Nel Noddings and Care Ethics
Nel Noddings, who is an emerita professor of educational philosophy at Stanford University, is one of the best-known proponents of the feminist ethics of care. Married for over fifty years and the mother of ten children (five biological and five adopted), she admits that her ethical approach has been deeply influenced by her own life experiences. In her view, Western philosophy has too often denigrated the virtues associated with the domestic sphere, which has traditionally been inhabited by women.
Here is a 1998
profile of Noddings:
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/1998/february4/noddings.html
A concise overview of feminist care
ethics in general, and Noddings' work in particular, is available at this
University of Denver site:
http://ced.du.edu/perspectives/feminist.cfm
An informative discussion of Noddings' life and work, emphasizing her impact on educational theory, can be found here:
http://www.infed.org/thinkers/noddings.htm
Noddings explores the issue of moral
education in this article on teaching children how to deal with everyday
ethical problems:
http://peacecenter.berkeley.edu/greatergood/current_issue/noddings.html
In this interview, Noddings reflects
on the role of spirituality in education:
http://www.ascd.org/ed_topics/el199812_halford.html
How does an ethic of care compare to
an ethic of justice? Nel Noddings exchanges views on this question with
philosopher Michael Slote.
Slote's critique: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/1999/slote.asp
Noddings' response: http://www.ed.uiuc.edu/EPS/PES-yearbook/1999/noddings.asp