An elegant principle can still miss a person. A rule might be consistent on paper while overlooking who is doing the caring, who depends on whom, and what a decision feels like in a particular relationship.
The ethics of care asks us to take those details seriously. Carol Gilligan’s work helped bring attention to moral voices that were often discounted when care was treated as secondary to abstract rules.
Care is not a replacement for justice. The two can challenge and improve each other. When we ask who carries the burden of a decision, we may notice costs a clean formula cannot show.