An Ethics of Care

2019 ◽  
pp. 164-183
Author(s):  
Eva Feder Kittay

While care has been marginalized within much of the history of moral philosophy, care ethics insists that caring be understood as a form of moral conduct. Arguing that care is a normative rather than solely descriptive category, this chapter articulates care as a moral practice that, when performed in accordance with its regulative ideals, is morally good. This moral practice is unpacked via the normative concept of CARE, which includes care as labor, disposition, and virtue. This chapter articulates the features of what Kittay names an ETHICS OF CARE through its conceptions of moral agency, moral relations, moral deliberation, the particularity of some moral judgments, the aim of morality, and moral harm. This ETHICS OF CARE addresses the obligations and responsibilities that arise within asymmetrical relationships of situation and power between caregivers and those receiving care.

Author(s):  
Anna Magdalena Elsner ◽  
Vanessa Rampton

The ethics of care poses a special case for psychotherapy. At first glance, key elements of care ethics such as acknowledging our dependence on others, attention to emotions, and creating a supportive environment for healing overlap substantially with key characteristics of psychotherapy. Care ethics’ emphasis on attentiveness and empathetic concern, and related acts such as listening and talking to patients point in the direction of salutary therapeutic relationships, and also of valorizing psychotherapy as a practice. Yet psychotherapy has a long history of critical engagement with the therapeutic relationship, using terms and concepts other than “care.” This chapter shows that while relatively little work has been done on care ethics approaches in psychotherapy, such approaches complement traditional attentiveness to the (psycho)therapeutic relationship by asking to what extent psychotherapists are practicing care and what this entails. Conversely, because psychotherapy has long been concerned with intersubjectivity, as exemplified by the concepts of transference and countertransference, it offers valuable theoretical and practical resources for care ethics approaches.


Problemos ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 82 ◽  
pp. 112-125
Author(s):  
Renata Bikauskaitė

Rūpesčio etika šiuolaikinės moralės filosofijos lauke yra gana naujas, vienalytiškumu bei griežtai apibrėžtu žodynu nepasižymintis darinys. Rūpesčio etika užima kritinę poziciją tradicinių etinių teorijų atžvilgiu, tačiau kai kurie jos atstovai, ieškodami tvirtesnio filosofinio pagrindo, siekia įtraukti ją į dorybių etikos teoriją. Šiame straipsnyje siūloma kitokia strategija: įtraukti rūpesčio etiką į Emmanuelio Levino filosofijos kontekstą. Analizuojant vienos žymiausių rūpesčio etikos atstovių Nel Noddings idėjas ir lyginant jas su Levino filosofija siekiama atskleisti abiejų etinių diskursų sankirtos taškus ir bendradarbiavimo galimybes. Straipsnyje teigiama, kad Levino etika suteikia Noddings natūralistinei rūpesčio etikai gilesnį normatyvinį pagrindą ir platesnį filosofinį kontekstą jos kontroversiškoms sąvokoms.Pagrindiniai žodžiai: rūpesčio etika, Noddings, Levinas.Ethics of Care and Emmanuel LevinasRenata BikauskaitėSummaryIn the context of the contemporary moral philosophy ethics of care appears to be quite a new discipline that lacks homogeneity and a well-defined moral vocabulary. Ethics of care is highly critical of the traditional ethical theories, though a few representatives, who are looking for well-established philosophical grounds, try to subsume it under the category of theory of virtue ethics. In this paper a different approach emerges which seeks to incorporate the ethics of care within the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas. By analysing the ideas of Nel Noddings – one of the best known representatives of the ethics of care – and comparing them with the philosophy of Levinas an attempt is made to describe the overlaps between these two ethical discourses and explore the possibilities of their cooperation. This paper claims that Levinas’ ethics provides a deeper normative ground for the naturalistic care ethics of Nodings and a wider philosophical context for its controversial notions.Keywords: Ethics of care, Noddings, Levinas.


1988 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Levine

In what follows, “persons” are ideal-typical concepts of human beings, deployed expressly or supposed implicitly in particular theoretical contexts. Thus, the person of Kantian moral philosophy is a pure bearer of moral predicates, bereft of all properties that empirically distinguish human beings from one another: properties that, in Kant's view, are irrelevant to moral deliberation. No man or woman, actual or possible, could be so starkly featureless. But Kant's aim was not to describe human beings in actual or possible deliberations, but moral agency as such. Similarly, homo oeconomicus, economic man, is not a composite man or woman, but also a person, a theoretical construct introduced for explanatory purposes in models of economic behavior. My aim is to investigate capitalist persons: ideal-typical concepts of human beings deployed in justifying theories of capitalist property relations.I shall identify two capitalist persons, and impugn one of them. To situate my position historically, I call the impugned person Lockean, and the other Kantian. It is tempting to designate the Lockean person “the capitalist person.” However, this characterization would be misleading. Justifying theories of capitalism can employ either concept, and both can serve in accounts of socialist economies. Nevertheless, the Lockean person is tendentially procapitalist while the Kantian person is not.What follows is therefore relevant to the broader capitalism/socialism debate. To fault the Lockean person is not quite to fault capitalism itself. But a case against the Lockean person, if successful, would undermine an important strain of procapitalist argument. More importantly, the considerations I will adduce suggest a way of thinking about distributive justice and, ultimately, an ideal of equality that socialism, but not capitalism, can in principle accommodate.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andreas Kappes ◽  
Jay Joseph Van Bavel

From moral philosophy to programming driverless cars, scholars have long been interested in how to shape moral decision-making. We examine how framing can impact moral judgments either by shaping which emotional reactions are evoked in a situation (antecedent-focused) or by changing how people respond to their emotional reactions (response-focused). In three experiments, we manipulated the framing of a moral decision-making task before participants judged a series of moral dilemmas. Participants encouraged to go “with their first” response beforehand favored emotion-driven judgments on high-conflict moral dilemmas. In contrast, participants who were instructed to give a “thoughtful” response beforehand or who did not receive instructions on how to approach the dilemmas favored reason-driven judgments. There was no difference in response-focused control during moral judgements. Process-dissociation confirmed that people instructed to go with their first response had stronger emotion-driven intuitions than other conditions. Our results suggest that task framing can alter moral intuitions.


This is the sixth volume of Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility. The papers were drawn from the fourth biennial New Orleans Workshop in Agency and Responsibility (NOWAR), held November 2–4, 2017. The essays cover a wide range of topics relevant to agency and responsibility: the threat of neuroscience to free will; the relevance of resentment and guilt to responsibility; how control and self-control pertain to moral agency, oppression, and poverty; responsibility for joint agency; the role and conditions of shame in theories of attributability; how one might take responsibility without blameworthy quality of will; what it means to have standing to blame others; the relevance of moral testimony to moral responsibility; how to build a theory of attributabiity that captures all the relevant cases; and how thinking about blame better enables us to dissolve a dispute in moral philosophy between actualists and possibilists.


1995 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 95-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Gallagher

Since the publication of Carol Gilligan's In a different voice in 1982, there has been much discussion about masculine and feminine approaches to ethics. It has been suggested that an ethics of care, or a feminine ethics, is more appropriate for nursing practice, which contrasts with the 'traditional, masculine' ethics of medicine. It has been suggested that Nel Noddings' version of an 'ethics of care' (or feminine ethics) is an appropriate model for nursing ethics. The 'four principles' approach has become a popular model for medical or health care ethics. It will be suggested in this article that, whilst Noddings presents an interesting analysis of caring and the caring relationship, this has limitations. Rather than acting as an alternative to the 'four principles' approach, the latter is necessary to provide a framework to structure thinking and decision-making in health care. Further, it will be suggested that ethical separatism (that is, one ethics for nurses and one for doctors) in health care is not a progressive step for nurses or doctors. Three recommendations are made: that we promote a health care ethics that incorporates what is valuable in a 'traditional, masculine ethics', the why (four principles approach) and an 'ethics of care', the 'how' (aspects of Noddings' work and that of Urban Walker); that we encourage nurses and doctors to participate in the 'shared learning' and discussion of ethics; and that our ethical language and concerns are common to all, not split into unhelpful dichotomies.


Book Reviews: Studies in Sociology, Race Mixture, Hunger and Work in a Savage Tribe, Interpretations, 1931–1932, Faith, Hope and Charity in Primitive Religion, Genetic Principles in Medicine and Social Science, The Reorganisation of Education in China, Social Decay and Eugenical Reform, The Social and Political Ideas of Some Representative Thinkers of the Revolutionary Era, L. T. Hobhouse, His Life and Work, Corner of England, World Agriculture—An International Study, Small-Town Stuff, Methods of Social Study, Does History Repeat Itself? The New Morality, Culture and Progress, Language and Languages: An Introduction to Linguistics, The Theory of Wages, The Santa Clara Valley, California, Social Psychology, A History of Fire and Flame, Sin and New Psychology, Sociology and Education, Mental Subnormality and the Local Community: Am Outline or a Practical Program, Tyneside Council op Social Service, Reconstruction and Education in Rural India, The Contribution of the English Le Play School to Rural Sociology, Kagami Kenkyu Hokoku, President's, Pioneer Settlement: Co-Operative Studies, Birth Control and Public Health, Pioneer Settlement: Co-Operative Studies, Ourselves and the World: The Making of an American Citizen, The Emergence of the Social Sciences from Moral Philosophy, The Comparable Interests of the Old Moral Philosophy and the Modern Social Sciences, The World in Agony, Sheffield Social Survey Committee, Housing Problems in Liverpool, Council for the Preservation of Rural England, Forest Land Use in Wisconsin, The Growth Cycle of the Farm Family, The Farmer's Guide to Agricultural Research in 1931, A History of the Public Library Movement in Great Britain and Ireland, The Retirement of National Debts, Public and Private Operation of Railways in Brazil, The Indian Minorities Problem, The Meaning of the Manchurian Crisis, The Drama of the Kingdom, Social Psychology, Competition in the American Tobacco Industry, New York School Centers and Their Community Policy, Desertion of Alabama Troops from the Confederate Army, Plans for City Police Jails and Village Lockups

1933 ◽  
Vol a25 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-109
Author(s):  
R. R. Marbtt ◽  
E. E. Evans-Pritchard ◽  
E. O. Jambs ◽  
Florence Ayscough ◽  
C. H. Desch ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Erin McKenna ◽  
Maurice Hamington

This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist philosophical engagements with the uniquely American intellectual tradition often referred to as American pragmatism. After introducing pragmatism, the foundational feminist work and influence of Jane Addams is presented, followed by a discussion of other noteworthy contributors to feminist pragmatism. Significant themes in feminist pragmatism including race and identity, epistemology, care ethics, utopian thinking, and environmentalism are explored. The chapter addresses the extent to which feminist work has changed or entered the mainstream of the American pragmatism, as well as current and future directions of feminist pragmatism. In addition to offering a history of the development of feminist pragmatism, the chapter considers how feminism is a resource for pragmatism and how pragmatism is a resource for feminist philosophy.


Author(s):  
Motsamai Molefe

The article explores the place and status of the normative concept of personhood in Kwasi Wiredu’s moral philosophy. It begins by distinguishing an ethic from an ethics, where one involves cultural values and the other strict moral values. It proceeds to argue, by a careful exposition of Wiredu’s moral philosophy, that he locates personhood as an essential aspect of communalism [an ethic], and it specifies culture-specific standards of excellence among traditional African societies. I conclude the article by considering one implication of the conclusion, which is that personhood embodies cultural values of excellence concerning the place and status of partiality in Wiredu’s moral philosophy. Keywords: Afro-communitarianism, agent-centred personhood, Ethic, Ethics, Kwasi Wiredu, Partiality Personhood.


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