Joan C. Tronto is an American political scientist and care ethicist who expanded care ethics from an interpersonal moral psychology into a political theory. Her Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (1993) argued that the devaluation of care is not incidental but structural — it maintains existing distributions of power by keeping care invisible as a political issue.
Core ideas
- Care as political concept: care is not merely a personal virtue but a political practice whose organization reflects and reproduces structures of power. The question is not only “how should individuals care?” but “who cares for whom, under what conditions, and at whose expense?”
- Four phases of care: caring about (attentiveness), taking care of (responsibility), care-giving (competence), and care-receiving (responsiveness). These phases are routinely split across social positions.
- Moral boundaries: the boundaries between morality and politics, public and private, and the “moral point of view” insulate political theory from care and protect existing power.
- Caring democracy (2013): democratic legitimacy requires that all persons participate in both giving and receiving care — that care be organized democratically rather than through domination.
Significance for this research
Tronto’s analysis of how care is split across social positions — those with power “care about” while delegating actual labor — connects directly to Elizabeth Povinelli’s analysis of how late liberalism manages harm through procedural acknowledgment without structural redress. The letters-to-the-web on care and control describe this dynamic: governance that mistakes managed concern for care.
Notable works
- Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care (1993)
- Caring Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice (2013)
- Who Cares? How to Reshape a Democratic Politics (2015)
Related
- Care Ethics — the tradition she politicized
- Tronto school — her school within care ethics
- Carol Gilligan — whose work Tronto expanded
- Virginia Held — fellow political care ethicist
- Care work — the labor Tronto theorizes
- Elizabeth Povinelli — whose analysis of abandonment complements Tronto’s