Abstract

In this dissertation, I critically examine current accounts of an ethic of care and identify a set of questions which future discussions will need to address if this ethic is to play a more central role in moral philosophy. Chapter One presents the ethic of care as advanced by Milton Mayeroff in On Caring, Carol Gilligan in In A Different Voice, and Nell Noddings in Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. The chapter provides a philosophical lay-of-the-land with respect to current accounts of this topic. Chapter Two, a critical discussion of Noddings, critiques her account by challenging her portrait of ethics-as-usual as unduly rational, "masculine," abstract, and preoccupied with rules and principles. In Chapter Three I raise the largely ignored question of what we ought to care about, argue that it is central to a caring ethic's successful articulation, and suggest how it might best be addressed. Chapter Four draws on work by Claudia Card, Jean Grimshaw, Sarah Hoagland and Barbara Houston and argues that an ethic of care needs to be understood in light of considerations of justice and of the political context of its possible application. The final chapter, Chapter Five, explores a potentially important connection between an ethic of care and the question of life's meaning. In light of work on meaningfulness and the good life by Richard Taylor and Martha Nussbaum, I argue that future discussion of this ethic would be well served by developing further this connection