How Noddings’ argument fits Guttings’
According to Guttings, a majority of popular articles tend to provoke comments from the audience which challenge the view of the relevance of philosophy, especially among non-philosophers. In particular, there are complaints concerning the validity of philosophy and compares it to an ivory-tower practice that is typically useless in relation to those interested in logics. The perception of these popular articles, according to Guttings, is that philosophy is merely an essential ground for the beliefs which guide daily life. Guttings asserts that humanity preceded philosophy. However, other opponents reject the fundamental idea of philosophy, what he refers to as the foundationalist idea of philosophy. As such, rejecting the concept mentioned above implies human beings have a right to clutch onto basic beliefs which by philosophical consideration, are not legitimate. However, there are other numerous ways which exemplify the practicability of philosophy. In as much fundamental beliefs with regard to religion, ethics and politics do not need philosophical validation; they still require what can be called intellectual maintenance that essentially constitutes philosophical reasoning in itself. Incremental to defending the basic principles against objections, there is a need for regular clarification on what basic beliefs logically entail or imply (Gutting 5). Although philosophers typically object answers to some big questions such as the nature of ethical duty, God’s existence and free will, there are other numerous logical interconnections as well as conceptual distinctions which they agree with as being essential for clearly thinking about these questions. I will argue that Nel Noddings’ argument about the superiority of care over justice fits Gutting’s ideology of intellectual maintenance of other non-philosophical beliefs.
Nel Noddings presented among the initial comprehensive philosophies of care. He argued about caring being the basis of morality. Noddings claimed that relationships are ontologically necessary to human beings, where identity is described by the number of relationships between individuals. In proposing caring to be a universal human value, Noddings affirmed that a caring relationship, where individuals’ actions depict care, is ethically fundamental to humanity (Noddings 13). Since the propensity to care is global, the ethics of caring is unrestrained from the bounds of moral relativism in a similar manner as virtue ethics.
The exactitude of relationships is essential to the morality of care. Noddings argues that each caring relationship constitutes two individuals, the care-for and the one-caring. Further on, the debate concerning care and justice has regularly involved strong opposition with a section arguing for care against justice. The debate has often focused on a purported gender difference where men favor care and men favor justice. However, both sides of the debate are captivating and consist of numerous questions which need better answers compared to our current knowledge. Further on, both debates do not at all times attend to issues which are of utmost importance to educators (Noddings 7). The latter raises the question of the extent necessary for an idea of justice guide instructive policy-making as well as the concept of justice which should be implemented. The issue of the debate between care and justice exemplifies the issue of logical interconnections. Basically, both care and justice are important issues in the society and Noddings chosing care over justice does not imply that justice is lesser important. In the above case, philosophy interconnects with other beliefs, hence is equally relevant even to non-philosophers. Noddings attempts to indicate that justice has been implemented in numerous matter relating to equity on educational planning and has been precisely inadequate. Later on, she concludes that care holds higher regard as compared to justice.