Nel Noddings

Nel Noddings (1929–2022) was an American feminist philosopher and educator best known for her work in the philosophy of education and for the ethics of care, an alternative to ethical approaches grounded in justice. Her thinking belongs to the relational tradition in ethics and draws on John Dewey and on the work of Carol Gilligan.

After a degree in mathematics and physical science and a master's in mathematics, she spent seventeen years as a teacher and school administrator before earning a doctorate in education at Stanford. She joined the Stanford faculty in 1977, where she served as acting dean of the School of Education, and later taught at Columbia and Colgate. She led both the Philosophy of Education Society and the John Dewey Society.

Her best-known book, Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education (1984), argues that caring, understood as a relationship between the one who cares and the one cared for, is a more basic foundation for ethics than rules of justice. She separated natural caring, which springs from affection, from ethical caring, which comes from a commitment to caring as the right way to relate to others. Women and Evil (1989) extended her reflection to evil and moral responsibility.

Her influence reaches education, where she held that the teacher-student relationship is a caring one, and it remains present in debates on ethics, education and care.