Care Ethics and Moral Theory: Review Essay of Virginia Held, The Ethics of Care

In The Ethics of Care, Virginia Held presents a comprehensive account of the current state of discussion in care ethics, a theory on which she has been working for some time.1 Care ethics differs from the alternative moral theories of Kantian ethics, utilitarianism, and virtue theory in a number of ways, according to Held. First, care ethics starts with the "compelling" moral significance of "attending to and meeting the needs of the particular others for whom we take responsibility." It builds on the "universal experience of caring" and of receiving care as a child. Second, care ethics values emotions as sources of understanding about what morality requires, especially emotions such as "sympathy, empathy, sensitivity, and responsiveness." Third, care ethics does not treat universal, universalizable, or impartial moral rules as having any special significance in generating moral understanding, and may treat the "compelling moral claim of the particular other" as more weighty than any universalizable rules with which it happens to conflict. Fourth, care ethics reconceptualizes the traditional dichotomy of public and private. Fifth, care ethics conceptualizes persons as "relational and interdependent," not as "self-sufficient," "independent," "self-interested," or as "rational autonomous agents."2 What is care? In Held's view, care is "a practice and a value." Held does not offer a precise definition of care. She does argue that care should not be seen primarily as a virtue, motive, or feeling. It is