The Routledge Companion to Feminist Philosophy

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Sin Yee Chan

As a critical response to the prevailing ethical theories of Utilitarianism and Kantianism that emphasize individual judgment, rational thinking, and reliance on impartial, universalistic and general principles, care ethics breaks significant new ground. Drawing heavily from women’s experience of caring for dependents, care ethics focuses on relations, contextual thinking, emotions, partiality, and particularity. Interestingly, Confucianism, developed more than two centuries ago, shares many of these foci. Consequently, many scholars consider Confucianism a kind of care ethics. In what follows, I shall first explain briefly the main ideas of Confucianism and care ethics, provide an overview of the debate of whether Confucianism is a kind of care ethics, and reflect on one major question raised from the debate, namely what constitutes a generic account of care ethics. Finally, I suggest that Confucian scholars and care ethicists should collaborate, especially on the issue of how to extend from partial caring (caring for close relations) to general caring (caring for people outside one’s close circle). In explaining Confucianism, I shall reference to the Confucian canons the Analects, the Mencius, the Xunzi and the Liji (Book of Rites). I shall rely mostly on Noddings’s account when outlining care ethics.

Confucianism

The cardinal concept in Confucianism is ren (仁)which is often translated as love, goodness, benevolence, or humaneness. The Chinese character of “ren” is a combination of the two characters, “person” (人) and “two” (二). Ren pertains to human relatedness (Tu 1985), especially about their embedment in relationships. In the Analects, the term has two meanings (Shun 1993). The first refers to a perfect virtue that includes various specific virtues such as loyalty, purity, diligence, wisdom, respectfulness, courage, etc. (Analects 4: 15, 5: 18, 7: 24, 12: 1, 20, 13: 4, 19, 14: 5, 12, 17: 6). The second refers to love or benevolence and includes both familial sentiments and general benevolent sentiments towards anyone in the world. A junzi (gentleman) is someone who is committed to moral cultivation to acquire the virtue of ren and has attained a certain level of accomplishment in doing so. Since ren includes benevolence/love, which implies a motivation to benefit others for their own sake, personal moral cultivation is connected to worldly obligations. The ideal of “inner sage, outer king” ascribes to a junzi the moral obligation to bring benefits and peace to the world through political participation, either as a ruler or as an official, unless political participation involves immorality due to a corrupted government.

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Let us examine the meaning of ren as love/benevolence more closely. The text clearly connects ren to love/benevolence: “The man of ren loves people” (Analects 12: 22),

Zigong asked, “If a person can shower benefits widely among people, and provide relief to them, will you call him a person of ren?” Confucius replied, “It would no longer be a matter of ren. He would no doubt be a sage.”

(Analects 6: 30)

The above passages relate ren to loving people in general and bringing benefit to them. In addition, ren is constituted by familial sentiments: “Loving one’s parents is ren,” (Mencius 7A: 15) “The way of (the sages) Yao and Shun is simply to be filial to one’s parents and respectful to one’s elder brother” (Mencius 6B: 2). Moreover, familial sentiments such as loving one’s father and elder brother are seen as innate (Mencius 7A: 15). These two meanings of ren—as familial love and as general benevolence—are not isolated from each other. Familial love is fundamental to, as well as instrumental in developing general benevolence: “Youzi said, ‘few of those who are filial sons and respectful brothers will show disrespect to superiors . . . Filial piety and brotherly respect are the root of ren’” (Analects 1: 2),

Treat the aged of your own family in a manner befitting their venerable age and extend the treatment to the aged of other families; treat your own young in a manner befitting their tender age and extend this to the young of other families.

(Mencius 1A: 7)

In this way, the family is viewed as an essential training ground for both familial and general love. Ren is not merely about sentiments; it also requires altruistic actions: “The actuality of ren is the serving of one’s parents” (Mencius 4A: 27), showering benefits widely among people is also ren (Analects 6: 30).

Ren is also seen as stemming from innate compassion besides the familial sentiments. The innateness of compassion is presumably illustrated in the following famous anecdote:

Suppose a man were, all of a sudden, to see a young child on the verge of falling into a well. He would certainly be moved to compassion, not because he wanted to get in the good graces of the parents . . . The mind of compassion is the germ of ren.

(Mencius 2A: 6)

Compassion serves as the basis of a government of ren—a compassionate government (Mencius 1A: 7). The role of compassion and love in ren underpins the importance of emotions in Confucian ethics.

Since familial sentiments constitute the core of ren, Confucian social order consists in a nexus of personal relationships modeling after the family. It is epitomized by the Five Relationships: ruler–minister, father–son, older–younger brother, husband–wife, friend–friend relationships. In this social order, each person is an occupant of various relationship roles and incurs the related role duties. For example,

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What makes a person a father? I reply: To be generous, kind, and to possess ritual principles . . . What makes a person a wife? I reply: if the husband possesses ritual principles, then meekly follow after him and docilely attend him; if he lacks them, then be fearful, anxious, and apprehensive about herself.

(Xunzi 12: 3)

All of these relationships are governed by reciprocity and, with the exception of friends, are hierarchical. For example, father and son are urged to reciprocate love (Mencius 7B: 24) and rulers and ministers respect. (Mencius 2B: 2). Thus Confucianism can be understood as a kind of relationship-role ethics (Chan 2000b; Ames 2011). One implication of taking family as the microcosm of the social/political order is that the private (domestic) and the public (social/political) are not sharply divided and familial virtues presumably can be applicable in the public sphere as well: filial piety towards parents can be extended to serve the ruler.

In addition to familial sentiments and compassion, following li (禮 rites) is another important way to develop the virtue of ren. Li, which originally refers to ritual rules but then expands to include rules of varied nature such moral, conventional, religious, ceremonial and etiquette rules. To support one’s parents, to mourn in accordance with certain rites, to bow before ascending to a hall, all are examples of rules of li. Li is seen by Confucius as the expression of ren: “What can a man do with li who does not have ren?” (Analects 3: 3). Following li presumably makes one act in a civil, refined and aesthetically pleasing manner. More importantly, following li helps one acquire ren and brings about social harmony: “To return to the observance of li through overcoming the self constitutes ren” (Analects 12: 1); “Of the things brought about by li, harmony is the most valuable” (Analects 1: 12). Li, however, is not normative principles or standards like utilitarianism or the Categorical Imperatives that define morally rightness and presume universal applicability. Li pertains to specific rules of conduct. Exceptions to and changes in li are often allowed to ensure adaptation to particular circumstances and changing times (Analects 9: 3) in order to attain social harmony. Above all, it is ren rather than strict rule-following that enables one to make the most sagacious responses to a situation: “A gentleman needs not keep his word nor does he necessarily see his action through to the end. He aims only at what is right” (Mencius 4B: 11). Confucius claims, “I have no preconceptions about the permissible and the impermissible” (Analects 18: 8). Besides practicing li, learning, thinking, music, and dancing also contribute to develop ren. When one has ren and follows li, often one does what is morally proper or yi (義 moral rightness).

Care Ethics

In In a Different Voice (Gilligan 1982), Carol Gilligan argues that women have “a different voice” in ethical thinking, which she calls the “care perspective.” This perspective emphasizes responsibility, relationships, interconnectedness, response, contextual judgments, and using emotions and intuitions. The care perspective is juxtaposed against the traditional “justice perspective” often embraced by men. This latter perspective assumes independent, autonomous agency, and approaches ethical problems by rational application of impartial, general and universal principles.

Nel Noddings in her groundbreaking work, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (Noddings 2003 [1984]) develops a comprehensive and distinct ethical perspective and eschews the justice perspective altogether. And since her account is the one most referenced by philosophers comparing Confucianism and care ethics I shall focus on her account when expounding care ethics below.

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This new ethical vision articulated by Noddings comprises several elements. First, it assumes a relational ontology: “Relations, not individuals, are ontologically basic” (Noddings 2003 [1984]: xiii). Humans are born into relationships, and they depend on relationships for their survival as infants and flourishing as adults. Of special importance are close personal relationships, with the mother–child as the paradigm of relationship.

Second, this new ethics revolves around caring rather than morally right action. Caring refers to many things. It is a form of relationship: “caring is a relationship that contains another.” It is also an activity or practice that often takes place in the context of close personal relationships. It can also be an attitude and a motive constituting a virtue (Noddings 2003 [1984]). A caring relationship includes the caring person/the one-caring (who gives caring) and the cared-for (who receives caring). There are three components of caring: (1) engrossment (which she changes to receptive attention and then attention in her later works); (2) motivational displacement, on the part of the caring person; and (3) reception or reciprocity on the part of the cared-for (Noddings 2003 [1984]: 69). To be engrossed is to be in a receptive state: “I receive the other into myself, and I see and feel with the other. I become duality” (Noddings 2003 [1984]: 30). “Apprehending the other’s reality, feeling what he feels as nearly as possible” (Noddings 2003 [1984]: 16). Engrossment requires abstaining from evaluation of the cared-for. Motivational displacement means rendering the caring person’s motivational energy and resources at the service of the cared-for and adopting his/her goal as the caring person’s goal (Noddings 2003 [1984]: 17). To reciprocate, the cared-for responds, for example, in the form of being happy, or sharing his/her aspirations and worries, or vigorously pursuing his/her own projects (Noddings 2003 [1984]:72). More basically, merely receiving the caring is counted as reciprocity. Reciprocity completes the caring.

The third element of the ethical vision is valuing particularity and rejecting any appeal to impartial, general, and universal principles. Valuing particularity means appreciating a relationship and persons in a relationship as unique and irreplaceable and the embedding situation of an action as concrete and particular. “To act as one-caring, then, is to act with special regard for the particular person in a concrete situation.” Rules and principles are only held “loosely, tentatively, as economies of a sort” (Noddings 2003 [1984]: 24, 55). Appreciation of particularity calls forth contextual judgment, use of emotions, intuitions and engrossment.

In addition to particularistic caring within relationships, which Noddings calls natural caring, we also need to develop an ethical ideal of caring to ensure our caring about people outside our close circles from whom we cannot receive reciprocity. To Noddings, natural caring has ethical priority because it is the root and the goal of the ethical ideal of caring.

Other philosophers continue to develop versions of care ethics, distinct from those of Noddings and Gilligan, and extending it to social, political, and global contexts, and out of the sphere of intimate family relationships on which Noddings focuses (Tronto 1993; Kittay 2001; Slote 2001; Held 2006). It should also be noted that most of the later versions are feminist, i.e. stressing more the identification as well as the elimination of the injustice associated with caring work assigned to women, as contrasted to the feminine approach of Gilligan and Noddings who focus on articulately a distinctive perspective of women. Nonetheless, for purposes of comparison with Confucianism I shall continue to focus on Noddings’s version.

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Is Confucianism a Kind of Care Ethics?

Confucianism shares significant commonalities with care ethics. Both accounts assign utmost ethical importance to some kind of affective concern for others—caring or love/benevolence. Both consider close personal relationships as the optimal context in which this kind of concern is nurtured and expressed. Engagement in close personal relationships are also seen as instrumental to the development of an ethical ideal that requires partiality towards one’s close relationships as well as general caring for people not related to oneself. In addition, both assume a relational ontology and conceive of close personal relationships as the primary form in which humans relate to each other.

Thus it is not surprising that scholarship relating Confucianism to care ethics in the past two decades has evolved around the question of whether Confucianism is a kind of care ethics. Chenyang Li initiated this dialogue by arguing that Confucianism can be seen as a kind of care-ethics (Li 1994) because (1) the Confucian ethical ideal, ren, is about love; (2) Confucian ethics, like care ethics, is not based on general, universal principles; and (3) Confucianism values close personal relationships and allows partiality.

Julia Tao describes Confucianism as Confucian care ethics because of its basic orientation towards caring. Yet she also observes important differences between Confucianism and care ethics (Tao 2000). Tao points out that care ethics resists impartial ethical reasoning, i.e. reasoning done from an impartial perspective, which treats everyone alike and does not accord anyone more or less ethical consideration, regardless of the person’s relationship to the agent. In contrast, even though Confucianism does not discuss the issue, one could imagine it accepting principles endorsed from an impartial perspective (Chan 1993: 69). For example, particularistic principles such as “To care for one’s family more than a stranger” or impartial principles like “Everyone should be treated equally before the law.” Tao believes that a Confucian agent is indeed required to develop both particularistic and impartial perspectives, though the two perspectives may sometimes generate conflicting duties.

Another difference noted by Tao concerns virtue. Ren is a virtue and Confucianism can be seen as a form of virtue ethics (Sim 2015). Noddings, however, is skeptical of virtue ethics and rejects understanding caring as a virtue (Noddings 2003 [1984]: 96) though she sometimes does describe caring as a virtue (Noddings 2003 [1984]: xiii).

Concurring that Confucianism is a care ethics, Ann Pang notes a further similarity between Confucianism and care ethics in that neither postulates a sharp division between the private and the public, and both use domestic relationship as a model for relationship in the public sphere (Pang-White 2011).

There are dissenters. One type of opposition is based on noting the close connection between care ethics and gender. Gilligan’s “In a Different Voice” is often seen as marking a distinct voice of women in ethical reasoning. The word “feminine” occurs in the title of Noddings’s groundbreaking book. By now, care ethics is generally accepted as a feminist ethics. Bundling Confucianism with the feminine or feminism, however, is seen by some as too restrictive: ren applies to both genders. For example, Karyn Lai objects, “the Confucian notion of interdependence of relationship reaches beyond the confines of gender-determined construction of relationality and ethics” (Lai 2013: 128). Lijun Yuan argues that since the Confucian texts contain so many sexist assumptions and claims, Confucianism is not feminist ethics (Yuan 2002).

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Another set of objections focus on the issue of particularity. Ranjoo Seodu Herr observes that Noddings’s engrossment enables the capturing of the particularity of the cared-for as it eradicates the emotional boundaries separating the caring person and the cared-for. Engrossment, however, is impossible in Confucianism. Confucianism requires people in relationships to follow li in their interaction. The attitude of respect embodied in li, however, emphasizes vigilance about one’s duties and deferential distance from others. In this way, respect checks one’s spontaneous emotional expression and prohibits engrossment (Herr 2012). This concern about particularity is shared by Daniel Star. Star worries that cardinal relationship roles in Confucianism such as mother, husband, friend are “communally based categories, through which others are approached primarily (although not necessarily only) via general types, rather than as unique concrete individuals” (Star 2002: 90). Particularity is lost when one is perceived merely as an instance of a general category. Star concludes that Confucianism is “a care-originating or care-interested virtue ethics,” but not a care ethics (2002: 86).

Some care ethicists raise similar concerns. Believing that Confucianism emphasizes too much on rules and prioritizes the development of virtues over relationship caring, Noddings objects to seeing Confucianism as a care ethics (Noddings 2010: 137–138). Held judges that the inclusion of a non-feminist version of relational ethics such as Confucianism into care ethics is to “unduly disregard the history of how this ethics has developed and come to be a candidate for serious consideration among contemporary moral theory” (Held 2006: 22).

Beyond the Question of Whether Confucianism Is a Care Ethics

The discussions outlined above certainly shed interesting and helpful light on the question of whether Confucianism is a care ethics. To strive for a definitive answer at this point, however, seems futile. Given that Confucianism was developed more than two centuries earlier than care ethics, and hence there are drastic differences between the two accounts with respect to their embedding ways of life and their social, cultural, political, and economic backgrounds, it is obvious that the two are not exact counterparts. A straightforward approach to map Confucianism onto the account of care ethics developed by Noddings and others might yield the answer that Confucianism is not a care ethics. But to do so is like rejecting Confucianism as a virtue ethics merely because it differs from Aristotle’s account of virtue ethics. This does not make sense! The straightforward approach is ill-advised also because it treats the account of care ethics put forward by Noddings and others—a young, evolving moral theory—as a well-established, paradigmatic account to which other theories need to conform. To do so seems chauvinistic, not paying due respect to other kindred theories. It also thwarts the various potential ways in which this young account of care ethics can usefully develop. Whether the decision concerning what constitutes a generic account of care ethics is a political—in the sense that it is about who has the power to decide (Li 2015), or a philosophical matter, it seems premature at this point to claim that we already have a yardstick to determine which care-based account is a care ethics and which is not. (For clarity’s sake, I shall henceforth call the account developed by Noddings and others as Care Ethics without implying that it is the paradigmatic or generic account of care ethics.)

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To continue to explore and contest the nature of Care Ethics so as to arrive at a generic account of care ethics therefore is imperative. The Confucianism-Care Ethics discussions outlined above are extremely useful in this regard as they highlight certain “core elements” based on which Confucianism is rejected as a care ethics. These elements include the priority of relationships over virtues, particularity, and the tie to gender. Should they be the core elements of a generic account of care ethics?

Let us look at the priority of relationship first. Whether Care Ethics should be incorporated under virtue ethics is much debated among care ethicists. Raja Halwani (2003) and Michael Slote (2001), for example, believe that doing so will make Care Ethics become a comprehensive theory and help it address criticisms such as its neglect of our responsibility for people not closely related to us (Card 1990), and of the interests and integrity of the caring person (Davion 1993). Virtue ethics can help because it requires the cultivation of virtues besides caring such as justice, wisdom, etc., which enable a caring person to critically evaluate her caring. Held (2006) responds that Care Ethics can also attend to these other virtues as they contribute to the success of caring.

More important, however, is the worry, shared by Noddings, Held, and others, that virtue ethics misses out a distinctive insight of Care Ethics—ethics is about relationships. “It is the relatedness of human beings, built and rebuilt, that the ethics of care is being developed to try to understand, evaluate, and guide” (Held 2006: 30). Noddings similarly emphasizes caring as a relationship (2003 [1984]: xiii). Held criticizes virtue ethics for assuming an individualistic perspective because it often takes caring as benevolence. Benevolence is problematic because it is an altruistic attitude. Since an altruistic act is done by one person for the sake of a separate person, an altruistic attitude assumes a “radical separation between self and others” (Blum 1994: 195). In contrast, “to be concerned for a friend . . . is to reach out not to someone or something wholly other than oneself but to what shares a part of one’s own self and is implicated in one’s sense of one’s own identity” (Blum 1994: 195). The interests of people in relationships are inevitably and deeply interconnected.

Furthermore, like Noddings (2003 [1984]: xiii), Held believes that virtue ethics assumes an individualistic perspective because of its focus on the dispositions of an individual rather than relationships. Virtue ethics does not prioritize or require participation in caring relations, the cultivation of mutuality in the contexts of interdependencies or evaluations of relations between persons (Held 2006: 52). Consequently, virtue ethics may help to nurture effective caring agents but not good, fulfilling relationships (Held 2006: 53). Besides Held, Sara Ruddick also emphasizes relationship in caring. She comments, “Caring labor is intrinsically relational. The work is constituted in and through the relation of those who give and receive care” (Ruddick 1998: 13–14).

Does virtue ethics fail to capture the priority of relationship? We do not need to settle the issue here, but some points are worth pondering. If virtue ethics cares about a flourishing life and a flourishing life must include having deep, affectionate, and close personal relationships, as care ethicists so firmly insist, why would virtue ethics ignore them? As a matter of fact, both Aristotle’s and Confucius’s account require cultivation of relationships: Aristotle values friendship and takes relationship among citizens as basing on friendship like sentiments; Confucianism can be understood as a relationship-role ethics. And both discuss and provide normative guides on how to sustain good relationships, hence promoting mutuality and interconnectedness.

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And focusing on the dispositions of an agent need not assume an individualistic framework, if the dispositions are about caring and engaging in personal relationships. Above all, if focusing on disposition is problematic, it would mean that Care Ethics can never render a developmental account of caring agency. And that will be a serious weakness for caring to be a workable practice! Or does priority of relationship mean that caring is confined to relationship caring as Ruddick’s comment seem to suggest? Since virtue ethics allows caring to go beyond relationship it fails to capture the priority of relationship? This cannot be right, however, because even Noddings allows for caring for anonymous strangers.

The second element we should examine is particularity. Particularity in Care Ethics involves seeing a situation as unique and perceiving a person as irreplaceable and having distinctive traits and preferences. Particularity of situations calls forth the use of contextual judgments and does not invoke much dispute (especially if it is seen as accepting general rule following as expedient measures). Particularity of individual persons, on the other hand, is more controversial. Diemut Elisabet Bubeck (1995) puts meeting needs ahead of particularity. She worries that requiring particularity would limit caring only to close personal relationships and disallow us to care for others who may have strong and urgent needs. In reply, many care ethicists agree with Noddings’s prioritization of personal relationships though they also advocate extending particularistic caring attitude to the public settings.

Whether particularistic caring is viable in non-personal settings, however, is dubitable. Absent the support of strong emotional attachments and sustained interactions inherent in close personal relationships, it requires tremendous conscious efforts and determination to capture the particularity of a stranger, if it can ever be done. Even if the practice is feasible, it remains unclear whether public/social policy should require such practice. Take the example of healthcare. It will be ideal if each patient’s particular needs are met in a way that is attuned to her personality and circumstances. Such quality care, however, must be prohibitively expensive. A more caring goal is to provide basic, generic, but affordable, healthcare to more people who would otherwise be in poor or even inhumane conditions. It is more realistic to accept that relations are inevitably more “extended and thinner” in the public settings and that “considerations of care will not deal well with all issues” (Held 2006: 136). Shouldn’t Care Ethics allow some form of impersonal ethics?

Particularity in the context of close personal relationships is also problematic. For it is an unambiguous expression of individualism. It is ironic that many care ethicists who so vehemently argue against, rightly or wrongly, liberalism’s stark individualism and blindness to the relational nature of humans are themselves unconscious subscribers to individualism. Admittedly, for (good) close personal relationships anywhere, there must be some degree of recognition between the individuals of each other’s personal traits, specific emotional contours, particular dreams and aversions. Each must also value the other as a distinct and irreplaceable person. One does not love and will not feel loved if particularistic recognition, given or taken, is totally absent. However, it is another question whether this kind of particularity is constantly sought, emphasized, and celebrated in close personal relationships globally, especially for societies that are more communitarian or collectivistic oriented. Yet it would be arrogant, unfair and mistaken to judge personal relationships in those societies as less fulfilling, deep or valuable. Focusing on the connectedness between herself as a mother and her child as a daughter, and seeing both as part of a cherished family, a Chinese woman, for example, can be appreciated and loved dearly as a wonderful mother by her children. Her identity can be constituted by her relationships with her children to an equal, if not higher, degree as an ideal mother in Noddings’s account without her practicing Noddings’s notions of engrossment or motivational displacement. Instead of busily tending to the individual needs and traits of her children, she may be preoccupied with creating common goods for the whole family: cooking a delicious dinner, planning a family vacation, fixing up the bathroom and working for an income. She endeavors tirelessly to forge and maintain a powerful bond binding everyone in the family together, including herself and her daughter.

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The third issue concerns the connection between Care Ethics and gender. As a historical fact, Care Ethics was associated with feminism. Care Ethics was meant to articulate women’s distinctive moral vision, a vision that was presumed to source from and be grounded in the moral experience of women as carers. For a long time in history women have been assigned that role and often they discharge their caring duties at the expense of their own interests and opportunities, sometimes voluntarily, sometimes not. Developing Care Ethics as a moral theory therefore can be understood as a way in which women are empowered to find their own voice and perspective in the ethical realm. A wide acceptance and practice of the theory evidences and further enhances women’s power to shape the world in accordance with their vision and values. Moreover, Care Ethics’ recognition of the ethical, social, cultural and political significance of caring work will contribute to advance women’s status. In these ways, Care Ethics constitutes a move towards attaining gender equality. And, as caring is still mostly done by women, their experience and insights will continue to be a major resource fueling the development of Care Ethics.

On the other hand, the content of Care Ethics has no inherent connection with gender. Noddings stresses that both males and females can be carers (2003 [1984]: 4). If we examine care ethics as ethicists and not as historians of ethics, we should not focus on gender. Perhaps, as widely recognized by care ethicists such as Kittay, Ruddick, and Held, the feminist goal will be served better if we exhort everyone, male and female, to adopt the caring perspective, knowing that its wide acceptance will improve everyone’s well-being, including, and, especially, that of women.

The Path of Comradeship in Caring

Confucians and care ethicists can definitely be comrades with the shared goal of promoting caring and close personal relationships as ethical priorities. As comrades, they should share experiences, insights, and raise friendly challenges to each other. Attempts have indeed been made to use resources from Confucianism to inform Care Ethics (Chan 2000a; Epley 2015). From the other end, the idea of family in Care Ethics is considered when developing the model of modern Confucian family (Herr 2012).

One topic that Confucianism and care ethics should collaborate is: how to extend from partial caring to general caring. The topic can be broken down into two parts: (1) how to grow general caring from partial caring; and (2) how to promote and institute caring in the public settings.

Let us examine the second part first. Traditionally, Confucianism adopts a top-down approach in instituting caring in the public setting. The ideal of “inner sage, outer king” entails that it is the responsibility of a few elites—the “sage” or the “junzi”—who have acquired the virtue of ren and the privileged access to government, to enact policies of ren. Unfortunately, the mass is excluded from sharing the task of general caring. Perhaps, this approach was pragmatic in traditional China where authoritarian governments allowed no mass political participation. Citizens’ political participation makes this exclusion unacceptable today. Care Ethics as a newly developed theory rooted in democratic societies should be able to demonstrate how to involve and mobilize people to navigate caring in a public setting. Kittay’s work, for example, will be a useful reference for the Confucians (Kittay 2001). On the other hand, if care ethicists believe that the role of a government should not be limited to the protection of rights or promotion of preference satisfaction but should include fostering the value and practice of caring (Held 2006), then they should look at Confucianism with its strong perfectionistic commitment.

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Let us now turn to the issue of developing general caring from partial caring. Due to its focus on promoting close personal relationships, Confucianism has sometimes been criticized as breeding nepotism, cronyism, narrow familism, and various kinds of unethical networking (Liu 2003). The practice of Confucianism in history therefore provides good lessons, for better or for worse, for Care Ethicists when they ponder the practical implications of their theories. The voluminous scholarship on the Confucian developmental process would certainly shed light on the issue of bridging partial and general caring. Moreover, Confucianism credits general caring to multiple sources (e.g. compassion, following li) besides partial caring. If care ethicists take general caring seriously, then perhaps they need to re-examine Noddings’s idea that general caring stems merely from the memories of being cared for or caring.

On the other hand, unlike Care Ethics, the development of Confucianism received little input from women—the experts on the subject of caring due to their role as primary carers and the gender that has often been placed in a subordinate, dominated position. Consequently, it is reasonable to speculate that Confucianism might be missing important insights about caring and power dynamic in relationships that might be captured in Care Ethics. The importance of garnering input from one’s child, the object of one’s caring, is an excellent example of such insight.

One thing that does not require speculation, however, is that when these two accounts care more about each other, we will develop better caring!