Feminist Care Ethics and Business Ethics

Abstract

Beginning in the 1980s, a groundswell of feminist theorists and philosophers challenged many of the assumptions surrounding traditional Western moral theory through what came to be known as “care ethics.” Accounting for context, valuing emotions, and emphasizing the concrete over the abstract, care ethics is a relational approach to morality that transcends traditional philosophical divisions of ethics, epistemology, and ontology. In many ways, care ethics engages in different “work” than other ethical theories because although it has a normative dimension – answering the question, “what is the right thing to do?” – it also has significant implications for how we know one another and who we are. In this respect, care ethics is not an alternative moral theory but a different way of framing or thinking about ethics. Care ethicists do not reject rules, rights, or consequences but believe that such methods do not capture the full scope of morality. Furthermore, care ethics arose out of women’s experience and feminist theory, but it is not a “woman’s morality.” Although sometimes characterized as such, care ethics does not reinforce gender essentialism. Today, feminist and nonfeminist theorists have made care ethics into a robust field of research and publication. This chapter introduces care ethics and discusses its place and potential in business ethics. In the process, the chapter addresses some of the myths about care ethics – that it is a “touchy-feely” personal morality – by discussing practical applications in business institutions. In particular, this chapter offers a brief overview of care ethics and a review of the discussions of care ethics within the business ethics literature. The potential role of care in business decisions, corporate culture, and the management of diversity is addressed.