanding of reality almost and the importance of independence instead of interdependence actually misses out on what makes us human we are interdependent right no man is an island and then actually getting deep down in the muck and mire of context rather than stripping out context abstracting into these you know universal rules is actually a negligent we might even want to say moving down the ethics of care may seek to limit the applicability of universal rules to certain domains or they are more appropriate like the domain of law and resistor extension to other domains so she's also saying like look maybe this type of universal laws you know that's good for your universal rules that's good for law like that is good for establishing the law of the land and the United States for example like Constitution is a good thing amendments are good things legislation is a good thing because it delegates itself to how we treat each other in the actual public sphere um but that's not the end-all be-all and it shouldn't be applied to other domains such as the family or the friends or their relationships in our day to day lives let's see all right right here dominant moral theories tend to interpret moral problems as if they were conflicts between egoistic individuals individual interests on the one hand and universal moral principles on the other the extremes of selfish individual and humanity are recognized but what lies between these is often overlooked the ethics of care and contrast focuses especially on the area between these extremes those who conscientiously care for others are not seeking primarily to further their own individual interests their interests are intertwined with the person's they care for neither are they acting for the sake of all others or Humanity in general they seek instead of preserve or promote an actual human relation between themselves and particular others persons and caring relations are acting for self and other together their characteristic stances neither egoistic nor altruistic these are the options in a conflictual situation but the well-being of a caring relation involves a cooperative well-being of those in the relation in the well-being of the relation itself so all had to say like essentially like you know is it egoism or is it Universal benevolence right and you know is it just purely looking out for myself or is it purely looking out for other people or Humanity in general and she's saying like look like yeah like main ethics can cover these two ideas and they cover them pretty well but like that's just not what life is about there's some middle ground right in fact uh when we promote the the well-being of those really close to us right it's not completely self centered right because it's focused on other people but there are other people that we have particularly shion's with and this interdependence right that our interests are actually intertwined with her so it's not completely selfless either and it's not focusing on humanity as a whole it's focusing on those that we care about and so I think some care does a really good job looking in between these extremes where other ethics fall short I had a fourth characteristics of the ethics of care is a like much feminist thought in many areas it reconceptualize --is traditional notions about the public in the private a traditional view built in the dominant moral theories is that the household is a private sphere beyond politics and to which government based on consent should not intrude feminists have shown how the greater social political economical and cultural power of men have structured this private sphere to the disadvantage of women and children rendering them vulnerable to domestic violence without side without outside interference often leaving women economically dependent on men and subject to highly inequitably division of labor and the family so this is another critique of why it has happened but because of the traditional ethical framework and so all these things that have happened these are direct consequences consequences she argues from our ethical frameworks dominant moral theories have seen public life as relevant to morality while missing the moral significance of the private domains of family and friendship they are posited an abstract fully rational agent as such from which to construct morality while missing the moral issues that arise between connected persons and the context of family friendship and social groups for instance persons do not choose which gender racial class ethnic religious national or cultural groups to be brought up and at these sorts of ties may be important aspects of who they are and how their experience can contribute to moral understanding a fifth characteristic of the ethics of care is a conception of persons with which it began her begins so this is what we're gonna be getting into now its critique of the liberal individualism at the zoo carry usually works with a conception of persons as a relational rather than a self-sufficient independent individuals of the dominant moral theories ethics of Karen contrasts characteristically sees persons as relational and interdependent morally and epistemologically every person starts out as a child dependent on those providing us care and we remain interdependent with others in thoroughly fundamental ways throughout our lives then we can think and act as if we were independent depends on a network of social relations making it possible for us to even do so and our relations are part of what constitute our identity so again this is emphasizing the importance of our interdependence see that every main ethical framework denies even and in fact as ever kitteh oh no no I pronounce that name let's go with it rights this conception fosters the illusion that society is composed a free equal and interdependent individuals who can choose to associate with one another or not it obscures the very real facts of dependency for everyone when they are young for most people at various periods in their lives when they are ill or old and infirm for some who are disabled and for all those engaged in unpaid dependency work and it obscures the innumerable ways persons and groups are interdependent in the modern world so again a lot of critiques of even like our conception of who a person is is something that the ethics of care drastically challenges this is just an interesting paragraph talking about free riding and how economics studying economics in these types of views from models and stuff actually are detrimental so various studies showing that studying economics with its repetitive and intensive exposure to a model whose unequivocal prediction as a people will decide what to do on the basis of self-interest leads to economic students to be less cooperative and more inclined to freeride rather than other students and in fact when I was rereading this this week I sent a picture of this to a friend of mine who's getting his PhD in economics and he just started laughing he's like yeah like that's very true I mean like we actually in grad school look at a lot of these studies and see like where they fail um so just like an interesting aspect of looking at how this framework of like each person is independent is actually even detrimental to society as a whole I only think I don't think I want to touch on justice and care really yet because that is going to be brought up in the next class but I do want to make a point here thing saying that there are similarities that she's acknowledging but there are still key differences and there are gonna be different ways that we should engage with them but the ethics of care and justice and how they can be meshed is this task that we should still work on my own suggestion for integrating care and justice or to keep these concepts conceptually distinct and delineate the domains in which they should have priority in the realm of law for instance justice and the assurance of Rights should have priority although the humane considerations of care should not be absent in the realm of the family and among friends priority should be given to expansive care though the basic requirements of justice should also be met so you know they all have their own particular domains what she's gonna argue but yeah she'll cover it more later on and it's also she talks about a little bit how you can understand justice as being derived from care all right implications for society we should see them instead of abandoning culture to the dictates of the marketplace who should make it possible for culture to develop and ways best able to enlighten and enrich human life so what is it that we're focused on as a society should it be enlightening and enriching human life or it should be you know the invisible hand of the market place supply and demand and your different understanding a few people of who people are at the core and your different understanding of you know the way that we should depend on one another or do depend on one another how we should treat each other that's gonna show you what the differences are and how we should structure our society and what values that we should place over one another right is it a free market or is it enlightening and Ricci human life are these mutually exclusive you know how much weight should we give to one rather than the other you know these are different questions and they have different looking at an ethics of care has different implications for how we structure this is society she shows how unacceptable and current arrangements for providing care carrying activities are devalued underpaid and disproportionately occupied by the relatively powerless in society so if you think about someone like a stay-at-home mother I could also have a state-owned father but you know talking about the feminist perspective here anyways a stay-at-home parent let's just say they're gonna be how much do they pay right how much do they get paid how much do they contribute to GDP obviously these are rhetorical questions they don't get paid and they don't contribute to the gross domestic product of our nation so if you're to strictly look at an economical standpoint hiring a nanny and going out and working full-time would actually be better for the economy but is that going to be better for the parents life or for the child's life probably not so this is an example of how carrying activities are devalued right how much does a nurse or someone working in a retirement home make not that much think about even right now as we're going through this pandemic who all the essential workers are a lot of them are in these carrying fields and you know a lot of them are making little money and they're not getting compensated for the risk that they're taking right now right and so this is like a statement that like is really hitting close to home for all of us right now all right the ethics of caring virtue ethics so then she kind of talked about the similarities to some philosophers the ethics of care is a form of virtue ethics but what she's gonna say is in my view although there are similarities between the middle though to be caring is no doubt a virtue the end thinks of care is not simply a kind of virtue ethics furniture ethics focuses especially in the states of character of individuals or as the ethics of care concerns it's itself especially with caring relations so you care about a character or to care about relations carrying relations have primary value for the ethics of care President might be secondary for virtue ethics and vice versa so the ethics care in my view is a distinctive at outlook distinctive even from virtue ethics certainly it has its precursors and such virtue theorists as aristotle hume and moral sentimentalists contribute importantly to it as a feminist ethic the ethics of care is certainly not a mere description or generalizations of women's attitudes and activities as developed under patriarchy oakland patriarchal patriarchal illinois that's so hard for me to say right now conditions to be acceptable it must be a feminist ethic open to both women and men to adopt but in being feminist it is dif from the ethics of its precursors and different as well from virtue ethics I actually meant to read this paragraph right below it but it's a good paragraph too why not ethics of care sometimes thought inadequate because of its inability to provide definite answers in cases of conflicting moral demands right we talked about this like which virtue should we prioritize over the other is this hierarchy of virtues virtue theory has similarly been criticized for offering no more than what detractor is called Baga virtues with no clear indication of how to prioritize the virtues or apply their requirements especially when they seem to conflict now obviously we've talked about how some other like constructs of virtue ethics are able to do that on virtue ethics has all in it especially in its produ form definitely has this sort of criticism to advocates of the ethics of care its alternative moral epistemology seems better it stresses sensitive sensitivity to the multiple relevant considerations in particular context cultivating the trait of character and of relationship that sustain caring and promoting the dialogue that corrects and enriches a perspective of any one individual the ethics of care is hospitable to the methods of discourse ethics though with an emphasis on actual dialogue that empowers its participants to express themselves rather than on discourse so ideal than actual differences of viewpoint fall away so again another criticism that she has of mainstream ethical views all right on 21 bounine morality depends on given religion as little persuasiveness to those who do not share the faith so she's saying how that's different film like the Christian framework of ethic like a Christian ethic of care like instead she's trying to make it to where this is someone who who isn't Christian can also follow an ethic of care right they aim to have killed a universal reason so this is talking about mainstream ethical frameworks are contained in utilitarian ethics they appeal to only the universal reason though I'm practicing they fall woefully short of doing so virtue ethics is based on religion but need not be the universal appeal virtue ethics however has been less than that of rationalistic ethics given the enormous amount of cultural variation of what have been thought of as the virtues in comparison to such basic moral prohibitions based on reasons as those against murder theft and assault thought to be able to provide the basis for any acceptable legal system so this is saying that like look day ontology or consequentialism is something that's going to be more universal eyes well rather than something like virtue ethics because like our prioritization of different virtues although these virtues may be universal some cultures value justice over family and some value family over justice you know it's going to be much more dependent upon the culture in the context that the virtue ethicist finds himself in the ethics of Karen should be noted as potential comparable to that of rationalist role theories it appeals to the universal experience of caring every conscious human being has been cared for as a child and can see the value in the care that shaped him or her every thinking person can recognize a moral worth of caring relations that gave him or her a future the ethics of care builds on experience at all persons share though they have often been unaware of its embedded values and implications alright let's get through right here talking about the feminist background on page 24 affectionate sensitivity and responsiveness to need may seem to provide better moral guidance for what should be done in these contexts into abstract rules or rational calculations of individual utilities is this kind of talking about the feminists to feminist background that has shaped the ethics of care to be what it is but from the newly no both contine moralities of universal unchecked immoral laws and utilitarian versions of ethics of Bentham and mill advocating impartial calculations its determine what will produce the most happiness for the most amount of people developed for interactions between relative strangers contractual ISM tree interactions between mutually disinterested individuals all require impartiality make no room at the foundational level for the partiality that connects us to those we care for and to those who care for us relations of family friendship and group identity have largely been missing from these theories though recent attempts which I find unsuccessful have been made to handle such relations within them so again talking about like what is being missed from the mainstream theory so then Margaret Walker talks about the theoretical juror traditional accounts of actual moral practices the theoretical juridical account Walker shows are presented as appropriate for the moral agent as recommendations of how we ought to act but there are canonical forms of moral judgment or the judgments of those who resemble a judge manager bureaucrat or gamesman there are abstract and idealized forms of the judgments made by persons who are dominant in an established social order they do not represent the moral experiences of women caring for children or aged parents or of minority service workers providing care for minimal wages and they do not deal with the judgments of groups who must rely on communal solidarity for survival so this is the main feminist inspiration for what creates ethics of care it's looking at the voices of the marginalized those without power so what we just take for granted as being the mainstream view I mean that's just people and charge and they have this view of a judge manager bureaucratic gamesman but that's obviously going to be very different from someone who's a social worker someone who is a minority or someone who is a woman right and so it's these voices of the marginalized that has inspired the ethics of care as an alternative oh let's say twenty-seven Gilligan thought from her enquiries that it's possible to discern a different voice in the way many girls and women interpret reflect on speak about moral problems they are more concerned with context and actual relations between persons and less inclined to rely on object rules and individual conscience so that's you know the feminist alternative that's the others care theories developed for the paulus that is the the city-state and a marketplace were ill suited these feminists thought for applications the context of experience they were no longer willing to disregard as morally and significant alright let's move on to chapter two care as practice and value on page 30 many of those writing about care agree that care a beat agree that the care that is relevant to and ethics of care must at least be able to refer to an activity as in taking care of someone most of it on all of these writing on care do not lose sight of how care involves work and as the expenditure of energy on the part of the person doing the care so it's an act right but it is often thought to be more than this it is fairly clear that engaging in the work of taking care of someone is not the same as caring for them in the sense of having warm feelings for them sorts both a practice and a value whether certain feelings must accompany the labor of care is more in doubt so close attention to the feelings needs desires and thoughts of those cared for and a skill and understanding a situation with that person's point of view are central to caring for someone care is act on behalf of others interests but they also care for themselves since without the main maintenance of their own capabilities they'll not be able to continue to engage in care then if one accepts marks is a distinction between productive and reproductive labour and then sees carrying as reproductive labour is some proposed one misses the way of caring especially for children can be transformative rather than merely reproductive and repetitious although this has not been acknowledged in traditional views of the household the potential for a creative transformation the nurturing that occurs there and in childcare and education generally is enormous care has capacity to shape new persons with ever more advanced understanding of culture and society and morality and ever more advanced abilities to live well and cooperatively with others and so she writes caring for is the meeting of the needs of one person by another person or face-to-face interaction between carer and cared for is a crucial element to the overall activity and where the need of such is of such a nature and it cannot possibly be met by the person in her self care Rubick asserts is a response to the particular subset of basic human needs either those which make us and dependent on others but then what held says is that her conception is then open to the objection that as long as the deception is successful someone going through the motions of caring for a child while wishing the child dead is engaged in care of as much moral worth as that of a carer who intentionally and with affection stinks what is best for the child from me this objection is fatal just so she's saying there's no way that we can say that that is actually caring for someone so it's not just a practice it has to be in value and that's what the main argument she's writing an important aspect of cares how it expresses our attitudes in relations relationships pet about and has a different view than blue back of what caring relationships are like she starts with what she calls an intuition that carrying is ethically important caring she says expresses ethically significant ways once we matter to each other transforming interpersonal relatedness into something beyond ontological necessity or brute survival adopting a vidcon Stinney an approach to understanding and explicitly renouncing any attempt to provide a definition of care she carefully examines various examples of carriers of caring practices mothering friendship nursing and citizenship and including citizenship she illustrates how to face how face-to-face interaction is not a necessary feature of all carrying relationships though it it characterizes many and then Michael slow thinking it entirely suitable that are benevolent feeling for distant others be conceptualized as caring an ethic of caring in his view can take the well-being of all humanity into consideration like what we were talking about earlier where bovec rejects a view of caring as motive he embraces it to him caring just is a motivational attitude a virtue Florence bluml so care is a virtue so an illustration of what is missing and treating carers of virtues provided by Laurens poems discussion what he calls the care virtues and as a virtues of carry compassion concern kindness thoughtfulness and generosity she says as I see it their care promoted by the ethics of care is quite far from compassion even the care may perform tasks from the benefit of others cared for that the cared for cannot reciprocate the person in caring relation are not competitors for benefits Eames altruism is not what is called for caring is a relation on which carer and cared for shared an interest and their mutual well-being so it's different here so all this is why caring is a value finish should resist care seen care is entirely or even primarily a matter of motive or a virtue also because this runs the risk of losing sight of it as work but the idea that caring is not only work is also persuasive so we might conclude that care must be able to refer to work motive value and perhaps more than these so this is what care refers to its work it's motive its value and more but all that is why she thinks that it isn't the care is a value but now she's gonna talk about why care is a practice as well care is surely a form of labor labor but is also much more the labor of Karen is already relational and for the most part cannot be replaced by machines in the way so much other labor can our degrees at caring Labour's intrinsically relational but she thinks the relationship is something assumed rather than necessarily focused on in my view is we clarify care we need to see it in terms of caring relations let me see all right so she goes on to give different arguments why practice is a and this is a necessary part of care Y value is a necessary part of care and then I want to move on because I don't want to take up too much time too caring relations so I am skipping a lot here on these intervening pages do know that they are important if you have not read them I don't want to focus on them too much but if you have any questions about them again please feel free to reach out I'll be happy to clarify so talk about carrying relations I don't view them as that care is both a practice and a value as a practice that shows us how to respond to needs and why we should it builds trust and mutual concern and connectedness between persons it is not a series of individual actions but practice that develops along with its appropriate attitudes as attributes and standards that can be described but more important than that can be recommended and that should be continually improved as adequate care comes closer to being good care practices of care should also Express the caring relations that bring persons together and they should do so in ways that are progressively more morally satisfactory caring practices should gradually transform children and others into human beings who are increasingly increasingly morally admirable care is not the same thing as trust but caring relations should be characterized by trust and caring and trust sustain each other two advocates of ethics of care care involves moral considerations at least as important as those of justice and then the last page here both men and women should acknowledge that the enormous value of the carrying activities in which society lies and should share these activities fairly they should recognize the value of care as of Justice caring relations from the small societies of family and friendships on which larger societies to pin or they form the small societies that larger societies depend carrying relations of a weaker but still evident kind between more distant persons allow them to trust one another enough to live and peace and respect each other's rights for progress to be made persons need to care together for the well-being of their members and their environment we can understand how a caring community will sustain and validate the efforts of caring persons and how much more difficult it is for persons to cultivate caring relations when the message from the community promote and said the values of egoism competition and the victory of the fittest so this is a again part of the critiques of society and then closing up but we should not lose sight of the deeper reality of human interdependence Ian of the need of caring relations at under grid undergird our surrounding such or surround such constructions the ethics of care provides a way of thinking about and evaluating both the more immediate and the more distant human relations with which to develop morally acceptable societies since all four parts wanted to hopefully you can see the importance of both why care matter what care is it's both a practice and it's a value on how we are to understand what you know the individual is you know who individuals are on that no man is an island you know that kind of basics for the ethics of care and moral theory and how it differs from a lot of mainstream moral theories from all of these different ways again there's nothing that she's quite really advocating for here just more of setting up some differences um but again it's a freshness new theory I really appreciate getting such a different perspective that I've ever been used to so hopefully you've enjoyed it and I'll see you all next time until then I hope that you have a great week and don't forget to be working on your papers