Philosophy the work of Gilligan and Held
1) What is “care” in the sense this term acquires through the work of Gilligan and Held? In your answer, you should briefly explain Gilligan’s claim that justice and care are different “moral orientations,” and Held’s analysis in her first chapter of the five features of the ethics of care.
Explain at least one difference between the senses of “care” as used by Gilligan and Held.
Explain Held’s claim that care is both a practice and a value. Explain at least one of the similarities and one of the differences Held identifies between care ethics and an Aristotelian virtue ethics. (10 points)
2) Explain at least two important differences between an ethics of “justice” and an ethics of “care” (as Gilligan and/or Held define these differences).
Give an example of an ethical decision, and consider it from the moral reasoning recommended by either Mill or Kant (only one). (Note: You may take an example either from your own life experience, from one of the texts we have studied, or from your imagination, but make sure it is specific and concrete more than general and abstract.) Then consider the same ethical decision through the moral reasoning recommended by the ethics of care. Identify similarities and differences between the ethical concerns that each sort of moral reasoning emphasizes, and the conclusions that follow about what is right to do.
On pages 71-72 of Chapter 4 of her book The Ethics of Care, Held argues that while justice cannot be reduced to care, “caring relations should form the wider moral framework into which justice should be fitted. Care seems the most basic moral value” (71). According to Held, what should the relationship between justice and care be? Consider again the ethical decision in your example. What conclusion follows if you combine care and justice in the way Held recommends, with care as the most basic moral value?