Starting at Home: Caring and Social Policy Paperback - 2002

"Starting at Home is a bold and ambitious book. It is also well-reasoned and compassionate. Noddings turns the conventional relati onship between public policy and household affairs on its head, showing how an elaborated theory of caring, rooted in family life, can serve to inform our thinking and guide our actions in a wide range of settings, both public and private. The result is a must-read for ethicists, policy makers, educators, and the public at large."--Philip W. Jackson, author of Life in Classrooms

"This book gives a rich yet unsentimental account of caring relations in idealized 'homes, ' then uses the lessons of home to criticize and re-invent social policy. Whether responding to critics or addressing controversial political issues, Noddings writes with a directness and courtesy that makes fruitful disagreement possible. She is nonetheless committed to an 'ethics of care, ' one clearly strengthened by her remarkable range of reading, analysis, and experience."--Sara Ruddick, author of Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace

"Recognizing care as a value with as much moral significance as justice and freedom, Noddings explores what a caring society would be like. Beginning with our understanding of how families best care for their members and thus can learn to care about others, she considers how caring could and should inform social policies. This is admirable and important work."--Virginia Held, author of Rights and Goods: Justifying Social Action