Care ethics, philosophy, and the law - with Ira Chadha-Sridhar

Careful Thinking

How are our duties to care, and to obey the law, connected? What can care ethics contribute to an understanding of important questions in medical and family law? What does it mean to describe care as a 'thick ethical concept'? And what are the factors that make caring actions 'good'?

These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Ira Chadha-Sridhar. Ira is the Hatton-WYNG Junior Research Fellow in Law, Medicine and Life Sciences at Hughes Hall in the University of Cambridge. She has a BA.LLB (Honours) from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences in Kolkata, and an LLM from Cambridge University, where she was recently awarded a PhD for her thesis entitled ‘A Care Ethical Theory of Political Obligation'.

Ira’s research interests lie at the intersections of law and philosophy. She’s particularly interested in the ethics of care and its relationship with questions about the law: both within jurisprudence, and within areas of legal doctrine, such as medical law and family law. Ira’s current research project focusses on care ethics and its intersection with doctrinal questions in medical law.

Ira’s publications include a number of articles written while she was still a student in India, for example on the ethics of care in maternity laws, and critical feminist reflections on the laws around shared parenting. In 2021 she published an article on ‘The Value of Vagueness: A Feminist Analysis’ in The Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, while 2023 saw the publication of her article on ‘Care as a Thick Ethical Concept’ in Res Publica. Ira is currently working on a monograph, in which she plans to develop a conceptual account of care, encompassing a descriptive theory of caring actions and a care-evaluation framework. This framework aims to make substantial contributions to ongoing discussions in doctrinal medical law and public health policy.

We explore the following topics in this episode:

The origins of Ira's interest in the law (02:58)

Feminism as an early influence on Ira's thinking (04:54)

Ira's introduction to care ethics (06:08)

An overview of Ira's doctoral research (08:40)

Care ethics and political obligation (10:45)

Is care ethics a feminist ethic? (12:52)

The contribution of a new generation of thinkers to care ethics (15:25)

The relationship between care ethics and legal and political philosophy (17:23)

Care ethics, particularism and moral principles (19:25)

Care as a thick ethical concept (23:40)

Care ethics and analytic philosophy (27:33)

Care and 'good' care (30:46)

Positive, negative and neutral caring actions (32:57)

The factors that make caring actions 'good' (36:43)

Ira's current research on medical law and care ethics (39:26)

Some of the writers and thinkers mentioned in the episode

Amrita Banerjee

Virginia Held

Joan Tronto

Daniel Engster

Steven Steyl (see Episode 10)

Stephanie Collins

Bernard Williams

Philippa Foot

Iris Murdoch

Jonathan Herring

Some of the publications discussed in the episode

Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development

Cynthia A. Stark, 'Abstraction and Justification in Moral Theory'

Steven Steyl, 'A Care Ethical Theory of Right Action'

Stephanie Collins, The Core of Care Ethics

For a transcript of this episode, follow this link to the Careful Thinking Substack