CARE VS. JUSTICE

The Ethics of Care vs. Justice is a moral paradigm introduced by feminist scholar Carol Gilligan as a counterpoint to the rationalist frameworks of moral development proposed by Lawrence Kohlberg.

Gilligan proposed that moral reasoning can be relational and contextual, rather than guided solely by abstract principles of fairness or universal rules.

Under an ethic of care, the moral agent is embedded within relationships—attuned to the consequences of action and to the lived experience of others. The guiding question becomes: Who will be affected, and how can I respond with care? This framework prioritizes empathy, interdependence, and the prevention of harm.

In UX, we often speak of eliminating pain points, but rarely do we examine how our design decisions mediate relationships among users, systems, and non-users. A care-based approach asks us to see beyond transactional usability and toward the relational effects of design—how systems condition trust, dependency, or neglect between beings, human or otherwise.

In contrast, an ethic of justice seeks objectivity through fairness, equality, and rule-based reasoning. The guiding question is: What is the fair or lawful action? While this paradigm supports consistency and procedural clarity, it can overlook the nuance of human connection and the moral weight of context.

Through the AI-Ethicist lens, care and justice must be seen as complementary moral architectures—one ensuring equity through principle, the other ensuring empathy through relation. Together, they balance the analytical with the attuned, forming the moral spine of responsible design.