ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a concept of care that will serve as the basis for rethinking moral boundaries and, by extension, the terrain of current moral and political life. It describes the incongruities between our present perspectives and a vision informed by care. Caring about involves the recognition in the first place that care is necessary. It involves noting the existence of a need and making an assessment that this need should be met. The chapter argues that, as an ongoing process, care consists of four analytically separate, but interconnected, phases. They are: caring about, taking care of, care-giving, and care-receiving. Conceptually, care is both particular and universal. The construction of adequate care varies from culture to culture. Care has mainly been the work of slaves, servants, and women in Western history. The largest tasks of caring, those of tending to children, and caring for the infirm and elderly, have been almost exclusively relegated to women.
