Introduction to the Symposium on Eva Kittay's Love's Labor: Essays on Women, Equality and Dependency

The publication of Eva Kittay's Love's Labor in 1999 was a significant event in American moral and political philosophy for more than one reason. ¹ First, Kittay's book puts issues of disability on the agenda of moral and political philosophy, showing that these are major questions with which all theorists of justice will need henceforth to grapple. Second, in so doing, it articulates some very persuasive and powerful criticisms of contractarian models of justice, suggesting that if we are to make adequate proposals for the just treatment of people who need care and those who care for them, we must move beyond the image of citizenship embedded in the dominant social contract tradition that has been at the heart of much Western theorizing about society. Third, it makes a very strong philosophical case for some specific changes in American law and public policy, showing how good philosophy can help us think well about concrete political choices.

Finally, and not at all least, the book compels attention because of its moving and beautifully written account of Kittay's daughter Sesha, whose life is integral to the book's argument, and to its persuasive strategy as it approaches readers who have been walking through the world without thinking much about the lives of people with mental and physical disabilities. By confronting such readers with the habitual failure of "their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality," (Ellison 1952, 3) ² Kittay thus raises important questions about the role of the imagination of particulars in philosophy aimed at radical moral and social change.

Kittay's book makes a very general set of arguments in political philosophy, aimed at providing the groundwork for a more adequate confrontation with issues of care and extreme dependency. But the book is also a feminist book, because, as Kittay points out, and as the date summarized in Rosemary Tong's article in the present symposium reinforce, caring for people with acute physical and cognitive needs is, overwhelmingly, women's work. Whether the cared-for are "normal" children, disabled children and adults, or the elderly, most of the work of meeting their needs is undertaken in today's America (and not only there) by women. Sometimes the women are family members of those for whom they care; in such cases the work is typically not counted as work, although it greatly impedes these women in their pursuit of other life activities, including work, political participation, recreation, and love. Our habitual view that only "productive work" out in the marketplace is "real work" impedes us, typically, from seeing the large burden that care places upon family members, and its relation to their other activities. Sometimes the women who give care work for pay. But this work, not being "productive" work, is little valued by society, and is usually poorly paid; it is therefore likely to be the lot of poor women who have few career options. Even when such paid caregivers make it possible for a more privileged woman to pursue her career, as in the case of Kittay and her caregiver Peggy, the structure raises worries about the exploitation of women of one class by those of another. For all of these reasons, issues of care and dependency are urgent feminist issues of justice.

It is therefore very welcome that Hypatia has chosen to publish the papers resulting from a symposium on Kittay's book at the meeting of the Society for Women in Philosophy in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association's Eastern Division Meeting in December, 2000. The papers provide a diverse and stimulating set of approaches to the book, both stating and reflecting about the book's central theses in an illuminating way. Each author also finds the book valuable toward the pursuit of other issues germane to each writer's work, issues not...