So, we come to caring - to the development of an ethic of care. The ethic of care is a line of thinking that came into academic discourse as a philosophe r Carol Gilligan tried to define a missing component in the abstract theories of ethics. Recently, Joan Tronto, a philosopher now at Hunter College, has thought through systematically about the components of care. He n otes that care and cure came from the same root. Reflect on it - cure is more akin to the technological paradigm by which we live most of the time.
Care is the soulful, nurturing counterpart.
Continuous care may be able to avoid need for cures. Let me summarize Care using a picture that my friend Marina and I came up with to visualize how Tronto's components of care may be focused to produce action. Marina and I picture the process of caring as a focusing of these 4 aspects through an ethos of integrity to produce the result of care. So, at the heart of student activism is caring an d being ready to learn. It is the beginner's mind that gives student activism particular value.