An ethic of care: feminist & interdisciplinary perspectives // Review

Mary Jeanne Larrabee (ed.). An Ethic of Care: Feminist and lnterdisciplinary Perspectives. New York and London: Routledge, 1993. 310 pp.

Can an ethic of care serve as a universal standard of ethics? Is there some enlarged conception of morality in the post - "In a Different Voice" era? This publication is a much welcomed collection of eighteen articles displaying for the first time many of the feminist interdisciplinary perspectives in an attempt to bring a sense and focus to an ethic of care. The editor, Mary Jeanne Larrabee, has laid a strong foundation by outlining the parameters of these debates and then gathering many opposing views which serve to bring the debates alive.

To the lay reader, moral reasoning, moral development and moral voice have long been regarded as concepts in the domain of ethicists, experts in philosophical reasoning. This publication puts these important debates in a cogent form and brings them within reach of us all.

In essence, An Ethic of Care debates the ideas of Gilligan and Kohlberg. Larrabee provides an enthusiastic description of the critiques in the field about the central claims of both authors and identifies some of the incompatibilities between them. Through this publication, we the readers can watch the debates unfold in the decade since the publication of In a Different Voice by Carol Gilligan. Gilligan's emphasis was on a moral growth and suggests that these are gendered practices. Where others had seen women's moral...