Ethics of care

The ethics of care (alternatively care ethics or EoC) is a normative ethical theory that holds interpersonal relationships and care or benevolence as a virtue as central to moral action. It is one of a cluster of normative ethical theories that were developed by feminists in the second half of the twentieth century. While consequentialist and deontological ethical theories emphasize universal standards and impartiality, ethics of care emphasize the importance of response. The shift in moral perspective is manifested by a change in the moral question from "what is just?" to "how to respond?". Ethics of care criticize application of universal standards as "morally problematic, since it breeds moral blindness or indifference."

Some beliefs of the theory are basic:

One of the founders of the ethics of care was American ethicist and psychologist Carol Gilligan. Gilligan was a student of developmental psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg. Gilligan developed her moral theory in contrast to her mentor's theory of stages of moral development. She held that measuring progress by Kohlberg's model resulted in boys being found to be more morally mature than girls, and this held for adult men and women as well (although when education is controlled for there are no gender differences). Gilligan further argued that Kohlberg's model was not an objective scale of moral development. It displayed a particularly masculine perspective on morality, founded on justice and abstract duties or obligations. Other researchers, however, have found the scale to be psychometrically sound.

Gilligan's In a Different Voice offered the perspective that men and women have tendencies to view morality in different terms. Her theory claimed women tended to emphasize empathy and compassion over the notions of morality that are privileged in Kohlberg's scale. Subsequent research suggests that the discrepancy in being oriented towards care-based or justice-based ethical approaches may be based on gender differences, or on differences in actual current life situations of the genders.

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