Well, why not try?

I've decided to attempt to get an academic paper I've written published in the Christian Century, after some revisions to make it fit the medium.

Below is the rough draft from which I'll start editing. I'm going to add a story at the beginning of a priest I know who was dismissed from jury duty because he couldn't separate his faith from his sense of justice. There are many other examples of this that I know about, including a UCC pastor in Oklahoma who was told that mercy had no place in the courtroom while he was arguing for mercy--at least not the death penalty-- in the sentencing of a black, lesbian, mentally-disabled woman . The paper is currently devoid of religious connotation, which I would add as well...particularly since I think Christians, as a matter of principle, should not separate notions of care or justice. Feedback would be appreciated.
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Carol Gilligan suggests that most moral situations can be interpreted in terms of both the ethical perspectives of justice and care. Yet, it is an open question as to whether the justice perspective is better suited to social and political contexts and the care perspective is better suited to more personal relationships among people. While I agree with Gilligan that most moral situations can be interpreted validly in terms of either care or justice, I will go further to say that the two are not easily separable---that care and justice coexist along a spectrum. I would like to illustrate that, while there may be differences in degree in the equilibrium between care and justice, tension between the two perspectives is necessary to avoid a shift from virtue to vice by drifting from the mean of an outcome that is as ideal as possible. I will then address the differences between a societal debate and a personal debate using the issue of abortion and argue for the appropriateness of both care and justice as public ethical frames.[1]

Some definitions are in order. For our purposes, justice is defined as the emphasis and application of abstract rules revolving around one’s freedom from interference. To steal is to transgress another’s right to property; to kill is to transgress another’s right to life. Justice is also concerned with negotiating hierarchies of rights in a fair and just manner. This notion of justice is very minimalist in that it is not very “personal.” The caring perspective emphasizes the avoidance of breaking relationships and negotiating competing needs through communication; one must avoid hurting others while maintaining relationships that are healthful for oneself. This notion of care implies interpersonal relationship, whether we care for it or not.

One way of interpreting the relationship between justice and care is to think of care as the property which keeps justice within a mean. What the care perspective contributes to justice is a stronger emphasis on contextualizing the norms. Therefore, care may keep justice from either becoming solely retributive, tyrannical, or blind to circumstance (in favor of a rule). Likewise, Gilligan’s post-conventional mature care ethic is not only the ability to empathize, but also the ability to reason toward a balance of one’s own needs and the needs of others. Justice is similar in that one must be able to account for both parties’ claims in order to bring about a just end. Justice, as the ability to determine the fairness of disparate possible actions, could be seen as a way keeping a mean between excessive egoism and disproportionate self-sacrifice in cases of determining how one should care. The difficulty of finding and maintaining means of justice and care come more from matters of degree as opposed to a difference of kind. Exactly how much care (mercy) should justice allow? Who rightfully has a claim on another’s time, emotions, and attention? Neither care nor justice disappears in either case; it is a balancing act between the two.

So, whether justice should be the primary framework in social and political contexts is not so much a question about justice in itself, but a question of how care should be allowed to temper justice. The debate is familiar: shall our society writ large be “tough” on crime or “soft” on crime? To some extent, the question details how our society seems to operate: the state is more retributive in its standard for justice while private individuals are (generally) exhorted to be forgiving and caring of others. That level of caring and forgiveness is not generally treated as the state’s responsibility or duty, particularly in the criminal justice systems. Hence mercy in the courtroom is sometimes vilified as dereliction of duty on the judge’s part.[2] Yet, it is also true that in matters of education, healthcare, and the environment, a perspective of care is more pronounced even at the societal level (couched in terms like social justice). There are very few clear lines to demarcate when one shifts from justice to caring.

Finding equilibrium between justice and care comes into sharp focus in the debate over the morality (and legality) of abortion. Issues of care and justice are debated internally, on the individual level. To whom shall one do justice; for whom shall one care? Who (or what) is more important, the mother or the fetus? How will a decision to abort affect relationships? One must determine if abortion can ever be just. If abortion is not just and should therefore be restricted, will one allow for exceptions? Here is where a perspective of care is either denied (no exceptions allowed) or considered (in particular cases, abortion may be acceptable). When one conclusively (or perhaps just tentatively) satisfies oneself with a position, then they enter the public debate. And it isn’t a matter of translating one’s personal “caring” rhetoric into “justice” for the benefit of the public sphere …one maintains one’s own sense of an answer to the issue based on how he or she resolves the tension between justice and care.

Nor should such a translation be required. The balancing act between justice and care is the more proper way of conceiving of both public and private moral issues than a divided sense of justice and care that requires one to reframe in order to enter public debate.[3] To allow care and justice, in all of the viewpoints’ intertwined complexity, is also beneficial since the public debate should not become exclusive of other valid viewpoints. To consider the public realm merely the realm of justice would be to cripple the very real interplay between what justice means and the realities that frequently confound such meanings.

I have sought to clarify the relationship between the perspectives of justice and care as well as their relationship to public and private ethical debates. While one may speak accurately from perspectives of care and justice, the two are bound in a complex relationship and hold each other in necessary tension. Precisely because of this complex relationship, the notion that one must translate one’s private (supposedly) caring perspective into terms of justice in order to enter public debate is unhelpful and presents a false dichotomy. Instead, public debate should allow for the advocates to bring their own arguments as they have formed them. To exclude those who think in terms of an ethics of caring is to intentionally create an unhelpful blind spot in public discourse.

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[1] This essay is based upon the readings provided in Mike Martin’s Everyday Morality: An Introduction to Applied Ethics, 4 ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing, 2006), 79-83.

[2] I am making a broad generalization here, for mercy in the courtroom is seen by some as exemplary…as attempting justice that is restorative as opposed to merely punitive.

[3] Reframing one’s argument is a wonderful skill, though. It enables one to effectively communicate across audiences.

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