Aristotle, Founder of the Ethics of Care

transcript

ARISTOTLE: FOUNDER OF THE ETHICS OF CARE

INTRODUCTION

My title is, perhaps, more provocative than accurate. I

do not wish to claim that those who are usually credited

with originating the Ethics of Care – Carol Gilligan and Nel

Noddings – build explicitly upon Aristotle’s work or even

that Aristotle is a source of inspiration for them.1

Instead, my project is to show that Aristotle is an earlier

advocate (perhaps the earliest advocate) of the Ethics of

Care. Mine might seem, at first glance, to be a quixotic

project for three reasons: (a) Aristotle is a sexist male,

(b) he is dead, and (c) he does not even mention “care”.

Aristotle is a Sexist Male

Many of its advocates take the Ethics of Care to be

distinctively or predominately a woman’s moral theory. The

claim that Aristotle advocates the Ethics of Care should not

be dismissed out of hand merely because Aristotle is male.

But a modicum of respect for women would seem to be required

of any advocate of the Ethics of Care, and Aristotle is

hardly a feminist by twentieth century standards. Indeed, he

seems quite disparaging of women. For example, Aristotle

notoriously states,

The woman has [a deliberative faculty], but it

is without authority. (Pol. 1260a12-13)

A man would be thought a coward if he had no

more courage than a courageous woman, and a

woman would be thought loquacious if she imposed

no more restraint on her conversation than the

good man. (Pol. 1277b21-24)2

So it seems that Aristotle cannot possibly be an Ethics of

Care advocate no matter how many points of similarity I

discover between Aristotle’s ethics and the Ethics of Care.

No one should try to be an apologist for absolutely

everything that Aristotle says. Like most other commentators

on Aristotle’s ethics, I shall simply acknowledge and

bracket Aristotle’s sexist views, and then see whether what

remains is coherent and interesting.3 More remains than one

might expect. For example, the notorious passages quoted

above are almost salvageable.

According to Aristotle, incontinent people reason

correctly and make the right choices, although their

rational faculty cannot persuade or overcome their passions

and desires. Thus, they do not do what they know they

should. When Aristotle claims that women’s rational faculty

“lacks authority,” he might mean that women reason just as

well as men, but they are incorrigibly incontinent. By

nature they lack what some people might call willpower.

Notice what a positive view of women this is. It is sexist,

all right, but according to Aristotle most men are

incontinent or worse, too. Anyway, averring that women

reason no worse than men is quite forward-looking for

Aristotle’s day.

Aristotle’s remark about male and female virtues also

turns out to be less sexist than one might think at first

glance. Here is the preceding sentence.

Although the temperance (sophrosyne) and justice

of a ruler are distinct from those of a subject,

the virtue of a good man will include both; for

the virtue of the good man who is free and also

a subject, e.g. his justice, will not be one but

will comprise distinct kinds, the one qualifying

him to rule, the other to obey, and differing as

the temperance and courage of men and women

differ. (Pol. 1277b16-21)4

In this passage Aristotle says that each virtue consists of

two parts: the part required in order to be a good ruler,

and the part required in order to be a good subject. Good

people are capable of both ruling well and obeying well.

They can make good decisions on behalf of others and

appropriately implementing decisions made by others. Good

people have both parts of each virtue. Now Aristotle claims

that the two components of each virtue differ “as the

temperance and courage of men and women differ.” Courage,

for example, consists of the part rulers need plus the part

subjects need. These are male and female courage,

respectively. A person who is merely a good man, who is good

qua man, has the former; a person who is merely a good woman

has the latter. Good people have both parts because in life

everyone needs both the ability to make good decisions for

others and the ability to execute good decisions made by

others. Of course, ruling, boldness, and silence have more

prestige than obeying, caution, and loquaciousness, so the

way in which Aristotle allocates abilities to men and women

is undeniably sexist. But the claim that a good person needs

both the male and female virtues is again quite forward-

looking for Aristotle’s day.

More evidence that Aristotle has respect for women will

emerge below, but already Aristotle is beginning to look

like a feminist by 4th century BCE standards. He is

significantly ahead of his time, though behind ours. By

being ahead of his time, Aristotle shows a relative respect

for women. Thus, neither his sex nor his sexism disqualifies

Aristotle from being an advocate of the Ethics of Care.

Aristotle is Dead

A second worry is that my project seems philosophically

unimportant. Whether Aristotle anticipated Gilligan and

Noddings seems to be merely a matter for the historian of

ideas.

But the project promises benefits for philosophers. In

general, stirring the intellectual stew is always

worthwhile. It uncovers insights buried by time and change.

In particular, observing similar doctrines embedded in very

different general theories from different intellectual

milieus is typically illuminating. Linking Aristotle’s

ethics and the contemporary Ethics of Care should spark us

to see both with fresh eyes. Unfortunately, it will be

beyond the scope of this paper to do much beyond cross-

pollinating the secondary literature on Aristotle’s ethics

and the current work on the Ethics of Care. This will be one

more frustratingly programmatic Ethics of Care paper, alas.

As a teaser, the paper will include one contribution

that Aristotle can make to the contemporary conversation

about the Ethics of Care. Aristotle’s account of the much-

disputed relationship between care and justice is not

currently on the table and may well be right. Ethics of Care

advocates may have something to contribute to Aristotle

scholarship, too. Viewing Aristotle as an early Ethics of

Care advocate may give Aristotle commentators a new

perspective on Aristotle’s account of friendship.

Finally, the discovery that the Ethics of Care is not

just a Jenny-come-lately theory should add some overdue

cache to the Ethics of Care. Appealing to the authority of

the venerable Aristotle may be an informal fallacy, but it

is also a potent weapon.

Aristotle Does Not “Care”

Aristotle cannot be an Ethics of Care advocate without

a concept of care, of course. But Aristotle does have a

concept of care. Although the Greek terms philēsis and its

infinitive version to philein are typically translated as

“love,” or “friendly feeling,” or “friendly affection” by

Aristotle’s translators, I suggest that Aristotle uses

philēsis and to philein to mean approximately what advocates of

the Ethics of Care mean by “caring” and “care.” Aristotle

defines to philein in the following way. “We may describe to

philein towards anyone as wishing for him what you believe to

be good things, not for your own sake but for his, and being

inclined, so far as you can, to bring these things about”

(Rhet. 1380b36-1381a2). Further Aristotle contrasts philēsis

with mere goodwill (eunoia). He says that goodwill, “does

not involve intensity or desire, whereas these accompany

philēsis; and philēsis implies intimacy while goodwill may arise

of a sudden” (1166b33-35). Hence, philēsis is no shallow whim,

but a deep desire for the wellbeing of another person,

sought not merely as a means to the agent’s own wellbeing,

but at least partially for the other person’s own sake. The

interests of the other person are sought because of who the

other is, because of his or her character. Moreover, philēsis

includes substantial familiarity with the other gained

through meaningful personal interactions with the other.

This is compassion and sympathy, core components of care.

Aristotle says little about philēsis, per se. Probably it

is too general for him. After all, the object of philēsis is

not necessarily a person or even an animal. “Philēsis may be

felt just as much towards lifeless things” (1157b29-30) just

as we might say that we care for a favorite teacup. However,

Aristotle defines friendship (philia) as a relationship

between people who feel philēsis for each other and know that

their feelings are reciprocated (1155b32-34, 1166a2-8).

Friends are like-minded (homonoia); they think and feel

alike about important things. This is empathy, another core

component of care. Aristotle’s account of friendship

contains much of his discussion of care.5

1. C. Gilligan, In a Different Voice (Cambridge Mass: Harvard

University Press, 1982), and N. Noddings, Caring (Berkeley:

University of California Press, 1984).

2 All quotations from Aristotle are taken from The Complete

Works of Aristotle, ed. J. Barnes (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1984). Quotations and citations are to the

Nicomachean Ethics unless otherwise indicated.

3 Aristotle does take the relationship between mother and

child to be a paradigmatic friendship relationship in

certain ways, although it does not fit well into Aristotle’s

taxonomy of types of friendship (1159a27-33, 1161b26-27,

1166a2-9).

4 Part of the connection between these two sentences is

obscured by the translation of sophrosyne as temperance. For

the Greeks of Aristotle’s day, sophrosyne includes moderation

Although Aristotle does not list care, or its

components such as compassion, sympathy, and empathy, as

virtues, he does list liberality (eleutheriotēs) which includes

generosity with respect to money and monetary goods

(1119b23-27). Liberality is closer to care than it might

seem upon first glance. First, many caring acts consist in

providing people with money or things that can be purchased.

Second, within the sphere of monetary goods, liberal people

are good at discerning who will benefit from what sort of

help. They desire to provide that help, and act effectively

upon such desires, not just for their own sake, but for the

sake of the other person, and because it is the right thing

to do. Finally, since liberality is a virtue, liberal

of speech as well as moderation of sensual pleasure. Thus a

loquacious person lacks sophrosyne.

5 Not all mutually caring relationships are friendships.

Nevertheless, Aristotle’s notion of friendship is

substantially broader than what we usually mean by

friendship. Families are Aristotelian friendships, for

example.

actions and passions are morally required. So Aristotle does

include significant portions of care within his list of

virtues.

The absence of care or its components from Aristotle’s

list of virtues would not mean that Aristotle ignores these

traits, for they are part of his account of friendship, and

fully one fifth of the Nicomachean Ethics is devoted to

Aristotle’s account of mutually caring relationships which

he calls friendships. By itself this does not make Aristotle

an advocate of the Ethics of Care, however, for he must hold

the right doctrines, too.

Advocates of the Ethics of Care have not arrived at

complete doctrinal consensus. Each diverges from the others

on a few points. A useful simplification is that on each

point some Ethics of Care advocates hold moderate positions

while others are more extreme. Yet notwithstanding

disagreements, the views of the Ethics of Care advocates,

particularly moderate advocates, share a common core. So

long as Aristotle espouses this core, he may plausibly be

considered a moderate Ethics of Care advocate, even if he

diverges from most modern thinkers on other points. For

example, Aristotle is a eudaemonist perfectionist while most

contemporary Ethics of Care advocates are not. But this

disagreement does not disqualify him from advancing an

Ethics of Care, since it is a disagreement over the

grounding, but not the substance of the Ethics of Care.

My procedure shall be to list the top ten core

doctrines of the moderate, modern Ethics of Care, and then

show that Aristotle advances these same doctrines.6 Like

many movements in the history of ideas, the Ethics of Care

has emerged through contrasts with its predecessors and

competitors. Gilligan, Noddings, and their followers rebel

6 Julie Ward presents a more detailed description of what

Aristotle means by to philein, philēsis, and philia. She argues

that Aristotelian friendship possesses four central features

of a feminist conception of friendship, but she does not tie

Aristotle’s account specifically to the Ethics of Care. See

J. Ward, “Aristotle on Philia: The Beginning of a Feminist

Ideal of Friendship?” in Feminism and Ancient Philosophy, ed. J.

Ward (Routledge: New York, 1996), pp. 155-171.

against twentieth century utilitarians, deontologists,

social contractarians, Marxists, and many others which, for

my purposes, may be lumped together as Mainstream Ethics.

The Ethics of Care diverges in three broad ways from

Mainstream Ethics. Whereas Mainstream Ethics concerns itself

with universality, rationality, and impartiality, the Ethics

of Care is particularist, passionate, and partialist.

PARTICULAR v. UNIVERSAL

Mainstream Ethics primarily concerns the formulation,

interrelation, and fine-tuning of general moral rules.

Hypothetical, bare-bones situation-sketches, abstractly

formulated problems, and even generic, interchangeable

individuals figure prominently in the exposition of

Mainstream Ethics. Of course, Mainstream Ethics advocates

acknowledge that different people in different situations

have different duties, so correctly applying moral rules

requires detailed knowledge of the effected people and their

situations. But this is merely a perfunctory proviso. The

overwhelming emphasis on general rules sends the twin

messages that, getting the general rules right is the

central task of ethics, and applying the general rules to

particular situations is usually a trivial matter which can

safely be left as an exercise. By contrast, Ethics of Care

advocates insist that morality must focus on particular

people with particular relationships in particular

situations. Each person, relationship, and situation is so

different from others that general rules provide little or

no guidance. Such rules are often more misleading than

helpful. Moderate Ethics of Care advocates accept that rules

have a role, but emphasize the overwhelming importance of

the particulars in moral thinking and action.7

Aristotle agrees. He cautions, “We must be content,

then, in speaking of [fine and just actions and goods] to

indicate the truth roughly and in outline…” (1094b19-21. see

also 1103b34-1104a10, 1109b14-24, 1126a32-b7, 1142a11ff,

1164b22). Although Aristotle does provide a few rules, they

7. M. Walker, “Moral Understandings: Alternative

‘Epistemology’ for a Feminist Ethics,” Hypatia, 4 (1989),

pp. 19-20.

are very general and clearly intended to provide only a

start or structure for thinking about certain problems. For

example, Aristotle’s rule governing distributive justice

says vaguely: Treat equals equally and unequals

proportionately unequally (1134a1-7). Equally vaguely,

Aristotle’s rule governing temperance is that all pleasures

are acceptable except those which are unhealthy,

deconditioning, unaffordable, or ignoble (1119a16-20).

When explaining incontinence and the practical

syllogism, Aristotle does make it seem as if decision-making

is the straightforward application of rules to situations

(1146b35ff). But arguably this explanation is stylized or

simplified for the sake of exposition, and is out of step

with much of what Aristotle says elsewhere about decision-

making. His discussion of the practical syllogism does not

take into account the large roles played by perception and

passion upon which Aristotle often insists, for example.

Questions about what to do cannot be settled simply by

applying rules indiscriminately.

Many interpreters take Aristotle to the opposite

extreme. Aristotle says of concrete moral evaluations and

choices, “Such things depend upon particular facts, and the

decision rests with perception” (1126b3-4. see also 1109b22-

23). Now some commentators have attributed to him the

extreme view that good people just know somehow through

perception what to do once they find themselves in a

situation. But Aristotle is no situation ethicist. His point

is not that we should use perception rather than reason to

distinguish right from wrong. After all, his claim that the

happy life is a life of virtuous activity exercising reason,

his definition of choice as involving deliberation, his

account of practical wisdom, and many of Aristotle’s other

statements and doctrines should leave no doubt that

Aristotle takes reason to play a crucial role in virtuous

action. Indeed, Aristotle says just a page before his “rests

with perception” remark that, “the good tempered man tends…

to be angry in the manner, at the things, and for the length

of time, that reason dictates” (1125b33-1126a1, emphasis mine).

In addition to perception to determine the particular facts,

we need reason to provide the right rule (orthos logos), not to

mention passion to motivate and structure the application of

rules to particular situations. The point of Aristotle’s

“rests with perception” remark is that in order to act

correctly in any situation we need perception in addition to

reason and passion.

To summarize, along with advocates of the moderate

Ethics of Care, Aristotle acknowledges that rules have a

place within morality, but strongly emphasizes that they are

too general to be sufficient for action-guidance. Much of

the action-guiding work is done by knowledge of the

particular facts of particular situations. “Nor is practical

wisdom concerned with universals only – it must also

recognize the particulars; for it is practical, and practice

is concerned with particulars” (1141b4-16). Furthermore, for

Aristotle, some of the most important particulars are facts

about our relationships.

Mainstream Ethics advocates presuppose that people are

primordially independent of each other. Metaphorically

speaking, we rest alongside each other barely touching, or

we crash into one another and careen away like billiard

balls on a table. Relationships are contingent properties of

individuals. One is basically the same person before and

after forming or ending a friendship, a marriage, or any

other relationship. Relationships, like other particular

facts about a person, merely overlay the basic human nature

that forms the foundation of morality. By contrast, people

are primordially related, according to the advocates of the

Ethics of Care. Not only are people always already in the

midst of relationships, but also each addition, subtraction,

or alteration of a relationship transforms the participants.

Furthermore, our own peculiar identities as well as our

common human nature are morally essential. This is a second

way in which the Ethics of Care values particularity over

universality. Extreme Ethics of Care advocates might

maintain that we are nothing more than our relationships.

Other Ethics of Care advocates, such as Gilligan, take no

position on whether our relationships are constituents of

our identities. Moderate Ethics of Care advocates, such as

Noddings, say more cautiously that our identities are, to a

significant extent, a function of our relationships.

Like the Ethics of Care advocates, Aristotle maintains

that human nature is relational. “Man is a political

creature and one whose nature is to live with others”

(1169b18-19). Human beings have innate tendencies to form

certain sorts of relationships. Aristotle defines self-

sufficiency, and thus happiness, not “for one who lives a

solitary life, but also for parents, children, wife, and in

general for his friends and fellow citizens, since man is

sociable by nature” (1097b8-11). That is, Aristotle takes

people to be naturally embedded in a variety of different

sorts of relationships. His project in the Nicomachean Ethics

is to give an account of happiness for a person so embedded.

Throughout most of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle describes

the happy life as built around the exercise of virtues by

people immersed in families, friendships, communities, and

states. Even when he endorses the contemplative life in

Nicomachean Ethics X.7-8, Aristotle acknowledges that he is not

interested in isolated individuals. Aristotle says

forcefully,

He who is unable to live in society, or who has

no need because he is sufficient for himself

must be either a beast or a god. (Pol. 1253a28-

But clearly the virtue we must study is human

virtue; for the good we were seeking was human

good and the happiness human happiness.

(1102a13-15)

The city/state (polis) is the natural habitat of the person.

Aristotle understands a city/state as a natural network of

various sorts of friendships rather than as a collection of

individuals who have made a single, artificial compact with

each other (Pol. 1280b23-1281a2). People are related to each

other qua citizen and in many other ways, too.

We are not merely people with natural tendencies to

form human relationships, whose happiness requires

relationships, and who typically find ourselves already in

relationships. Aristotle also maintains that each person’s

identity, his or her character, is a function of his or her

relationships in two ways. First Aristotle observes,

The friendship of bad men turns out to be an

evil thing because…they become evil by becoming

like each other, while the friendship of good

men is good, being augmented by their

companionship…for from each other they take the

mould of the characteristics they approve.

(1172a8-15)

Friendship is character-transforming. We come to resemble

our friends in character. Since a change in character is a

change in one’s self, Aristotle’s view is that a person’s

identity is, among other things, a result of his or her

friendships.8 Friends affect a person’s self in a more

8 Aristotle fleshes out the mechanism in IX.9, although what

he says there is rather opaque. See J. Cooper, “Aristotle on

Friendship,” Essays on Aristotle’s Ethics, ed. A. O. Rorty

(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1980), p. 317-

334; R. Kraut, Aristotle on the Human Good (Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1989), pp. 142-143.

direct way, too. In addition to changing a person’s

character, friendships themselves are part of a person’s

self in some sense. Aristotle observes that friends share in

each other’s goals and activities, values and plans (1172a1-

8), and especially happiness and sorrow. A friend “grieves

and rejoices with his friend” (1166a7-8). Aristotle

describes friendship in a way that is pregnant with meaning,

yet enigmatic. He says that, “the friend is another self”

(allos autos) (1166a31-32, 1170b6-7) or a “second self” (autos

diairetos) (1166a31-32, 1170b6-7).

On the basis of this, Sherman attributes to Aristotle

the view that friends are parts of a person’s “extended

self.” Thus, acts that look from the outside like one friend

sacrificing his or her interests for another, look from the

inside like a person acting in the interests of his or her

own, extended self. We share happiness with our friends

because we literally include our friends.9

9 N. Sherman, “Aristotle on Friendship and the Shared Life,”

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 47 (1987), pp. 595-600.

Sherman’s interpretation would bring Aristotle into

harmony with more extreme versions of the Ethics of Care,

but textual evidence for an extended self interpretation of

Aristotle is lacking. From Aristotle’s observation that we

share many things, particularly happiness and sorrow, with

our friends it does not follow that we and our friends

together form a compound entity, a super-self. Aristotle

says that the city/state aims at the common good, yet there

is no basis in the text for the further claim that the

common good is the good of a single entity over-and-above

yet somehow including the separate citizens.10 Similarly,

there is no basis in the text for the claim that there is an

extended self over-and-above yet somehow including the

separate selves of the individual friends. Perhaps Aristotle

simply means that a person’s identity is a function of his

or her relationships as well as his or her character. It is

part of Aberforth that he is husband of X, father of Y,

tennis partner of Z, etc. These relationships are not

incidental to him. Each person is partially a node in a web

of relationships. But each person is not the node plus

adjacent nodes. Aberforth’s friendships with X, Y, and Z are

part of his self; X, Y, and Z are not.

Again when the more extreme interpretations of

Aristotle are rejected, he turns out to espouse a position

similar to the modern, moderate Ethics of Care, a position

that foregrounds particularity in ethics.

A radical, but nevertheless influential claim advanced

in several different traditions is that we ought to care for

everyone equally and greatly. “You shall love your neighbor

as yourself” and everyone is your neighbor.11 Advocates of

10 Miller thoroughly debunks this interpretation of

Aristotle. See F. Miller, Nature, Justice, and Rights in Aristotle’s

Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 53-56,

194-198, 205-210.

11Leviticus 19:18; Luke 10:27.

Mainstream Ethics do not go so far, but they do demand that

we value people impersonally and uniformly, because of their

humanity. Equal concern and respect for the interests of

everyone is required, although it is not expressed in

identical treatment because of differences in situation and

ability. Ethics of Care advocates separate themselves from

this form of mainstream egalitarianism by maintaining that

value is correlated to care. We care, and should care, for

particular people to different degrees and in different

ways. We are devoted to our family and bosom buddies, fond

of our neighbors and acquaintances, and merely open to

future caring for strangers. Moreover, the basis or reason

for care is different in different cases. We should care for

people not impersonally, not because of their humanity, but

rather because of individual facts about their histories,

characters, situations, and their relationships with us. We

should care for people qua related individuals, not qua

persons. This is a third sort of particularity.

The idea that one ought to care equally for a very

large group of other people, if not everyone, is known to

Aristotle. Plato stipulates that the guardians of the

Republic should love and treat one another as if they were

all members of a single, huge, nuclear family. But Aristotle

rejects this demand unequivocally. He criticizes universal

love as “diluting” love (Pol. 1262b15-24). A person can have

only a limited number of close friends (1170b20ff). Nor does

Aristotle espouse the ideal that all people have equal

value. Instead, he believes that people have value only

within, and with respect to friendships. And friendships

vary, and should vary in degree and in nature because they

are based upon particular facts. Indeed, Aristotle works out

a detailed typology of different types of friendship.

For Aristotle, friendships are relationships of mutual

cooperation for the sake of gaining and maintaining some

goods. Thus, friendships can be classified according to the

goals of the friendships. “There are three kinds of

friendship equal in number to the things that are lovable”

(1156a7-8) namely pleasure, utility, and nobility or

virtuous activity (1155b18-19). So Aristotle first divides

friendships into pleasure friendships, utility friendships,

and character friendships. The parties in pleasure and

utility friendships are friends with each other not because

of their common humanity, but rather because they are

pleasant or useful in particular ways. People who share

character friendships are friends because they appreciate

the particular characters of each other; they care for and

value each other as individuals.

In pursuing a common goal, decisions must be made. This

allows Aristotle to categorize friendships along a second

dimension. Aristotle’s view is that decisions in a

friendship should be made by whoever is most competent. In

some friendships one party is best at everything; in other

friendships all parties are equally competent; and in yet

other friendships different friends are competent with

respect to different spheres of human life. Thus,

friendships can be classified according to whether the

decision-making is done exclusively by one of the friends,

shared equally, or divided among the friends according to

expertise. Aristotle uses stereotypical relationships within

the household as metaphors for these three arrangements.

Children, being approximately equally competent, should

share decision-making within their relationship equally.

Parents, being more competent than children, should make all

of the decisions within the parent-child relationship.

Husbands and wives, having different spheres of competence,

should divide decision-making within their marriages

according to competence (1160b32-1161a1). Since Aristotle

considers the relationship among citizens to be a sort of

extended friendship called civic friendship (philia te politeia), he

also uses different sorts of city-states as illustrations.

The following chart displays Aristotle’s nine basic sorts of

friendship.

Decisions shared equally

One party decidesall

Decision-maker varies by sphere

Timocracy Monarchy AristocracyChild/Child Parent/Child Husband/Wife

Character

Pleasure

Utility 7 8 9

Aristotle also describes deviant (parekbasis) versions of

each of these nine types of friendship (1279a17-20, 1160a31-

b22). He notes that each friendship may involve either equal

or unequal contributions to the friendship (1158b11-14; see

EE 1242b1ff), and that each friendship may be equalized or

unequalized (1163b29-35, 1131b29-31). This yields seventy-

two sorts of friendships. Finally, Aristotle adds that

parties in a friendship may be confused or deceived about

the ends of a friendship (1164a2ff). He clearly agrees with

the advocates of the Ethics of Care that friendships differ

in various ways according to particular facts.

Aristotle also agrees that the ways in which people

care for each other differ in these different sorts of

relationships. He says,

It is not the same [friendship] that exists

between parents and children and between rulers

and subjects, nor is even that of father to son

the same as that of son to father, nor that of

husband to wife the same as that of wife to

husband….The reasons for which they love [are

different]; the love (philēsis) and the friendship

are therefore different also. (1158b15-19)

For Aristotle as for the advocates of the modern,

moderate Ethics of Care, there are many different

sorts of relationships and many corresponding sorts of

PASSIONATE v. RATIONAL

For several reasons advocates of Mainstream Ethics

consider passions to be unreliable motivators of good

actions. Dispassionate duty is their motive of choice. In

particular, the passion of care cannot be trusted. We need

not and should not be indifferent to the fate of others, but

dispassionate benevolence is perfectly possible, and

probably preferable to care. Advocates of the Ethics of Care

reverse this ordering, elevating the passion of care and

demoting duty. Of course, attachment is hardly a necessary

condition of caring action. People are often kind to

individuals for whom they do not care. Ethics of Care

advocates insist, however, that acting as if one cares is

much easier and much more likely to succeed when one really

does care. Care most effectively motivates people to help

each other.

Aristotle, too, does not think that we should bracket

our passions. Instead, we should purge our bad passions,

groom our good ones, and then use our groomed, good passions

to motivate our actions. Some people have unreliable,

prejudiced, selfish, or otherwise problematic passions, but

virtuous people are reliably motivated by their passions to

do the right thing. Inasmuch as Aristotle is more sanguine

than Mainstream Ethics about the possibility of virtue, he

is free from the temptation to idealize people motivated by

rational choice alone. Aristotle calls the character of such

people continence (enkrateia). He contrasts the virtuous

(using temperance as his example of virtue) and the

continent in the following passage, using temperance as his

example of virtue.

Both the continent man and the temperate man are

such as to do nothing contrary to reason for the

sake of bodily pleasures, but the former has and

the latter has not bad appetites, and the latter

is such as not to feel pleasure contrary to

reason, while the former is such as to feel

pleasure but not to be led by it. (1151b33-

1152a2)

Unlike virtuous people, continent people are internally

conflicted about performing virtuous acts, even when the

right thing to do is clear to them. They are typically

tempted to act wrongly by bad passions and desires, and they

typically feel pain when they act rightly. On Aristotle’s

view, although continent people reliably perform good acts

without or despite their passions, they are merely second

best and in need of moral improvement because they do not

habitually feel virtuous passions.

Aristotle says, “Now it looks as if love (philēsis) were

a passion; friendship a state [of character]” (1157b28-29).

Friendship is a relationship on his view, but friends do

possess a state of character that is similar to a virtue.

Just as courageous people reliably act, feel, desire,

perceive, and think in appropriate ways with respect to

situations involving risk, so friendship is a relationship

among parties who reliably act, feel, desire, perceive, and

think in appropriate ways with respect to situations

involving each other. In particular, friends are disposed to

further each other’s interests. Indeed, friends will do all

sorts of nice things for each other.

It is true of the good man too that he does many

acts for the sake of his friends and his

country, and if necessary dies for them; for he

will throw away both wealth and honors and in

general the goods that are objects of

competition, gaining for himself nobility.

(1169a18-22)

Of course, friends are motivated to perform helpful and even

self-sacrificial acts for each other by the care that they

feel for each other.

Thus, Aristotle agrees with modern, moderate Ethics of

Care advocates that good passions are better motivators than

reason, alone, and they treat care as a passion in this

respect. Care rather than dispassionate duty is the

preferred motivator of benevolent acts.

Advocates of Mainstream Ethics fear that passions will

hinder our moral understanding by distracting and distorting

our perceptions and judgments. Passions undermine

objectivity, blocking us from gaining knowledge of ourselves

and of others. In particular, care generates bias. Love is

blind. Contrariwise, Ethics of Care advocates take the

passions, particularly sympathy and empathy which are

aspects of care, to be helpful or even necessary to arrive

at a proper understanding of situations as well as how to

deal with them. Care helps us to recognize and respond to

the needs, interests, and desires of those for whom we care

by focusing our attention on salient features of the

situation. Perhaps in theory one could dispassionately come

to understand some situation thoroughly, but typically we do

not succeed at this or even make much of an effort unless we

care about someone embedded in that situation.

That passions shape our perceptions and judgments is a

well-known aspect of Aristotle’s account of the passions.

Passions emphasize some features of situations and de-

emphasize others. Aristotle says, “The emotions are all

those feelings that so change men as to affect their

judgments, and that are also attended by pain or pleasure”

(Rhet. 1378a19-21; see also 1114b1-3).12 In particular, care

enables us to attend to facts about those for whom we care.

Aristotle does acknowledge that care blinds us to the faults

of our friends and corrupts our judgment in their favor

(Rhet. 1378a1-3). On the plus side he says, “We do not fail

to perceive the needs of those for whom we care” (Rhet.

1379b16-17). Moreover, he argues at length that friendships

reduce our biases by helping us see ourselves more clearly

(1170a14-b19).

Passion also stimulates deliberation about how to

respond to situations. Aristotle says for example, “fear

sets us thinking what can be done” (Rhet. 1383a6-7) in

situations involving danger. Extrapolating, care sets us

thinking what can be done in response to situations

involving those about whom we care.

12 S. Leighton, “Aristotle and the Emotions,” Phronesis, 27

(1982), pp. 144-174.

In general, emotions play an important, positive

cognitive and perceptual role for Aristotle. In particular,

like modern, moderate Ethics of Care advocates, Aristotle

believes that care is not only the best motivator of helpful

acts, but also extremely helpful to our understanding of,

and response to certain situations.

PARTIAL v. IMPARTIAL

According to advocates of Mainstream Ethics, we forge

our relationships by making explicit or implicit contracts.

These contracts are the bases and the origin of the

relationships. What makes Bathilda’s daughter her daughter

is that Bathilda has assumed responsibility for her, and the

responsibilities Bathilda has are the ones that she has

explicitly or implicitly accepted. Ethics of Care advocates

accuse Mainstream Ethics of reversing the true ordering of

relationships and responsibilities. Except for a few unusual

cases, our various relationships to our relatives and close

friends are neither generated by nor grounded upon contracts

specifying responsibilities. Instead, our different

responsibilities grow out of our different relationships to

other people. Of course, Ethics of Care advocates do not

deny that relationships based upon contracts exist. These

are not paradigm relationships, however, but rather they are

artificial imitations of natural, non-contractual

relationships.

Aristotle also holds that our responsibilities to

family members and close friends are primarily a function of

our relationships rather than the other way around. Some

relationships do begin with, and depend upon formal

contracts, but Aristotle distinguishes such relationships

from the central types of friendships, saying,

One might mark off from [other forms of

friendship] both the friendship of kindred and

that of comrades. Those of fellow-citizens,

fellow-tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, and the like…

rest on a sort of compact. (1161b12-15)

Although contracts spelling out responsibilities generate

and ground some friendships such as fellow-citizens, fellow-

tribesmen, fellow-voyagers, according to Aristotle as well

as advocates of the Ethics of Care this ordering is reversed

in the deepest, most important, paradigmatic sorts of

friendships, namely friendships of kindred and comrades. We

have significant responsibilities to our relatives and close

friends, of course, but it is not the assumption of these

responsibilities that creates these families and

friendships. Instead, Aristotle gives a detailed account of

how friendships come into being through nature and need

(Pol. 1252b12-1253a1). And these friendships, in turn,

generate and ground responsibilities.

The forging of a friendship is not a matter of agreeing

to various duties under various contingencies. Indeed, we

are typically surprised by what we find ourselves required

to do by our friendships. Parents routinely and rightly warn

pregnant women that they don’t know what they are getting

into, for example. Married people similarly warn engaged

people. Both Aristotle and moderate Ethics of Care advocates

agree that the relationships are primordial, both temporally

and morally. Duties are derivative.

According to Mainstream Ethics, the interesting tasks

of ethics are to ground the duties that each person owes to

everyone, to work out the nature of these duties, and to

adjudicate conflicts among these duties. Of course,

Mainstream Ethics may be extrapolated to the domain of

relationships. But since we have special duties only insofar

as we explicitly or implicitly assume them, advocates of

Mainstream Ethics take the duties of relationships to be

derivative, straightforward, and thus uninteresting. By

contrast, Ethics of Care advocates embrace relationships as

the locus of the central tasks of ethics. Fundamentally, we

are to treat others differently according to how we are

socially and emotionally related to them. Everyone within a

person’s relationship network should be treated in the

caring manner appropriate to his or her place in the

network. Our relationship networks are complex. First, they

differ in extent. Noddings uses the metaphor of concentric

circles of caring to express the fact that we care a lot for

some people, a little less for others, and even less for yet

others. Moreover, two people in the same circle might have

very different relationships to the person at the center,

entailing equally great, though different responsibilities.

Along yet another parameter, some relationships show promise

of healthy growth and should be nurtured; others are dormant

and need not be tended at the moment; yet others are

distorted in ominous ways and should be mended, or pruned,

or perhaps even ended. Overall, relationships and their

responsibilities differ dramatically, forming a fertile

field for moral investigation.

As I mentioned above, Aristotle also emphasizes the

variety among friendships. He takes our responsibilities

toward people to vary according to our relationships with

them. “The duties of parents to children and those of

brothers to each other are not the same, nor those of

comrades and those of fellow citizens, and so, too, with the

other kinds of friendship” (1159b35-1160a2; see also

1162a31-33, 1165a16-18, 1169a18-34). Aristotle goes on to

present detailed accounts of the various responsibilities of

people to each other as a function of the nature of their

different relationships. Like Noddings, he thinks that we

owe more to those for whom we care more. Aristotle says,

[I]njustice increases by being exhibited towards

those who are friends in a fuller sense; e.g. it

is a more terrible thing to defraud a comrade

than a fellow citizen, more terrible not to help

a brother than a stranger, and more terrible to

wound a father than anyone else. And the demands

of justice also naturally increase with the

friendship. (1160a4-8)

The first part of this passage says that duties to our inner

circle are more stringent; the last part says that duties to

our inner circle are more numerous.

Like Noddings, Aristotle also thinks that even

friendships involving the same level of care differ in kind

and thus in responsibility. After all, different people have

different needs and desires. Aristotle gives several

examples. To kinfolk one gives invitations to lifecycle

events; to elders one gives various sorts of honor such as

rising to receive them and finding seats for them; and so on

(1165a18-33). Distant kinfolk and elders might be at the

same level of care. It is not that we owe more to distant

kinfolk than to elders or vice versa, but rather we owe

different, probably incommensurable things to a distant

kinsman and to an elder even though they are on the same

circle.

Third, like Noddings, Aristotle takes a person’s

responsibilities toward his or her friends to vary as the

relationship changes. For example, if one’s friends

degenerate in character to the point of incorrigibility,

then one should abandon the friendship since, “one should

not be a lover of evil” (1165b6). On the other hand, “If

they are capable of being reformed one should rather come to

the assistance of their character or their property”

(1165b18-20). Similarly, if the character of one friend’s

improves, and the change is minor, then the friendship may

persist. “But if one friend remained the same while the

other became better and far outstripped him in virtue,

should the latter treat the former as a friend? Surely he

cannot” (1165b23-24).

Thus, the seventh core doctrine shared by Aristotle and

the advocates of the modern, moderate Ethics of Care is that

the responsibilities people have to each other vary

according to the closeness and nature of their

relationships, and as their relationships change so do their

duties.

As I have said, the most important task advocates of

Mainstream Ethics face is to determine the set of general,

minimal, uniform duties owed to each person qua person.

Within these limiting conditions advocates of Mainstream

Ethics specify how we are to deal with those relatives and

friends to whom we attach ourselves. The obligations we have

toward all constitute a boundary condition on what we

morally can do for some. By contrast, Ethics of Care

advocates take the duties arising from care within

relationships to be primary; responsibilities beyond

relationships to be derivative and minimal. At first glance

this seems narrow, self-centered, and parochial. Do we

really have significant responsibilities only to a few

friends and family members? Do we really owe next to nothing

to the rest of the world? Well, our caring and our duties

are not actually restricted to a small group of intimates.

We also care, though typically to a lesser degree, for

extended family members, business associates, casual

acquaintances, etc. Moreover, Noddings observes that we even

care for people with whom we have no direct relationship if

they are cared for by people we care for. These chains of

caring allow care to govern our interactions with even more

people. Although care, and hence duties of care, lessen as

chains lengthen, we have responsibilities to numerous

people, including many for whom we do not directly care. As

for the rest, however, Noddings merely requires that we

adopt a stance of being ready to care. 13 Modern, moderate

Ethics of Care advocates acknowledge that justice extends

more fully, but still maintain that Mainstream Ethics

advocates have overemphasized it.

Aristotle also takes friendships and their associated

duties to extend very widely. Aristotelian friendships

13 Noddings, pp. 46-47.

include relationships among family members as well as close

friends. Inasmuch as friendships may be based upon pleasure

or utility as well as character, Cho’s fellow tennis club

members and her fellow university employees are her friends

in the Aristotelian sense of friendship. Even more

dramatically, a city-state is a sort of friendship, a civic

friendship. So Aristotle’s account of the moral

responsibilities of friendship extends broadly, even to

fellow citizens.14 Although Aristotle does think that there

are limits to friendship, his account of friendship governs

a great deal of human interaction (1170b20-33ff).

Unreciprocated caring extends even more widely.

Anticipating Noddings’ chains of caring, Aristotle says that

we feel philēsis toward “our friends’ friends, and to those

who like or are liked by, those whom we like ourselves.”

(Rhet. 1381a15-16). Dudley cares for his son’s girlfriend,

14 Aristotle does think that there are limits to friendship

(1170b20-1170b33ff), so presumably he would not consider a

U. S. citizen or a GM employee to be a friend of every other

U.S. citizen or every other GM employee.

for example, even though Dudley has seldom met her, just

because she is Dudley’s son’s girlfriend. And since she

cares for her parents, Dudley cares for them, too.

Like Noddings, Aristotle does not think that we have

duties of justice or care to people who are outside of our

friendship circles and chains. We certainly do not have

duties of care to people for whom we do not care. As for

justice, Aristotle says,

Friendship and justice seem…to be concerned with

the same objects and exhibited between the same

persons. (1159b25-26)

To inquire how to behave to a friend is to look

for a particular kind of justice, for generally

all justice is in relation to a friend. (EE

1242a19-21; see also 1160a8, 1161a10-11,

1162a29-33)

This is a striking disagreement with Mainstream Ethics.

Aristotle view is that justice does not concern our

treatment of others merely qua persons, but rather justice

is always about our treatment of others qua friends. Justice

concerns our treatment of others qua parents, children,

lovers, drinking buddies, coffee-klatch mates, fellow

citizens, etc. We have duties of justice to other people

only insofar as they are our friends. We owe it to our

colleagues to do our share of the committee work in the

department not because they are persons, but rather because

they are our colleagues.

Thus for Aristotle, not only care-duties, but also

justice-duties are partial rather than impartial.15 Our

duties of justice and care extend to wide circles of

friendship, but not beyond, except along chains of caring.

15 Miller argues that Aristotle does endorse justice

obligations outside of friendships, but his argument is

based upon rather convoluted interpretations of only two

passages. See Miller, pp. 84-86. Contrariwise, Annas denies

that Aristotle has “a robust conception of justice as

demanding duties to those who fall outside the city-state.”

See J. Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 1995), p. 293.

CARE AND JUSTICE

What are the responsibilities of relationships? For

advocates of Mainstream Ethics, the answer is simple. The

promises that constitute the relationships also specify the

duties of the parties within the relationship. The founding

and foundational promises that spell out the duties may

differ widely from relationship to relationship, but the

duties may be easily determined from the promises. For some

Ethics of Care advocates, the answer is also simple. We are

to care for the parties within the relationship, and nurture

the relationship, itself. Modern, moderate Ethics of Care

advocates acknowledge, however, that care and nurture are

insufficient. Justice also has a role. Parties within a

relationship must be fair to each other.

Aristotle seems to nod to the extreme view that justice

is sufficient when he says, “How man and wife and in general

friend and friend ought mutually to behave seems to be the

same question as how it is just for them to behave”

(1162a29-31). But this is mere rhetorical exaggeration.

Aristotle seems to nod to the extreme view that care and

nurturing is sufficient when he says, “when men are friends

they have no need of justice” (1155a26-27). But his point

here is that the best sort of friends automatically give

each other at least as much as they are due. They do not

need to be forced by some external agency to act justly

toward their friends. Aristotle’s very definition of

friendship requires friends to strive to advance the

interests of each other for each other’s sake. As Aristotle

remarks, “Men think a friend is one who wishes and does what

is good, or seems so, for the sake of his friend, or one who

wishes his friend to exist and live, for his sake” (1166a3-

5. see also 1155b31). That is, friends want each other to

flourish, and they help each other unselfishly. In other

words, Aristotle makes care essential to friendship.

How does one nurture a relationship? “There is nothing

so characteristic of friends as living together (suzēn)”

(1157b19), answers Aristotle. Friendship dwindles when

people don’t live together. “Distance does not break off the

friendship absolutely, but only the activity of it. But if

the absence is lasting, it seems actually to make men forget

their friendship” (1157b10-12). So one way in which

friendships are nurtured is by people living together. By

this Aristotle does not mean mere physical proximity. Living

together means sharing values, pleasures, and activities.

Whatever existence means for each class of men,

whatever it is for whose sake they value life,

in that they wish to occupy themselves with

their friends; and so some drink together,

others dice together, others join in athletic

exercises and hunting, or in the study of

philosophy, each class spending their days

together in whatever they love most in life; for

since they wish to live with their friends they

do and share in those things as far as they can.

(1172a1-8; see also 1165b23-31, Rhet 1381a4-6).

Thus like modern, moderate Ethics of Care advocates,

Aristotle is committed to the view that friends should not

only advance the interests of each other, but should also

share time, values, pleasures, and activities to allow the

relationship to flourish.

Although Mainstream Ethics theoretically has the

resources to critique injustice within relationships, in

practice injustice within relationships has been seriously

neglected.16 Advocates of Mainstream Ethics tell us how to

live in a vast world populated primarily by strangers, but

leave undone the task of telling us how to get along in our

own homes and haunts with our own relatives and close

friends. Some feminist theories including the Ethics of Care

have arisen partially in response to this neglect. Feminists

of many stripes focus upon the need to describe justice and

injustice within relationships.

Aristotle spends considerable attention to working out

the duties of justice among friends. He describes three

16 Perhaps this is because Mainstream Ethics artificially

distinguishes public and private, and then focuses heavily

upon the public realm, while more-or-less ignoring the

private realm.

components of justice: reciprocal, rectificatory, and

distributive justice. Reciprocal justice requires that

things traded be of equal value (1133b16-17). Rectificatory

justice requires that wrongdoers compensate victims

completely for losses by restoring to them something of

equal value (1132a6-10). Distributive justice requires that

equals should be treated equally, unequals proportionately

unequally (1131a19-24). But all of these rules are quite

vague. Who are the equals, and what counts as equal

treatment or equal value? The structure of friendship

provides an answer.

As I mentioned above, friendships are relationships of

cooperative striving for pleasure, utility, or nobility. The

goal of the friendship determines what is of value within

the friendship. Thus, each friendship establishes a set of

values. These foundational values determine who and what

count as equal. For example, in business partnerships, equal

people are those who contribute equal monetary resources to

the friendship, and equal shares are measured in monetary

terms. Thus, “equal” is defined relative to the friendship.

Justice and injustice are determined by combining the

vague rules of justice with the definitions of the terms

“equal person” and “equal value” within the friendship.

Friends who contribute equally with respect to the

foundational values of the friendship are entitled to gain

equal shares of the benefits (1156b33-35, 1163a1-2). Friends

who contribute unequally are entitled to gain

proportionately unequal shares of the benefits. When the

benefits that each person receives from the friendship are

proportional to his or her contributions to the friendship,

Aristotle says that the friendship has been equalized

(1131b29-31, 1162a36-b2, 1163b29-35). Thus, the term

“justice” is defined relative to the friendship. For cases

where someone benefits greatly, but cannot contribute enough

to match this benefit, Aristotle adds honor as a fudge

factor. Justice requires people who gain more than they

contribute to try to even things up by giving extra honor to

the others (1163a24-b14).17 In practice, this ranges from

17 Sometimes friendships cannot be equalized even with

honors. See below.

simply thanking the large contributors to some public

recognition such as a plaque on a building or a dinner in

their honor.

Aristotle suggests some starting points for thinking

about justice in friendships, and also offers some tentative

general principles of justice. Eventually, he concludes that

the problems of determining responsibilities within

friendships are difficult. “Yet we must not on that account

shrink from the task, but decide the question as best we

can” (1165a34-35). Aristotle does not allow us to ignore or

trivialize the task of working out what is required by

justice within friendships. He takes the casuistry of

justice within different sorts of friendships quite

seriously.

Overall Aristotle, like modern, moderate Ethics of Care

advocates, holds that in addition to caring for friends and

nurturing relationships, friends should be fair to each

other. Both care and justice have a role.

CARE v. JUSTICE

Advocates of the Ethics of Care have criticized

Mainstream Ethics for neglecting the importance of care,

particularly within relationships. They have been

criticized, in turn, for neglecting the importance of

justice, particularly within relationships. It behooves all

parties to acknowledge that relationships may be evaluated

in two independent, though intertwined ways. Some

relationships are unjust; some are uncaring; some are both.

Everyone acknowledges that some relationships are just

but uncaring. Obviously, we can treat our business partners

fairly even if we do not care for them, for example. Extreme

Ethics of Care advocates might maintain that uncaring families

are inevitably exploitive. While accepting the theoretical

possibility of just, uncaring families, moderate Ethics of

Care advocates stress that masked or unnoticed exploitation

is typically present in uncaring families. Care is

terrifically important, especially in families and close

friendships. Conversely, moderate Ethics of Care advocates,

like other feminists, must agree that caring relationships,

even warm, fuzzy, caring families, can be unjust. To deny

this is to miss one of the most obvious and important

objections to a host of practices. For example, within

traditional, patriarchal families well-intentioned husbands

sometimes seek to forward the interests of their wives, yet

often end up under-compensating their wives for their

contributions to the family.

Aristotle develops his account of uncaring

relationships with respect to city-states, and then applies

it to families and other friendships. He uses examples from

what we might call the public realm to illuminate the

private realm, thus assuming a continuity between the public

and private realms. Rulers of good city-states strive to

forward the common good. That is what care looks like in

civic friendships. By contrast, uncaring rulers strive to

advance their own advantage at the expense of their

subjects. Aristotle calls a city-state with such rulers

deviant (parekbasis).

The deviation from monarchy is tyranny; for both

are forms of one-man rule, but there is the

greatest difference between them; the tyrant

looks to his own advantage, the king to that of

his subjects… [Similarly,] Aristocracy passes

over into oligarchy by the badness of the

rulers, who distribute contrary to merit what

belongs to the city – all or most of the good

things to themselves...” (1160a36-b14. see also

1279a17-20, EE 1241b27-32)

Next Aristotle observes that friendships, including

families, are deviant (i.e. uncaring) insofar as they

resemble tyrannies and oligarchies. In particular, families

are deviant when the husband “rules” or makes decisions in

such a way as to forward his own interests rather than the

interests of the family as a whole. Aristotle says,

The association of a man and wife seems to be

aristocratic; for the man rules in accordance

with merit, and in those matters in which a man

should rule, but the matters that befit a woman

he hands over to her. If the man rules in

everything the relation passes over into

oligarchy; for he does this contrary to merit

and not qua better. (1160b32-1161a1)

Here Aristotle is making four points. First, he asserts that

families should be miniature aristocracies; the husband and

wife should each have authority over their own spheres of

expertise. Of course, much depends upon what “the matters

that befit a woman” turn out to be. Aristotle may end up

saying nothing more radical than that the husband should

condescend to allow his wife control over her own kitchen.

But at the level of generality at which it is expressed,

Aristotle’s position is quite reasonable and non-sexist.

The flip side of the stipulation that the familial

decision-maker should vary from sphere to sphere is that

families in which the husband has the final say on every

issue are flawed. Patriarchy is inefficient because

decisions are not made by the best qualified person.

However, if this were Aristotle’s only objection, he would

have said that patriarchal families are flawed because they

are monarchies rather than aristocracies. Instead, Aristotle

says that patriarchal families are oligarchies. They are not

merely inefficient; they are deviant. Patriarchal families

are bad because the husband seeks his own advantage rather

than the common good. Aristotle shows himself to be

centuries ahead of his time by criticizing the patriarchal

family as exploitive rather than caring.

Now Aristotle can allow that just, uncaring

relationships are possible. It is theoretically possible to

match contributions and benefits in a deviant relationship.

But like modern, moderate Ethics of Care advocates,

Aristotle does not take that possibility very seriously. He

says that the rulers of oligarchies, “distribute contrary to

merit what belongs to the city – all or most of the good

things to themselves.” That is, Aristotle implies that

oligarchies including patriarchal families are not only

deviant, but also unjust.

Conversely, Aristotle quite explicitly maintains that

some caring friendships are unjust. He says,

This then is also the way in which we should

associate with unequals; the man who is

benefited in respect of wealth or virtue must

give honor in return, repaying what he can. For

friendship asks a man to do what he can, not

what is proportional to the merits of the case;

since that cannot always be done, e.g. in honors

paid to the gods or to parents; for no one could

ever return to them the equivalent of what he

gets. (1163b12-17)

So Aristotle thinks that a large class of typically caring

relationships, namely parent-child friendships, are

inherently unjust. The parties cannot possibly receive

benefits in proportion to their contribution. Thus,

Aristotle sketches two independent standards for the

evaluation of relationships: a justice standard and a care

standard.

Extreme advocates of the Ethics of Care maintain that

care is always a higher priority than justice. Noddings, for

example, describes a situation in which care requires

someone to support a racist aunt while justice requires the

same person to support the equal-rights protesters. Noddings

notoriously goes on to maintain that the person should stand

with the aunt.18 Moderate Ethics of Care advocates demur,

acknowledging that justice takes priority in some

situations, but maintaining that Mainstream Ethics has over-

emphasized and over-counted such cases.

Aristotle also denies that we should always give

priority to care. He makes this point by considering an

extreme case. Aristotle assumes that we care most for our

parents. If care always trumped justice, then we would

always give preference to our parents.19 We would forward

their interests to the exclusion of the interests of

everyone else. But Aristotle says, “That we should not make

the same return to everyone, nor give a father the

preference in everything, as one does not sacrifice

everything to Zeus, is plain enough” (1165a14-16). Thus,

like the moderate Ethics of Care, Aristotle thinks that

18 Noddings, pp. 109-110.

19 Here I simplify by focusing on paradigmatic rather than

problematic families.

justice sometime takes precedence over care, even within the

bosom of families.

Aristotle also exhibits a high-stakes case in which

care trumps justice.

We must for the most part return benefits rather

than oblige friends as we must pay back a loan

to a creditor rather than make one to a friend.

But perhaps even this is not always true; e.g.

should a man who has been ransomed out of the

hands of brigands ransom his ransomer in return…

or should he ransom his father? It would seem

that he should ransom his father in preference

even to himself. (1164b30-1165a2)

This passage requires careful handling. In the first part,

Aristotle lays down the general principle that returning

benefits (e.g. repaying loans) has a higher priority than

obliging friends (e.g. making loans). In the latter portion

of the passage, Aristotle gives an exception. When one’s

parent is kidnapped, obliging friends (ransoming one’s

parent) has a higher priority than returning benefits

(ransoming one’s former ransomer). At first glance it might

seem that Aristotle is saying that ransoming a parent is a

higher priority justice-duty than ransoming a ransomer.

However, this cannot be a case of one justice-duty trumping

another. The duty to return benefits is a justice-duty, all

right, but the duty to oblige friends is not. Obliging

friends is clearly not a matter of rectificatory justice. If

it were reciprocal or distributive justice, it would be a

matter of returning benefits. Yet Aristotle contrasts obliging

friends with returning benefits. Anyway, we do not oblige

friends as a matter of justice. Instead, we oblige friends

because we want to forward their interests, i.e. because we

care about them. Ransoming a parent is not a step toward

appropriate distribution of benefits, but rather a way to

preserve the well-being of the parent. So in the first part

of the passage, Aristotle is claiming that the justice-duty

to return benefits usually has priority over the care-duty

to oblige friends, whereas in the second part of the

passage, he says that when one’s parent is kidnapped, the

care-duty trumps the justice-duty. This is a situation in

which care takes priority over justice.

In general, we must distinguish different sorts of

conflict of duty situations. Conflicting duties of justice

can occur within a single friendship. They also occur when a

person is a party to different friendships making

conflicting demands. For example, when Elphias’s business

partner unexpectedly calls with an emergency that Elphias

has previously promised to handle, should he stand up his

tennis partner in order to handle it? Conflicts between

duties of justice and duties of care arise within a

friendship when matching benefits to contributions within a

friendship does not appropriately advance the interests of

some of the friends. For example, when Fleur makes her will,

should she distribute her belongings equally among her

children who all contributed equally to the family, as

justice requires, or should Fleur leave more to the one

child who is much needier than the rest, as care requires?

As the ransoming case shows, conflicts between justice

and care may be mistaken for conflicts between justice and

justice. Conversely, conflicts between justice and justice

may seem to be conflicts between justice and care,

especially when there is a clash between the comparatively

partial, passionate, and particular responsibilities of a

close friendship, and the comparatively more general,

impartial, dispassionate responsibilities of a distant

friendship. For example, if Gellert cannot do both, should

he contribute his fair share of child support or pay his

taxes? Such a clash looks like a conflict between justice

and care, but is actually a conflict between justice and

justice.

CONCLUSION

In a rough way, I have codified the ten core doctrines

of the Ethics of Care – a significant accomplishment in

itself! I have argued that Aristotle anticipates all ten

doctrines, making him, in a sense, the founder of the Ethics

of Care. I have also sketched some important Aristotelian

claims about the relationship between care and justice.

Both Aristotle and the advocates of the modern,

moderate Ethics of Care emphasize particularity in three

ways. (1) They downplay the role of general rules in ethics

decision-making, and instead emphasize the importance of

acquiring the details of each particular situation through

perception. (2) They insist that each individual’s

particular relationships are crucial components of his or

her identity. (3) Finally, they maintain that a person’s

relationships determine how he or she should be treated.

moderate Ethics of Care consider the passion of care to be

an aid rather than an obstacle to moral action in two

different ways. (4) They take care, rather than merely

dispassionate reason, to be the best motivator for helpful

acts. (5) And they take care, rather than merely objective

reason, to be a crucial lens through which to investigate

the morally salient facts of situations.

moderate Ethics of Care maintain that impartiality in ethics

is overrated; we are, and should be, partial with respect to

our relationships. (6) Our responsibilities grow out of our

relationships, not vice versa. (7) Our responsibilities to

others are functions of our relationships with them. (8) We

have relationships with a very large number of people, but

our responsibilities do not extend beyond our relationships.

Aristotle and the advocates of the modern, moderate

Ethics of Care distinguish between care-duties and justice-

duties. (9) Parties within relationships should aim at the

common good and generally cultivate the relationships. That

is, relationships should be caring rather than deviant. (10)

Exchanges between friends should be of equal value.

Wrongdoers should compensate victims with amounts equal to

their losses. And the contributions that parties make to

relationships should be proportional to their benefits from

these relationships. That is, relationships should be just

rather than unequalized.

Relationships can go wrong by being uncaring and/or

unjust. (11) Aristotle and the Ethics of Care agree that

care and justice are independent. Some relationships are

uncaring but just; others are caring but unjust. (12)

Neither care nor justice always has priority. Sometimes care

trumps justice; other times justice trumps care.20

20 I would like to thank an anonymous referee and the

Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Value Inquiry for their comments

and help.

Aristotle, Founder of the Ethics of Care

Documents