Misplaced Gratitude and the Ethics of Oppression

In this article I examine Claudia Card’s notion of misplaced gratitude, which she explores in one of her latest papers, “”Gratitude to the Decent Rescuer”. Whereas typically philosophers have been interested in the problems of the failures to honor obligations of gratitude, Card is more interested in the opposite fault of misplaced gratitude. Card’s interest in this question is formed by her social indignation and her fundamental commitment to opposing oppression, exploitation and injustice in all its forms. The phenomenon of misplaced gratitude becomes visible from this perspective, where one catches sight of what oppression does to people. Here I look at the question: what does Card’s analysis of misplaced gratitude tell us about her own philosophical methods and contributions? I discuss her engagement with both care ethics and Beauvoir’s phenomenology of oppression to clarify the centrality of misplaced gratitude for Card’s work in developing an ethics of oppression.