CARE

ETHICS
JANE ADDAMS
ARIS S. GONZALES
ETHICS
1 SEM 2020-2021
ST
Jane Addams (1860–1935)
was an activist, community
organizer, international
peace advocate and a
social philosopher in the
United States during the
late 19th century and early
20th century.
 PHILOSOPHY
Addams’ philosophy combined feminist
sensibilities with an unwavering commitment to
social improvement through cooperative efforts.
Although she sympathized with feminists,
socialists, and pacifists, Addams refused to be
labeled.
 PHILOSOPHY
An analysis of Addams’ moral philosophy suggests at least three
claims about her relationship to feminist care ethics.
● Addams’ approach to the important social issues of her day
reflected the relationality and contextualization that are
important to what is called care ethics today.
● Although Addams employed caring in response to the needs
of others, she contributes an active, even assertive, dimension
to care ethics not commonly found in feminist theory.
● Addams advocates what might be called “socializing care”:
systemically instantiating the habits and practices of care in
social institutions.
 Why Care?
The original motivation for developing care ethics was an
acknowledgement that traditional forms of morality, in particular
principle-based and consequence-based ethics, did not adequately
address the richness of the human condition. These approaches
are said to bracket-out emotions, relationships, temporal
considerations, reciprocity, and creativity to focus on immediate
adjudication of moral conflicts.
 Why Care?
Principles and consequences have an important place in moral
deliberation but care theorists seek a more robust and complex
sense of morality that cannot ignore the context and people
involved. For example…

● Can I give you a hug?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZL3YRZOMW4
 CARE ETHICS
Care ethics demands effort, experience, knowledge, imagination
and empathy to effectively understand the totality of the moral
context. The result is not exoneration of personal responsibility but
a richer understanding of the human condition where we are all
actors and acted upon.
 CARE ETHICS
● Addams advocates a duty of social awareness and
engagement thus creating the potential for care.
● Aren’t feministsts wary of duty?
 CARE ETHICS
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 deeper
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 current
care ethics discourse.
 CARE ETHICS
● Addams extends care ethics to the public realm. She is not
content to compartmentalize personal and social morality.
Caring is what she desires for democracy and its various
institutions.
 HOW CAN I APPLY CARE ETHICS ?

School Government

Community The Vulnerable

 “For action is indeed the sole
medium of expression for ethics.”

“If the meanest man in the

republic is deprived of his
rights,then every man in the
republic is deprived of his rights. ”

—JANE ADDAMS
 THANKS! Sources:
https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/pea
ce/1931/addams/biographical/
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/addams-
jane/#Lif
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