CaseEthics
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Frameworks

Core framework

Care Ethics

Morality begins in relationships of care.

Guiding principle

Moral action responds to the concrete needs of particular others within relationships of dependence and care.

Key thinkers

Carol Gilligan · Nel Noddings · Virginia Held

Strengths

  • Foregrounds relationships, vulnerability, and context.
  • Corrects the abstraction of impartialist theories.
  • Especially strong for medical, family, and pedagogical ethics.

Common objections

  • Risks parochialism — special concern for one's own.
  • Under-theorized about strangers and institutions.
  • Can rationalize burdensome expectations on caregivers.

Mini-example

A nurse weighs not only clinical protocol but the patient's fear, isolation, and history — the relationship itself is morally salient.