ABSTRACT
In recent decades, at least in certain philosophical circles, justice has lost some of its lustre as a virtue for establishing and sustaining good relationships in a society. In the view of some feminist philosophers, for example, ethics based on justice need to be supplemented, or even supplanted, by an “ethics of care”. As Annette Baier says:
‘care’ is the new buzz-word. It is not … mercy that is to season justice, but a less authoritarian humanitarian supplement, a felt concern for the good of others and for community with them. The ‘cold jealous virtue of justice’ (Hume) is found to be too cold, and it is ‘warmer’ more communitarian virtues and social ideals that are being called in to supplement it.1
