Care Ethics and Political Theory brings together new chapters on the nature of care ethics and its implications for politics from some of the most important philosophers working in the field today. Chapters take up long-standing questions about the relationship between care and justice and develop guidelines for the development of a care-based justice theory. Care ethics is further applied to issues such as security, privacy, law, and health care where little work has been previously done. By bringing care ethics into conversation with non-Western and subaltern cultures, the contributing authors further show how care ethics can guide and learn from other traditions. A final set of chapters uses care ethics to challenge dominant moral and political paradigms and offer an alternative foundation for future moral and political theory. The book as a whole makes the case for care ethics as an equal or superior approach to morality and politics compared with liberalism, luck egalitarianism, libertarianism, the capabilities approach, communitarianism, and other political theories. The volume includes many of the leading care scholars in the world today engaging in both theoretical and applied discussions of this burgeoning field of study. Ultimately, Care Ethics and Political Theory endeavors to find realistic methods and ways of thinking to create a more caring world.

This book reflects on theoretical developments in the political theory of care and new applications of care ethics in different contexts. The chapters provide original and fresh perspectives on the seminal notions and topics of a politically formulated ethics of care. It covers concepts such as democratic citizenship, social and political participation, moral and political deliberation, solidarity and situated attentive knowledge. It engages with current debates on marketizing and privatizing care, and deals with issues of state care provision and democratic caring institutions. It speaks to the current political and societal challenges, including the crisis of Western democracy related to the rise of populism and identity politics worldwide. The book brings together perspectives of care theorists from three different continents and ten different countries and gives voice to their unique local insights from various socio-political and cultural contexts. Chapter 11 is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The Heart of Justice proposes a new framework of political justice based upon the practice of caring. Integrating the insights of earlier care theorists with the concerns of traditional justice theorists, Engster forges a new synthesis between care and justice, and further argues that the institutional and policy commitments of care theory must be recognized as central to any adequate theory of justice.Engster begins by offering a practice-based account of caring and a theory of obligation that explains why individuals should care for others. He then systematically demonstrates the implications of this account of caring for domestic politics, economics, international relations, and culture. In each of these areas, he reviews the contributions of earlier care theorists and then extends their arguments to provide a more complete description of the institutions and policies of a caring society.Care ethics is further put in dialogue with diverse cultural and religious traditions and used to address the challenges of multicultural justice, cultural relativism, and international human rights.More fully than other works on care theory, this book provides an over-arching account of the institutions and policies of a caring society. The Heart of Justice provides the first full account of a theory of justice based upon care ethics, and should be of interest to anyone interested in thinking about the nature of our moral obligations and the institutions of a just society.

The author assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. Held examines what we mean by care and focuses on caring relationships. She also looks at the potential of care for dealing with social issues and global problems.

In Moral Boundaries Joan C. Tronto provides one of the most original responses to the controversial questions surrounding women and caring. Tronto demonstrates that feminist thinkers have failed to realise the political context which has shaped their debates about care. It is her belief that care cannot be a useful moral and political concept until its traditional and ideological associations as a "women's morality" are challenged. Moral Boundaries contests the association of care with women as empirically and historically inaccurate, as well as politically unwise. In our society, members of unprivileged groups such as the working classes and people of color also do disproportionate amounts of caring. Tronto presents care as one of the central activites of human life and illustrates the ways in which society degrades the importance of caring in order to maintain the power of those who are privileged.

The ethic of care has developed to become a body of theory that has expanded from its roots in social psychology to many other disciplines in the social sciences as well as the humanities. This work on care has informed both theory and practice by generating complex accounts of care ethics for multiple and intersecting kinds of relationships, and for a variety of domains and contexts. Its application now extends from the moral to the political realm, from personal to public relationships, from the local to the global, from feminine to feminist virtues and values, and from issues of gender to issues of power and oppression. The developments in the theories and applications of care ethics over the past few decades make this book an appropriate and timely publication. It includes chapters by authors who are developing or expanding theories of care ethics and also by those who work on applying and extending insights from care ethics to practices and policies in personal and institutional settings. Care Ethics provides readers from different disciplines and professional groups with a substantial number of new theories and applications from both new and established authors. This book was originally published as two special issues of Ethics and Social Welfare.

This book broadens the scope of thinking about ethics in global social relations, criticizing the 'leading traditions' in international ethics, and exploring the ways in which some strands of feminist moral philosophy may offer an alternative perspective to view ethics in international relations.