Abstract
This chapter introduces the historical and conceptual contexts of a moral and political theory of care. One of the main stories about care ethics is that it began in moral psychology with Carol Gilligan 1982, then it slowly made its way into the realm of theorising about the social and political and engaged in debates in political theory only in the 1990s. This chapter offers a different story about care ethics by demonstrating that the social and political dimension of care was a focus of care ethics from the outset and received an explicit attention of care ethicists as early as about the mid-1980s. The chapter advocates moving beyond the schematism of the distinction of care ethics’ two generations and rethinking the complex development of care ethics with a special focus on the prominent role of a political concept of care. Finally, the chapter discusses the recent developments in a political theory of care and highlights its aspects that are most relevant to contemporary political and societal issues, such as the rise of neo-populist politics and the destructive effects of global neoliberalism.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Robinson’s (2014) interpretation of Ruddick’s thought is in many respects similar to the arguments that we propose in what follows. Robinson contends that “the importance of Ruddick’s contribution, not just to feminist thought but to the transformation of the entire terrain of moral philosophy, cannot be underestimated” and that “the moral and political import of the intellectual legacy left by Sara Ruddick has yet to be fully recognized” (Robinson 2014, 102 and 106). However, while Robinson’s focus is on Ruddick’s 1989 book Maternal Thinking, we make our case exclusively on the reading of Ruddick’s 1980 essay.
- 3.
Ruddick quotes in an affirmative tone Chodorow’s claim that “we cannot know what children would make of their bodies in a nongender or nonsexually organized social world. … It is not obvious that there would be major significance to biological sex differences, to genderdifference or to different sexualities” (Chodorow 1979, 66, cited in Ruddick 1980, 364, note 13).
- 4.
Robinson (2014) similarly concludes that “contrary to the arguments of some critics, Ruddick’s work neither upholds gender roles nor idealizes the values and activities of mothering. On the contrary, Ruddick’s philosophy politicizes motherhood and draws our attention to the ambivalent relationship that mothers have with the societies in which they live” (Robinson 2014, 106).
- 5.
We certainly do not want to claim that care ethicists have always rejected the view of care as an essentially feminine practice, perspective and attitude. Some care theorists have proposed accounts of caring that build on an essentialist view of the difference between the sexes and conceived of care ethics as a distinctive ‘feminine approach to ethics’ (Noddings 1984). Other care theorists have strongly opposed this view and argued against the link between care ethics and feminist essentialism (cf. Tronto 1987; Ruddick 1989; Fisher and Tronto 1990). Itis our claim here that it was the latter approach which was decisive for the success and further development of a moral and political theory of care.
- 6.
However, it is fair to note that in her later work Gilligan did elaborate on how care and justice may be connected in the real life of individuals and communities. See in particular her studies on patriarchy and democracy (Gilligan and Richards 2009) and African-American young women (Taylor et al. 1995).
- 7.
Soon after her 1982 book, Gilligan herself made it clear that this was a very limited interpretation of her research (cf. Gilligan 1986).
- 8.
For a thoughtful early criticism of the dualistic framework of Gilligan’s account, see Broughton (1983).
- 9.
Virginia Held’s valuable work (cf. Held 1990, 1993) represents a parallel attempt to construct a full-blown feminist moral theory as an alternative to dominant moral and social theories. Held’s approach, in contrast to Fisher and Tronto (1990), foregrounds mothering as the paradigm caring practice and puts greater emphasis on the feminist origin and core of this new ethic. Held views the feminist debates as a ‘transformation’ of moral theory, as she contends that “feminist reconceptualizations and recommendations concerning the relation between reason and emotion, the distinction between public and private, and the concept of the self, are providing insights deeply challenging to standard moral theory” (Held 1990, 342).
- 10.
By juxtaposing Sevenhuijsen (1998) and Kittay (1999) in these paragraphs we do not aim to claim that their positions are perfectly comparable. However, we contend that their views on the topics of citizenship, care and equality merge to a great extent. We also want to highlight that both Sevenhuijsen and Kittay should be credited with this particular contribution to the development of a political theory of care shortly before the turn of the millennium.
- 11.
- 12.
The European reception of care ethics started as early as in the late 1980s (cf. Sevenhuijsen 1988, 1991). However, we shall not overlook the previous independent European tradition of research on care, especially the British and Norwegian studies in the field of sociology and public policy (cf. Finch and Groves 1983; Waerness 1984). For a detailed account of the European reception and development of care ethics, see Vosman (2016). For a reflection on a ‘Francophone voice’ in care ethics literature, see Bourgault and Vosman (2020).
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Acknowledgements
We are indebted to Joan Tronto and Sophie Bourgault for their valuable comments on a draft of this chapter. Petr Urban’s work on this chapter as well as his co-editing of the entire volume was supported by the project ‘Towards a New Ontology of Social Cohesion’, grant number GA19-20031S of the Czech Science Agency (GA ČR), realised at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague.
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Urban, P., Ward, L. (2020). Introducing the Contexts of a Moral and Political Theory of Care. In: Urban, P., Ward, L. (eds) Care Ethics, Democratic Citizenship and the State. International Political Theory. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41437-5_1
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