Customer Reviews

Care, Autonomy, And Justice: Feminism And The Ethic Of Care (Feminist Theory and Politics)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book was greatly helpful to me as someone very interested in ethics of caring. The author had insightful discussions of views of others. She also offered well reasoned responses to important questions which continue to come up in seeking to integrate care and justice approaches. The bibilography of materials written up into the early 1990's is superb. I plan to give this book a central place in any '"Ethics of Caring" courses I teach.

Care, Autonomy, And Justice: Feminism And The Ethic of Care by Grace Clement



This book really deserves the five star rating that I have given it, however, it's not perfect, because instead of reviewing both sides of the debate it really is offering another view of Feminist Ethics. Clement argues that as Feminist we should really use both the The Ethics of Care and The Ethics of Justice. According to her, both act as a balance to one another.

She says that one is only able to do this if you *cherry* pick the definitions of Care and Justice. It works if you view the Ethics of Care for the private realm and if you use the Ethic of Justice in the public realm.

She explains the historical debates between the two ethics and talks about controversy over Gilligan's book, and she says that even if it's based on stereotypical behaviors it shouldn't matter because this is how we should act. I am not sure if I buy that reasoning, however she does make a point.

For me it makes the Ethics of care more appealing. The problem that I have with the Ethic of Care is that it assumes that all woman have a natural drive and want to create relational bonds, none of the books on the subject really show hard evidence (without anecdotal evidence) that woman naturally work within The Ethic of Care or are they forced to do it by society's *ideals* . Another assumption that the Ethic of Care makes is that all woman want and desire children, which I have issues with too. Again, I would like to see the evidence for this, and would very much like to see other evidence other than anecdotal.

IMHO, woman are force to work within relational bonds because they are forced to look for help with child care, sharing of ways to raise children (education), and because of stereotypical roles that some woman are still forced into have to be the manager of the family - I wonder if a study of woman who aren't married and don't have children would have the same world view as woman who have children. (Just thinking out loud)
Back to the book I think that Clements tries to bind the two Ethics together in a way that makes sense. She also discusses the many different aspects and views within both ethics group.

The bibliography at the end is a useful one although it's about a decade old.