Get Your Smart On
Readings In Feminist Philosophy and Care
Below is a set of feminist philosophy books (and one article) that are related to the study of care and human vulnerability. At the end, there is also a section listing the classic works in Feminist Care Ethics. Without further ado:
The Claims of Culture: Equality and Diversity in the Global Era by Seyla Benhabib (Princeton UP, 2002).
Seyla Benhabib is a Turkish-American philosopher and political theorist, currently a Senior Research Scholar and Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia Law School where she is also affiliated with the Department of Philosophy. She is known for her fierce work in critical theory, democratic citizenship, and migration ethics, and her work imagining alternative kinship structures rocked my world. In The Claims of Culture, Benhabib expands on this, offering a cosmopolitan democratic vision that accommodates care, identity, and moral agency. She advocates for the inclusion of diverse voices and interdependent relationships on the scale of global justice.
Here is a timely lecture on what it means to be a citizen:
Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas** edited by Tina Chanter, editor (Penn State UP, 2001).** Tina Chanter is a British-born philosopher and Professor of Philosophy who taught at DePaul University and the Memphis University where she was my professor and advisor. She is best known for her work on feminist ethics, phenomenology, and the intersections of gender and alterity—particularly in her writings on Levinas, Heidegger, Irigaray, and Rancière. Her Feminist Interpretations of Emmanuel Levinas brought together the most important feminist work on Levinas’s ethics of alterity, critically assessing how vulnerability and responsibility to the Other intersect with the lived realities of caregiving and gender.
The Care Manifesto: The Politics of Interdependence** by Andreas Chatzidakis, et al. (Verso, 2020).** Admittedly, I have not read this yet, but it bills itself as a political intervention that reframes Care as a central principle for organizing society—challenging neoliberal individualism and advocating for radical, collective interdependence. It’s on my short list for this year — looks great!
About the Care Collective, from the Bookshop.org page: “The Care Collective was formed in 2017, originally as a London-based reading group aiming to understand and address the multiple and extreme crises of care. Each coming from a different discipline, we have been active both collectively and individually in diverse personal, academic and political contexts. Members include Andreas Chatzidakis, Jamie Hakim, Jo Littler, Catherine Rottenberg, and Lynne Segal.”
“Solidarity Care How to Take Care of Each Other in Times of Struggle” by Myisha Cherry. https://philpapers.org/archive/CHESCH.pdf
Myisha Cherry is an American philosopher and moral psychologist—Associate Professor at UC Riverside—whose essay “Solidarity Care: How to Take Care of Each Other in Times of Struggle” explores the toll of heightened social awareness (“being woke”) and offers a robust framework for mutual care and collective well-being in times of oppression. She reads this paper in a recorded session available on Youtube here:
I think this would be a great video for us to watch together and discuss. Leave a comment below if you’d like to participate:
Myisha Cherry also hosts the very popular philosophy podcast called The UnMute Podcast, where she has taken up topics like empathy, moral repair, and reparations.
Re-Enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons** by Silvia Federici (PM Press, 2018).** Silvia Federici is “a feminist writer, teacher, and militant,” a rare combination of excellent scholar and effective activist. Her Marxist-feminist critique foregrounds communal care and reproductive labor as core struggles in resistance to capitalist exploitation and privatization of the commons. From the Bookshop.org page:
“Silvia Federici is one of the most important contemporary theorists of capitalism and feminist movements. In this collection of her work spanning over twenty years, she provides a detailed history and critique of the politics of the commons from a feminist perspective. In her clear and combative voice, Federici provides readers with an analysis of some of the key issues and debates in contemporary thinking on this subject.”
Here is a Youtube video where you can see her speak on Care-Work:
The Politics of Vulnerability** by Estelle Ferrarese (Routledge, 2021).** This book investigates how vulnerability can become a site of both domination and solidarity, offering theoretical tools for understanding care in relation to power, precarity, and resistance. This thinker is new to me, on my reading list, but here is a talk she gave recently, if you want to familiarize yourself with her work:
Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions** by Martha C. Nussbaum (Cambridge UP, 2001).** Martha Nussbaum is an icon in** **Ancient Philosophy and Aristotelian Virtue ethics, one of the best (albeit liberalism-conservative) philosophers produced by American Academia in the last generation. In ***Upheavals of Thought, ***Nussbaum takes on the troubled relationship between reason and emotions. She grounds emotions such as compassion and grief in moral reasoning, and makes a compelling case for their centrality in ethical life, offering a philosophical bridge to caring practices.
Here is a talk and discussion based on this work:
The Ethics of Care: A Feminist Approach to Human Security** by Fiona Robinson (Temple UP, 2011).** Robinson brings care ethics into global politics, showing how a feminist ethics of care can reshape understandings of human security, vulnerability, and international relations. Haven’t read this one, but including it here because it does seem like an important application of care ethics to contemporary global issues. An important contribution.
Burdened Virtues: Virtue Ethics for Liberatory Struggles** by Lisa Tessman (Oxford UP, 2005).** Lisa Tessman argues that in conditions of oppression, certain moral virtues—such as empathy, loyalty, and resistance—can become burdensome, complicating idealized views of care within virtue ethics.
Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice** by Joan C. Tronto (NYU Press, 2013).** The blurb for this book read: “A rethinking of American democracy that puts caring responsibilities at the center.” Joan Tronto expands her influential care ethics into the realm of democratic theory, arguing that caring must be embedded in political and economic structures to achieve justice and equality.
In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development by Carol Gilligan (Harvard University Press, 1982) — seminal text challenging Kohlberg’s moral development model and introducing relational ethics.
Caring: A Relational Approach to Ethics and Moral Education by Nel Noddings (University of California Press, 1984; revised 2nd ed., 2013) — foundational work introducing “natural caring” and its implications for moral education and relationships.
The Ethics of Care: Personal, Political, and Global** **by Virginia Held (Oxford University Press, 2006) — comprehensive overview integrating care ethics into global political and moral theory.
Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care by Joan C. Tronto (Cornell University Press, 1993) — argues for a political and justice‑oriented vision of care ethics within public life.
Love’s Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependency** **by Eva Feder Kittay (Routledge, 1999) — explores dependency and justice, centering care for the cognitively disabled and care dependency in moral theory.
The Subject of Care: Feminist Perspectives on Dependency edited by Eva Feder Kittay & Ellen K. Feder (Rowman & Littlefield, 2009) — collection of essays advancing care ethics in discussions of dependency, disability, and moral personhood.
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All these books can be found in the Feminist Philosophy of Care reading list on Bookshop.org.