This takes up several concerns that I've had for years, but I have to be brief because I'm writing and taking two language courses. There is a huge literature contrasting men's putative ethic of autonomy with women's ethic of care. Carol Gilligan, for example, critiqued Kohlberg and Maslow for not acknowledging women's position. We see the same thing reflected in Habermas where he talks about the instrumental cognitive interest contrasted with the practical cognitive interest. I think some of us boys, however liberal (I certainly am- I'm sympathetic to social democracy- ex-Marxist etc. - I'd like to see socialism in macro with libertarianism in micro,) some of us boys get peeved when the ethic of care goes overboard and distorts science in the name of caring. Some of the pro-trans stuff does this. Trans was established as a social movement by fiat apparently, and it was easy to sympathize because gays had been oppressed. But there are not, as currently claimed, 1 in 33 people who are trans. It's probably more like 1 in 20,000. Furthermore, the politics around trans are almost McCarthyistic now. People have to agree to use pronouns, no matter how grotesque. In applying for an academic job, you may have to write a pro-trans DEI statement. Students have gotten professors fired. If you point out the ton of money the 500+ gender clinics in the US make, you are criticized. Pediatricians have rewritten standards of care to cooperate with all this, but it's too much like a gold rush. So a care ethic, when distorted, can produce a certain amount of mischief.
This takes up several concerns that I've had for years, but I have to be brief because I'm writing and taking two language courses. There is a huge literature contrasting men's putative ethic of autonomy with women's ethic of care. Carol Gilligan, for example, critiqued Kohlberg and Maslow for not acknowledging women's position. We see the same thing reflected in Habermas where he talks about the instrumental cognitive interest contrasted with the practical cognitive interest. I think some of us boys, however liberal (I certainly am- I'm sympathetic to social democracy- ex-Marxist etc. - I'd like to see socialism in macro with libertarianism in micro,) some of us boys get peeved when the ethic of care goes overboard and distorts science in the name of caring. Some of the pro-trans stuff does this. Trans was established as a social movement by fiat apparently, and it was easy to sympathize because gays had been oppressed. But there are not, as currently claimed, 1 in 33 people who are trans. It's probably more like 1 in 20,000. Furthermore, the politics around trans are almost McCarthyistic now. People have to agree to use pronouns, no matter how grotesque. In applying for an academic job, you may have to write a pro-trans DEI statement. Students have gotten professors fired. If you point out the ton of money the 500+ gender clinics in the US make, you are criticized. Pediatricians have rewritten standards of care to cooperate with all this, but it's too much like a gold rush. So a care ethic, when distorted, can produce a certain amount of mischief.