Care Ethics and Political Theory

Care Ethics and Political Theory brings together new chapters on the nature of care ethics and its implications for politics from some of the most important philosophers working in the field today. Chapters take up long-standing questions about the relationship between care and justice and develop guidelines for the development of a care-based justice theory. Care ethics is further applied to issues such as security, privacy, law, and health care where little work has been previously done. By bringing care ethics into conversation with non-Western and subaltern cultures, the contributing authors further show how care ethics can guide and learn from other traditions. A final set of chapters uses care ethics to challenge dominant moral and political paradigms and offer an alternative foundation for future moral and political theory. The book as a whole makes the case for care ethics as an equal or superior approach to morality and politics compared with liberalism, luck egalitarianism, libertarianism, the capabilities approach, communitarianism, and other political theories. The volume includes many of the leading care scholars in the world today engaging in both theoretical and applied discussions of this burgeoning field of study. Ultimately, Care Ethics and Political Theory endeavors to find realistic methods and ways of thinking to create a more caring world.

Daniel Engster is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Texas at San Antonio. His books include The Heart of Justice: Care Ethics and Political Theory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), Justice, Politics, and the Family, co-edited with Tamara Metz, (Boulder: Paradigm Publishing, 2014), and Justice, Care, and the Welfare State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). He has published articles on care ethics and animal welfare, public policy and parenting, child poverty, and other issues relating to care ethics, the family, and justice. Maurice Hamington is Director of University Studies and Professor of Philosophy at Portland State University. His books including Revealing Philosophy (Thinking Strings, 2013-an interactive e-textbook), The Social Philosophy of Jane Addams (University of Illinois Press, 2009), and Embodied Care (University of Illinois Press, 2004). He has also edited or coedited six books including Contemporary Feminist Pragmatism with Celia Bardwell-Jones (Routledge, April 2012), Applying Care Ethics to Business with Maureen Sander-Staudt (Springer, 2011), and Socializing Care with Dorothy Miller (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006). His current research and writing address an embodied, performative theory of care and its application.