 More than merely prefiguring care ethics, Addams infuses a high social responsibility standard into this moral approach. Addams advocates a duty of social awareness and engagement, thus creating the potential for care. Many care ethicists are wary of the notion of duty as it has been traditionally formulated. Moral duties have historically entailed claims regarding actions that a person is required to offer on behalf of another. Because the “other” is an abstract other and the requirements are universalized (I must act in such a way in all cases), duties toward others have tended toward moral minimums of obligation. For example, a moral obligation to act is present if someone’s life is in peril and minimal effort is required to prevent it, such as an infant drowning in 3 inches of bathwater. Although such cases get widespread agreement, it becomes more challenging to ascertain what obligation one has to distant others with unclear expectations of success. For example, many Americans have disposable income that could save the life of someone in a poverty-stricken country on a distant continent; do they have a moral obligation to give them money, and to what extent? Addams constructs the duty to care differently. Hers is an epistemological demand. Addams claims that good citizens actively pursue knowledge of others—not just facts but a more profound understanding—for the possibility of caring and acting on their behalf: “if we grow contemptuous of our fellows, and consciously limit our intercourse to certain kinds of people whom we have previously decided to respect, we not only tremendously circumscribe our range of life, but limit our scope of ethics” (DSE 8). For Addams, care ethics must be actively pursued, not passively fostered. Addams’ language is more assertive than much of the current care ethics discourse.