Abstract
Over three decades ago, Carol Gilligan’s seminal bookIn a Different Voiceprovided feminist theorists with a powerful new approach to address the shortcomings of traditional moral theories. With a focus on concrete situations, an ethics of care can attend to the specifics of moral dilemmas that might otherwise be glossed over. As feminist reflection on moral and political philosophizing has progressed, another challenge has emerged. Recent feminist scholarship proposes non-ideal theories as preferable action-guiding theories. In this paper, I examine Kittay’s call for a version of care ethics as a naturalized ethics that comes from lived experience, in order to draw out the salient characteristics of the caring agent. This allows me to show how Kittay’s key assertion that “we are all some mother’s child” resonates with Ricoeur’s framing of self-esteem, which is, in turn, anchored on a notion of solicitude. Secondly, I make the case that care ethics can benefit from Ricoeur’s little ethics as it helps buttress the goal of good caring practices. Finally, care ethics, with its emphasis on the universality of care needs, helps to strengthen the central role of solicitude for the political sphere.
Highlights
RÉSUMÉ : Il y a plus de trente ans, le livre fondateur de Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice, fournissait aux théoriciennes féministes une nouvelle approche permettant d’affiner la critique des théories morales traditionnelles, particulièrement en ce qui concerne leur universalisme
Eva Kittay (2009) argues that a version of care ethics can be both responsive to the inclusion of persons with severe cognitive disabilities in a theory of justice and attuned to the practices of care, which would make for a richer understanding of the political sphere
Kittay’s proposal is to consider care ethics as a naturalized ethics, a type of non-ideal theory, that starts from the ground up, the reality in which we live
Summary
Focalisant sur les situations concrètes, l’éthique du care chez Gilligan permet de recentrer l’attention sur les spécificités d’un dilemme moral qui, autrement, risquent de rester dans l’ombre. La recherche récente suggère qu’une théorie morale non idéale (émergeant des situations vécues) est préférable aux théories dites idéalistes. J’examine l’éthique du care selon Eva Feder Kittay, soit à titre d’éthique naturalisée (enracinée dans l’expérience), afin de mettre en relief les caractéristiques saillantes de l’agent.e caring. Cela me permettra ensuite de montrer comment l’affirmation clé de Kittay selon laquelle « nous sommes tou.te.s l’enfant d’une mère » fait écho à la pensée ricoeurienne de l’estime de soi qui est, en retour, ancrée dans la notion de sollicitude. Les éthiques du care, qui placent l’accent sur l’universalité des besoins en cette matière, pourront mieux ancrer la sollicitude dans la sphère politique. Cet article est diffusé et préservé par Érudit. Il a pour mission la promotion et la valorisation de la recherche. https://www.erudit.org/fr/
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