All persons spend a considerable portion of their lives either as dependents or the caretakers of dependents. The fact of human dependency - a function of youth, severe illness, disability, or frail old age - marks our lives, not only as those who are cared for, but as those who engage in the work of caring. In spite of the time, energy and resources, material and emotional, social and individual, that dependency care requires, these concerns rarely enter into philosophical, legal and political discussions. The fiction of the "indpendent actor" obscures the centrality of dependency in our lives. The essays of this volume consider how acknowledgement of the fact of dependency changes our conceptions of law, political theory and morality, as well as our very conceptions of self. The volumes contributors develop feminist understandings of dependency, reassessing the place dependency occupies in our lives and in a just social order.

Eva Feder Kittay is professor of philosophy at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and the author, most recently, of Loves Labor: Essays on Women, Equality, and Dependence. Ellen K. Feder is assistant professor of philosophy at American University. The pair have also coedited a special issue of Hypatia on the family and feminist theory.

Chapter 1
Chapter 1. CONTESTING THE INDEPENDENT MAN
Chapter 2 A Genealogy of Dependency: Tracing a Keyword of the U.S. Welfare State
Chapter 3 Autonomy, Welfare Reform, and Meaningful Work
Chapter 4 Dependency and Choice: The Two Faces of Eve
Chapter 5
Chapter 2. LEGAL AND ECONOMIC RELATIONS IN THE FACE OF DEPENDENCY
Chapter 6 The Right to Care
Chapter 7 Subsidized Lives and the Ideology of Efficiency
Chapter 8 Dependency Work, Women, and the Global Economy
Chapter 9
Chapter 3. JUST SOCIAL ARRANGEMENTS AND FAMILIAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR DEPENDENCY
Chapter 10 Justice and the Labor of Care
Chapter 11 The Future of Feminist Liberalism
Chapter 12 Masking Dependency: The Political Role of Family Rhetoric
Chapter 13
Chapter 4. DEPENDENCY CARE IN CASES OF SPECIFIC VULNERABILITY
Chapter 14 The Decasualization of Eldercare
Chapter 15 When Caring is Just and Justice is Caring: Justice and Mental Retardation
Chapter 16 Poverty, Race, and the Distortion of Dependency: The Case of Kinship Care
Chapter 17 Doctors Orders: Parents and Intersexed Children
Chapter 18 SECTION 5. DEPENDENCY, SUBJECTIVITY, AND IDENTITY
Chapter 19 Subjectivity as Responsivity: The Ethical Implications of Dependency
Chapter 20 Race and the Labor of Identity
Chapter 21 Dependence on Place, Dependence in Place

With rich, interdisciplinary essays by pioneers in the field as well as pathbreaking newcomers, The Subject of Care takes us through key political and philosophical debates and then out on the other side to envision new meanings for dependency and care. This book is essential reading for all those who perform the work of caring and receive care—in other words, for all of us....
— Sonya Michel

While the work is highly recommended for the way that it assists in creatively moving on the debate over an ethics of care, it is also successful in provoking reflection on wider issues.....
—

This interdisciplinary anthology succeeds compellingly and convincingly at the challenge of arguing for the central role of dependency in understanding human agency, sociopolitical philosophy and policy, and ethical obligations.....
—

Eva Kittay and Ellen Feder have brought together (and both contributed to) an excellent collection of essays on various aspects of relations of care, focused in particular on relations of dependency. The volume as a whole provides a rich resource for thinking about a number of dimensions of dependency, and relations of care for dependents. This volume is rich with new terminology, fresh concepts and ideas, creative analyses and suggested novel approaches to intractable social problems, not only regardingrelations of dependency, but also a number of other issues, including racism, sexism, classism, globalization, and environmental degradation. Although the essays mainly deal only with the United States, the text is nonetheless a valuable resource for feminists, both activists and scholars, both in the United States and elsewhere, as well as a useful text to use all or parts of in graduate seminars relating to feminist theory, sociology, economics, social ethics, and political philosophy..
—

If anything stands out after reading these essays, it is that so many provided new, engaging conceptual and political insights into care. . . . While tackling many issues from a distinctly feminist perspective, these contributors also provide reflectionsand proposals that are essential reading for any political theorist, philosopher, or activist currently committed to a substantive vision of freedom and a progressive approach to social justice....