1. Virtue and lifeworlds Aristotle’s warrior prince –courage, generosity, magnificence, high mindedness, gentleness, friendliness, truthfulness, wittiness, wisdom Christian monk – faith, hope, charity, chastity, piety, humility, obedience Confucian family subject –humanity, propriety, filial piety, broadmindedness, dignity

2. The world of the market The competitive individualist –Disciplined, hard working, entrepreneurial, organized, driven to succeed

3. The Caring Community Humans are essentially social creatures. Doing the right thing means creating and sustaining caring communities. Care is a basic human capacity to recognize and respond to the needs of others. Care begins at home and extends to distant others.

4. Empathy and Care Empathy is basic human capacity Must be developed through –past care –caring interactions with others Commitment to be a caring person

5. Care as Virtue Care as foundational virtue –Disposition to be good friend, family member and citizen of caring community Care is a disposition to respond to others by –Not inflicting harm –Alleviating suffering –Cultivating caring communities Requires the cultivation of empathy and its extension to distant others

6. Central features of care Moral attention –attention to the facts Sympathetic understanding –awareness of what the other would want you to do, and of what would be best for the other. Relationship awareness –awareness of existing relationships, of need to create and sustain community Accommodation and harmony –Balancing interests and preserving harmony in so far as you can.

7. Failures of Empathy Deliberate blunting of feeling of empathy: e.g. blaming the victim Here and now bias Empathic over-arousal

8. Failure to Develop Empathy “can be destroyed by power- assertive childrearing, diminished by cultural valuing of competition over helping others, and overwhelmed by egoistic motives… nonnurturant, excessively power-assertive life experiences may well produce individuals who cannot empathize.” (M. Hoffman, Empathy and Moral Development 281-2)

9. Responding to Failures of Empathy In oneself: –Call up feeling of empathy e.g. by imagination In Society and family –Share care work –Sensitive childrearing –Emphasize helping over competition Limit “power-assertive life experiences”

10. “Care and Justice voices”: Moral reasoning Care: moral development as emotional maturity. Justice: moral development as cognitive. Care: moral reasoning is contextual. Justice: moral reasoning is finding the right principles to apply to each case.

11. “Care voice”: persons The caring community Embedded persons Particular social context Some relationships are given. Connected selves Self-understanding in terms of relations with others.

12. “Justice voice”: persons The world of the market Autonomous individuals –Capable of self-definition in all social contexts. –Relationships are contractual. Separate/Objective Self –Self-understanding in terms of individual characteristics and desires.

13. Care and other Moral Perspectives Different perspectives reveal different aspects. Care as practice and care as moral perspective

14. What to do? Direct your moral attention to others. Be open to sympathetic understanding. Be aware of the need to sustain and preserve networks of care. Try to preserve harmony. Short cut: What would my ideal caring self do?

15. Feminism and Care Taking the experiences of women and girls seriously. Autonomy and its limits Who is doing “care” work? –In the household Domestic work Emotional work –In the larger society Who loses when care work is limited in these ways?