are care ethics an example of feminist theory
Enron is an extreme example to be sure. Nevertheless, the Enron scandal reveals the need for integrating care ethical analysis into business ethics. Traditional moral approaches are very good at identifying the immorality of specific acts such as the fraud that Enron engaged in. Feminist care ethicists charge that a feminist care ethic is not compatible with the way Confucianism subordinates women. Ranjoo Seodu Herr locates the incompatibility as between the Confucian significance of li, or formal standards of ritual, and a feminist care ethics’ resistance to subjugation (2003). 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. Although care ethics is not synonymous with feminist ethics, much has been written about care ethics as a feminine and feminist ethic, in relation to motherhood, international relations, and political theory. Joan Tronto is most known for exploring the intersections of care ethics, feminist theory, and political science. She sanctions a feminist care ethic designed to thwart the accretion of power to the existing powerful, and to increase value for activities that legitimize shared power. While early strains of care ethics can be detected in the writings of feminist philosophers such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Catherine and Harriet Beecher, and Charlotte Perkins, it was first most explicitly articulated by Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings in the early 1980s. Feminist Theory Website: Feminist Ethics http://www.cddc.vt.edu/feminism/eth.html Hosted by the Center for Digital Discourse and Culture at Virginia Tech University COPYRIGHT 1999 KRISTIN SWITALA. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. You can access this site here. There is a website for Feminist Medical Ethics, here. You can order copies of the Journal of Women and Aging, edited by J. Dianne Garner, from The Haworth Press, at this postal address: The Haworth Press, Inc., 10 Alice Street, Binghamton, NY 13904-1580. 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. While most theorists agree that it is mistaken to view care ethics as a “woman's morality”, the best way to understand its relation to sex and gender is disputed. Slote develops a strictly gender neutral theory of care on the grounds that care ethics can be traced to the work of male as well as female philosophers.
No