The alternative is an ethical framework that promotes a care economy

Ideally, of course, friendship as a private relationship would be protected by a republican government within a Kantian ethical framework. But the rules of friendship, as such, derive almost exclusively from the experiences of the friends themselves choosing playmates and companions, and maintaining those relationships in all their particularities.25 I turn in the following section to an alternative ethical framework that promises to incorporate the context and idiosyncrasies of international relationships—in particular, friendship —necessary for peace.26 AN ALTERNATIVE, FEMINIST ETHIC OF CARE Considering the importance of international relationships to peace, an ethic of care provides a fitting alternative to the prevailing Kantian, rights-based ethical foundation for the democratic peace phenomenon. Most significantly, an ethic of care “begins from a different understanding of human nature and human interaction. Rather than seeing people as rational actors pursuing their own goals and maximizing their interests, we must instead see people as constantly enmeshed in relationships of care.” It follows that the political behavior of individuals must reflect not only their self-interests, but also the particular “constellation of caring relationships” in which they find themselves, and the institutions that define and sustain those relationships.27 This moral voice is rooted in Carol Gilligan’s claim that women tend to express an ethic that emphasizes relationships and responsibilities, as opposed to rules and rights. Gilligan argues that the process by which an individual develops a method of moral reasoning governed by “self-legislated and self-imposed universal principles such as those of justice, reciprocity and respect” is gendered. More specifically, the way in which women make moral choices differs from Kohlberg’s process because they see themselves less as autonomous individuals than as interdependent human beings.28 Gilligan accounts for this difference in terms of Chodorow’s argument that a young girl’s natural connection to her mother is the source of the relatedness that would prepare her for the traditional work of caring for a home and family; a young boy’s need to separate from his mother and identify instead with his father is likewise the source of his inability to relate deeply to others and cor responding readiness for work in the public sphere.29 Gilligan concludes on It also notably distinguishes care epistemologically from a rights-based

perspective. Care as a foundation for moral choice is obviously grounded in experience rather than pure reason as a source of knowing or validating behavior. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of motherhood.30 Motherhood—anexperience that is, of course, unique to women—remains a distinguishing relationship for the care ethic, broadly understood. The actual physical experience of pregnancy, birth, and motherhood reshapes a woman’s moral identity: “pregnancy is not something that just happens to women. . . from the moment a women learns she is pregnant . . . [her] responsibilities are mediated by this unique bodily perspective.”31 The portent of such a fundamental change in moral consciousness lies in questions of how wemight generalize the virtues of motherhood, “the caring, nurture ing, feeling, intuiting, empathizing, and relating.”32 One possibility lies in the introduction of “maternal thinking,” which emphasizes the responsibilities that mothers share in preserving the lives of their children; fostering their physical, intellectual, and psychological growth; and training them in citizenship into a nation’s policy-making process. Despite the potential par adox inherent in the coupling of “preserving life” and “citizenship training,” which can include military service, Ruddick argues that the logic of this kind of thinking is pacifist.33 That women, because they exclusively are able to bear children, reason ably possess a distinct perspective on moral life should not be surprising. It is increasingly clear, however, that the experiences of establishing and main taining caring relationships in general are not limited to women. Although only women are able to bear children, young people, grandparents, society’s economically disadvantaged and disenfranchised members, and others in positions of submission and servility are particularly likely to reason in terms of their personal experiences and relationships. Working-class people and parents, for instance, often provide “feminine,” or particular, nonutilitarian justifications for their moral choices. More specifically, recent studies suggest that members of such groups as well as women “seemed to think it obvious that compromise and accommodation were good things, at least in cases of conflict.”34 That pacifism is thus the logical conclusion of moral reasoning is critical to the argument at hand because it supports a care-based alternative to “perpetual peace.” More specifically, the practices of “caring about,” “taking care of,” “care-giving,” and “receiving care” are not merely important considerations once constitutionally guaranteed rights have set some “moral minimum”asthe criterion of ethical behavior, but rather establish “the wider moral framework. . . .”35 Thus, I argue below that the roots of international peace are planted firmly at “home” in the incorporation of what has been considered private morality into the domestic politics of care.