Sequential Open Seminar Series “Global Justice” No. 3
From the Ethics of Care to Global JusticeEva Feder Kittay （ Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony BrookUniversity/SUNY）

Having a prominent feminist philosopher Eva Feder Kittay as a guest lecturer, the thirdopen seminar of “Global Justice” was presented jointly with Graduate School of Human
Sciences at Osaka University. Prof. Kittay has been grappling with questions about thefundamental nature of humans and their society in challenging the traditional Western,male-centered notions of human beings or subjects. Reflecting on her own experience
with caring for her own daughter Sesha with cognitive disability and on the devastatedplight of many care-givers (overwhelmingly women), she strived to incorporate the issueof care, care-givers, and care-receivers into theories of justice.
Prof. Kittay’s lecture could be divided into three major sections―1) An Alternative:
Carol Gilligan and Her Articulation of an Ethics of Care, 2) A Challenge: Reconciliationof an Ethics of Care with a Justice-Based Ethics, and 3) Beyond Nation-States: Towards aJust and Caring World [all titled by the author of this report]. In each section, she argued
as follows.
1) An Alternative: Carol Gilligan and Her Articulation of an Ethics of Care
In her controversial book In a Different Voice (1982), a psychologist Carol Gilligan
questioned Lawrence Kohlberg’s male-centered assertion regarding moral reasoning.
She argued that women reason not less well but differently, because they, unlike men,value connections with others as the single most important determinant in moralreasoning. Gilligan represented Kohlberg’s model as reflecting a justice-based ethics,
while representing her own as reflecting an ethics of care. In stark contrast to ajustice-based ethics, a care ethics is characterized by its presupposition of a relational
self―a self always standing in relationships of dependence and interdependence, aninherently contextual mode of reasoning sensitive to emotions, and a conditional
justification of partial judgments. Due to such sensitivity to the actual inequalities,
although Gilligan was criticized for being quasi-essentialist, an ethics of care rang true
for many women who had been instilled with a justice-based ethics while exposed to acare ethics in their everyday lives and learning to reason on its ground.

2) A Challenge: Reconciliation of an Ethics of Care with a Justice-Based Ethics
For Prof. Kittay as a feminist scholar, reconciliation between these two ethics has
been an intellectual challenge. Taking the fact of human dependency as a starting point
was the key to reconciling these two ethics. This fact has been disregarded in thetraditional theories of justice, which in turn helped to exclude two kinds of people fromthe scope of the theories. One of them is inevitable dependents, such as infants, children,the frail elderly, and those with various diseases or/and disabilities. The other one iscaregivers who are overwhelmingly women because care-giving remains female
responsibilities. Because of the very nature of care-giving, a caregiver would be plunged
into constructed dependency unless she is reciprocated. Here, distinction between thesetwo kinds of dependency is crucial. While inevitable dependency is a part of our humannature, constructed dependency results from care-giving unpaid. The latter dependency
is avoidable through appropriate political arrangements. Even while the existence ofdependency workers is a prerequisite for human beings to survive and thrive, no one
should be compelled to take up dependency work as her individual duty. Ethics of caredoes not require her to sacrifice herself permanently for the sake of her charges.
Then, a third party and society at large should support dependency workers in hercare-giving. In order to morally oblige these otherwise-oppressive privies to perform thiscollective responsibility, three epistemological turns are needed―(1) areconceptualization of equality that recognizes human dependency, (2) our recognitionof the fundamental contributions of inevitable dependency to human society, and (3) areconceptualization of reciprocity based on the fact of human inevitable dependency.
These turns could be symbolized by the maxim, “We are all some mother’s child.” Given
that inevitable dependents cannot reciprocate, public support for dependency workers is
especially required. But, with the third epistemological turn, this collective responsibility
would be framed in terms of reciprocation. Prof. Kittay named this conception ofreciprocity doulia after the postpartum caretaker, the doula, who cares for the mother who
has just given birth so that the mother can herself care for the infant.
3) Beyond Nation-States: Towards a Just and Caring World
Conceptions of justice starting with a care ethics should expand its scope beyond
nation-states. Considering the delegation of care-giving to women less-well-off and theconsequent migration of caregivers, this expansion in scope is urgent. This transnationaldelegation most burdens the poorest women of the most devastated nations. Moreover, while
the delegation and migration is caused by both the need for caregivers and the need of these
women, the latter is created by global injustice, such as perpetuated structural poverty indeveloping nations. This means that the society based on a public care ethics not global inscope can secure “doulia rights,” i.e., rights to receive care and to be supported in her
care-giving, only for its citizens and only by unjustly denying doulia rights of caregivers fromabroad. If all including those whose doulia rights are currently denied by global injustice
are to attain doulia rights, we need to consider what counts as a just world, aconsideration within the realm of theories of justice. Thus, though an ethics of care wasplaced in opposition to a justice-based ethics in its first articulation, they now
complement each other. We need both a just caring at home and a caring global justice.
The lecture was followed by these three questions: (1) Even when a caregiver is atransparent-self, wouldn’t there still be an occasional conflict between a caregiver and acared-for? (2) What distinguishes the cases requiring a broad definition of care from thosedemanding a narrow definition possibly referring to dependency work? (3) Whatdistinguishes dominance and dependency both involving relationship of unequal power?
The answer to the first question was that though or because possibilities for such a
conflict remain, it is important to see the completion of the care with a cared-for receiving
the care graciously. As for the second question, Prof. Kittay explained that while care in its
narrowest sense would require sensitivity to uniqueness of each case, care in a broad senseis necessary politically for organizing, in cooperation with housewives engaging in unpaid
labor, to remind the society of the extent of the social contributions of care-giving. On thedistinction between dominance and dependency, she observed that if a caregiver imposes on
a cared-for what she thinks the cared-for needs, it would be dominance in theory. But, inpractice, it is extremely difficult to distinguish them.
Postscript:
Highly-sophisticated and thought-provoking, but engaging, empathic and touching
nevertheless, her lecture completely captivated me. Moreover, it obliged me to consider how icould contribute daily to the realization of such a just and caring world. Though her
audience’s responses might differ, i am sure that i was not alone in having a sense of theworld turned upside down with her on-going intellectual challenge that never forgets to keep
both feet on the ground and values the importance of care in constructing a just world.
By Tobihiko Komatsu (a Ph. D. student at Graduate School of American Studies at Doshisha
University)(Responsibility for the final content of this report rests entirely with the author)