ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 deals with the care side of care aesthetics and locates its origins in the field of feminist care ethics. It explains the history of this area of philosophy and notes how it endorses a view that context-specific human relations defined by our interdependence are a source of ethics. This does not dismiss a concern for ethics based on concepts of rights or justice but situates a demand for greater equity in the quality and distribution of caring responsibilities between individuals and groups. Care ethics provides a vital touch point for the book, but the chapter also discusses the importance of care as an embodied practice, and from this perspective outlines an approach whereby its aesthetics properties can be discussed. Care ethics has some suspicion of the aesthetic dimensions of care, and these are discussed and a positive account of an aesthetic reading of care practice is offered.
