Virtue ethics of care extends to nonhumans more readily than universal rights

Evidence

These more local moral concepts, because of their dualistic construal as feminine, and their consignment to the private sphere as subjective and emotional, have been treated as peripheral and given far less importance than they deserve. But a virtue-based ethics— for example, an ethic of friendship, care and responsibility, articulated in terms of these concepts—seems to extend much less problematically to the non-human world than the impersonal concepts which are currently seen as central, and seems capable of providing a better basis than universalising concepts for the account of the ecological self, and the non-instrumental treatment of earth others many environmental philosophers have now called for. — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 649

Categorization

• XREF: Relevant to Eco-Justice pedagogy thread (care/ethics of care); and connects to care-focused environmental frameworks taught across the polyad. — connects to: An ethics of care can serve regressive as well as progressive ends — Val Plumwood, Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, 716; Dene land relations frame reciprocal obligations between humans and nonhumans. — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 243
• QUESTION: Noted as an alternative to be examined later in the chapter — worth tracking against the ecofeminism critique of care ethics.

Broader Connections

• Dene land relations frame reciprocal obligations between humans and nonhumans. #exemplifies (0.82) — Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, 243