Gratitude and Caring Labor

Abstract

I argue that it is appropriate for adult recipients of personal care to feel and express gratitude whenever care providers are inspired partly by benevolence, and deliver a real benefit in a manner that conveys respect for the recipient. My focus on gratitude is consistent with important aspects of feminist ethics of care, including its attention to the particularities and vulnerabilities of caregivers and care recipients, and its concern with how relations of care are shaped by social hierarchies and public institutions. In addition, it goes beyond the current preoccupations of care ethicists both by introducing gratitude as an important aspect of morally valuable relations of care and by stressing the significance of attending not only to the needs but also the capacities of recipients of care.

Keywords:

• Caregivers
• Care Recipients
• Caring Labor
• Paid Care
• Personal Care
• Gratitude
• Feminist Ethics of Care

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amy Mullin

Amy Mullin is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. Her research interests include social philosophy, aesthetics, and feminist philosophy, with a focus on questions about relationships involving the provision of care. She is the author of Reconceiving Pregnancy and Childcare: Ethics, Experience and Reproductive Labor (Cambridge) as well as journal articles and book chapters on the subjects mentioned above