See the axis · Criterion of right action

Argument

What impartiality presupposes

An impartial principle moves no one unless there is first concern for another: care is not an application of morality, it is its source.

Supports

Gilligan, Noddings · In a Different Voice · 1982

  1. Where does a moral demand get its force? Not from a principle contemplated in the abstract, but from the encounter with another who depends on us, the child, the sick, the one in our charge: it is there that obligation first takes hold, for each of us.
  2. An impartial principle cannot generate this concern, it presupposes it: 'give each an equal weight' moves only one who already cares about someone, and asks them to extend that care. Remove every attachment, and the principle commands no one.
  3. And by giving each the same weight, the impartial standpoint abstracts away what creates real obligation: this precise bond, this dependence, this need. What it discards is not moral noise, it is the substance of morality.

Therefore So care is not one moral demand among others, but the ground on which the others stand: morality is rooted in the attentive response to others, and impartial principles are only a derivative extension of it.

How far does this reasoning convince you?

Not at all
Entirely