 First and foremost, personal relationship goods are necessary for minimally functional lives (Kittay 1999; Liao 2006; Gheaus 2009; Brownlee 2013, 2016a). As already noted, a foundational claim of the ethics of care is that all individuals go through periods of vulnerability—most notably childhood—during which they cannot survive, let alone flourish, without the care of another human being. Relying on empirical research, Brownlee (2013) extends a similar claim to people of all ages. She argues that chronic lack of adequate social contact