Trace a caring task through noticing, owning, doing and receiving
Follow one act of care through four phases: noticing the need, taking responsibility for it, doing the work, and seeing how it is received.
Why it works
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the political theorist Joan Tronto’s account of care as four phases: caring about, taking care of (assuming responsibility), care-giving (the direct meeting of need), and care-receiving. On this page’s reading, tracing the phases separately makes it easier to see which one a caring effort has not reached. The same entry describes “privileged irresponsibility,” in which the advantaged buy care and leave responsibility for its quality to others. The claim that tracing the phases exposes where care stops short is this page’s reasoning, not the encyclopedia’s.
How to do it
- Pick one caring task you are part of, such as a relative’s appointments or a team member’s workload.
- Caring about: write down the need you have noticed, and any you have not.
- Taking care of: write who has taken responsibility for it, and whether they agreed to.
- Care-giving: note who actually does the work and how much time it takes.
- Care-receiving: ask the person receiving it how it is landing, and write their answer down.
Evidence
The four phases are described in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Sander-Staudt), which attributes the expansion to Tronto but gives no inline citation for that sentence. The exercise applies the four phases to a real task and has not been tested. (mechanistic)
Tronto’s book (Moral Boundaries) was not read for this page. Whether tracing the phases changes how care is actually given is untested.
Sources
Common mistake
Counting the work as care without asking how it was received. The fourth phase can only be checked by asking the person it was for.
Practice this with IX Coach
More practices for Carol Gilligan’s Ethics of Care, Explained
- Look at one decision through justice and through care
Take one decision you face and ask it twice: what does fairness require, and what do the people involved need from me?
- Judge the reasons someone gave, not the sex they are
Before reading a colleague’s position as “caring” or “principled” because of who they are, check what they actually argued.
- Check who carries the caring load before calling it care
When a decision is framed as caring for others, ask who ends up doing the caring and what it costs them.
- Name the specific people a decision makes you responsible to
Before settling on a principle, list the particular people you are responsible to and what each one is counting on from you.
- Retell a hard choice as a story of relationships over time
Before stating the rule that settles a hard choice, tell it as a sequence of relationships: who depends on whom, and how that has changed.
- Receive the person on their own terms before judging their need
Before deciding what someone needs, take up their situation as they describe it and set aside your own motives for helping.
Related concepts
- Kegan’s Subject-Object Theory, Made Practical
Moving from being run by your assumptions to being able to examine them
- Torbert’s Seven Action Logics of Leadership
Seven ways leaders make sense of pressure, how common each is, and how to work with your own
- The Construct-Aware and Unitive Stages of Adult Development
Seeing the self and its stories as constructions — what it looks like, how rare it is, and what it does not promise
- Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development, Made Practical
Six stages of moral reasoning, how they are scored, and how to work with the reasons you give
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