ABSTRACT
Care is a central but devalued aspect of human life. To care well involves engagement in an ethical practice of complex moral judgments. This chapter argues that care is only viable as a political ideal in the context of liberal, pluralistic, democratic institutions. Perhaps the most fundamental level of change in our political ideals that results from the adoption of a care perspective is in our assumptions about human nature. Some writers think of care in an apolitical context by tying it to a narrow psychological concern, or argue that it is a kind of practice that is corrupted by broader social and political concerns. There are two primary dangers of care as a political ideal, and they arise inherently out of the nature of care itself. These dangers are: paternalism or maternalism, and parochialism. Care’s absence from our core social and political values reflects many choices our society has made about what to honor.
