"Ethics of care", a Branch of Virtue Ethics or an Independent Approach in Ethics? a review of Michael Slote and Virginia Held's perspective

The ratio of ethics of care and ethics of virtue is one of the questions facing experts of ethics of care, the answer to which has important consequences for ethics of care. Michael Slote and Virginia Held are two leading scholars of care ethics who have different views on its relation to virtue ethics. Slote considers care ethics to be a branch of virtue ethics, but held, while acknowledging some similarities between the two, considers care ethics to be a distinct ethical system. In order to judge between these two views, first, it has been tried to provide a criterion for virtue ethics; Then, the approach that these two experts have towards the ethics of care should be analyzed to determine its compliance or non-compliance with the stated criteria. But due to the fact that Slote considered the element of "empathy" and held the element of "caring relationships" as the basic value in the ethics of care, we are faced with a fundamental difference that makes the answer to the question of "the relationship between the ethics of care and the virtue ethics" subject to the examination of their views on the central element in ethics of care. Despite examining the arguments of the parties about this matter, examining the degree of conformity of these two views with the prevailing view of the ethics of care seems to be the final solution to answer the said question and arbitrate between Slote and Held. Examining the dominant view shows that the basic value in the ethics of care is generally considered to be "the act of care" or "care relationships" and not virtues such as "caring" and "empathy", and accordingly, care ethics, as Held says, should be defined as a system distinct from as virtue Ethics.