I am happy to announce that I will be presenting new research at the Long Island Philosophical Society Spring 2016 Conference! The conference is being held at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, New York on April 9. The program can be found here: LIPS 2016 Program

My talk is titled: “Who Cares? Examining Needs, Care, and Responsibility for a More Caring Version of the State.” An abstract for the talk can be found below.

Who Cares? Examining Needs, Care, and Responsibility for a More Caring Version of the State

Abstract

Social and political theories must take seriously the needs that persons have because all persons have needs. Likewise, care and caring activities must be taken equally seriously, as all persons require care throughout their lives to meet their needs when they are unable to do so themselves. I propose that we view needs and their corresponding care activities through a new lens that clarifies the role that the state plays in meeting a majority of the needs of its citizens. I sketch out a taxonomy of needs, and the corresponding caring activities that may successfully meet those needs, as the first step in determining who is responsible to provide care in different contexts. I propose that we think of needs as being either primary or secondary in nature, and that we think of the caring activities that meet these needs as being either direct (or indirect) primary caring activities or as secondary caring activities. I argue that family members are more effective primary caregivers and have a responsibility to perform primary caring activities. Similarly, I argue that the state has a responsibility to perform many secondary caring activities for citizens because of the unique way that secondary needs arise.