Caring [1984]

Building an ethic on caring seems both reasonable and important. While much of what will be developed in the ethic of caring may be found, also, in Christian ethics, there will be major and irreconcilable differences. Human love, human caring, will be quite enough on which to found an ethic. A mother's caretaking efforts in behalf of her child are not usually considered ethical but natural. Many philosophers recognize the need for a discussion of virtue as the energizing factor in moral behavior, even when they have given their best intellectual effort to a careful explication of their positions on obligation and justification. The holy man living abstemiously on top of the mountain, praying thrice daily, and denying himself human intercourse may display "virtues", but they are not the virtues of one-caring. The virtue described by the ethical ideal of one-caring is built up in relation.