Although the ethical and political theory of care ethics has flourished in recent decades, we still remain without a succinct statement of its core normative commitment. This study aims to remedy that by dissecting the existing care ethics literature and arriving at four key claims that constitute the most defensible reconstruction of that literature. It sums up those four key claims in a principle. In slogan form, the principle proposed is 'dependency relationships generate responsibilities.' This principle is subjected to a novel and detailed analysis and is then used to unify, specify, and justify the four key claims of care ethics, as those claims apply to both individuals and groups, in a way that retains care ethics' intuitive appeal and phenomenological and feminist insights.