The ethics of care: The contribution of the feminist theory to political reflection on the state

Abstract

The aim of the article is to describe the contribution of the ethics of care, understood as an element of the feminist theory and a philosophical and theoretical discourse, to ref‌lection on the state. Three care ethics proponents are the starting point of this article. Carol Gilligan analyses concepts particularly related to women’s moral development – the value of relations and care which is bound to these concepts. Martha Nussbaum’s political thought focuses on the need to revise the political concept of the person and proposes the inclusion of care into the idea of a just state. Sibyl A. Schwarzenbach conceives civic friendship as a form of public care among equal citizens, which refers to mothers’ care for their children. Each of these authors considers the political model of the state based exclusively on justice to be insuf‌ficient. By introducing the concept of care, they show the importance of dependence and relations among people understood as biological beings. Here arguably lies the hope for developing a more extensive model of political thought than that which is merely based on justice understood as freedom among equals. The care ethics perspective takes account of both inequality (dependence) and relations.