My task in this article is to explore what care ethics contributions to medicine might be. To this end, I provide a brief overview of the central tenets of care ethics and then point out some of the implications of care ethics for medical practice. I conclude by considering some of the limitations of care ethics in the medical context. A brief bibliography of the literature on care ethics is appended for those readers who wish to pursue this topic further. An Overview One of the central and unique features of care ethics is its depiction of the moral agent.
Care ethics portrays the moral agent as a self who is embedded in webs of relations with others.
They also shape her perception of the world, serving as a lens through which she sees and understands the events of her life. This relationship focus gives rise to the moral orientation of care. The care agent strives to be the kind of person who fosters caring relations by the way in which she encounters and interacts with others. The care agent approaches others with a caring attitude. That is, she exhibits both a willingness to engage in relation and an interest in and concern with the good and well-being of those with whom she already is in relation.