Caring, Empathy, and Moral Education

This article argues in defence of the application of an empathy-based approach to moral education. It describes the nature of care ethics as it has developed in recent years in the work of many authors and shows the relevance of empathy to care ethics and to moral education based on such ethics. It discusses Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development and Nel Noddings recent work to highlight some ways in which the relevance of caring to moral education may be relatively independent of questions of empathy.