Feminist care theorists Virginia Held and Joan Tronto have suggested that care is relevant to political issues concerning distant others and that care can provide the basis for a more comprehensive moral approach. I consider their approaches with regard to the policy issue of military humanitarian intervention, and raise concerns about exceptionalist attitudes toward international law that entail a collection of costs that I refer to as “the problem of global worldlessness.” I suggest that an ethic of care can overcome (...) these concerns, and offer an Arendt-inflected rereading of some of Tronto's work to show how this is possible. (shrink)

It may be thought that the ethics of care has developed important insights into the moral values involved in the caring practices of family, friendship, and personal caregiving, but that the ethics of care has little to offer in dealing with violence. The violence of crime, terrorism, war, and violence against women in any context may seem beyond the ethics of care. Skepticism is certainly in order if it is suggested that we can deal with violence simply by caring. Violence (...) seems to call for the harsh arm of law and enforcement, not the soft touch of care. Elsewhere I have discussed how the ethics of care would recommend respect for international law and how it would thus approach issues of military intervention. I will concentrate here on how the ethics of care can contribute guidance in dealing with family violence and in confronting terrorism. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

In international law, ‘humanitarian intervention’ refers to the use of military force by one nation or group of nations to stop genocide or other gross human rights violations in another sovereign nation. If humanitarian intervention is conceived as military in nature, it makes sense that only the most horrible, massive, and violent violations of human rights can justify intervention. Yet, that leaves many serious evils beyond the scope of legal intervention. In particular, violations of women's rights and freedoms often go (...) unchecked. To address this problem, I begin from two basic questions: When are violations of human rights sufficiently serious to require an international response of some sort? What should that response be? By re-orienting the aim and justification of international law to focus on individual autonomy rather than on peace between nations, I argue that women's rights violations other than genocide and mass rape can warrant intervention. Military intervention is often counter-productive to the aim of achieving autonomy, however. I suggest a range of responses to human rights violations that includes military intervention as one end of the spectrum, and combine this with a greater understanding of the scope of human rights violations that require international response. (shrink)