Online research in philosophy

The public attitude to animal use in Australia and New Zealandcan be inferred from survey results and political activity. The publicis concerned about the rights of animals as far as any uses causing painare concerned, but takes a more utilitarian view of the taking of lifewhere no suffering is involved. Many of the participants in two recentANZCCART conferences fall short in their knowledge of and attitudetoward these concerns. Animal welfare legislation and standards need tobe reformed so that painful animal use is eliminated, even if economicgrowth suffers as a result.

During the 1980s, federal regulations transferred significant portions of the responsibility for monitoring the care and use of research animals from animal care programs to Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs). After a brief review of the history of the regulation of the use of animals in research preceding and during the 4 decades following World War 11, this article raises 4 problems associated with the role IACUCs currently play in monitoring the use of animals in research: (a) lack of expertise, (b) diverted resources, (c) conflict of interest, and (d) restrictions of academic freedom. It is concluded that the care and treatment of animals used in research would be served better and organized more rationally if the day-to-day responsibilities for approving projects and caring for animals were separated more clearly from broader, oversight functions, with the former being assigned to animal care programs and the latter to IACUCs.

In this paper I argue that the metaphysical ethics of Emmanuel Levinas captures some essential moral intuitions that are central to health care. However, there is an ongoing discussion about the relevance of ethical metaphysics for normative ethics and in particular on the question of the relationship between justice and individualized care. In this paper I take part in this debate and I argue that Levinas' idea of an ethics of the Other that guides politics and justice can shed important light on issues that are central to priorities in health care. In fact, the ethics of Levinas in seeking the foundation of normativity itself, captures the ethical coreand central values of health care.

Newcomers and more experienced feminist theorists will welcome this even-handed survey of the care/justice debate within feminist ethics. Grace Clement clarifies the key terms, examines the arguments and assumptions of all sides to the debate, and explores the broader implications for both practical and applied ethics. Readers will appreciate her generous treatment of the feminine, feminist, and justice-based perspectives that have dominated the debate.Clement also goes well beyond description and criticism, advancing the discussion through the incorporation of a broad range of insights into a new integration of the values of care and justice. Care, Autonomy, and Justice marks a major step forward in our understanding of feminist ethics. It is both direct and helpful enough to work as an introduction for students and insightful and original enough to make it necessary reading for scholars.

: The paper argues that care ethics should be subsumed under virtue ethics by construing care as an important virtue. Doing so allows us to achieve two desirable goals. First, we preserve what is important about care ethics (for example, its insistence on particularity, partiality, emotional engagement, and the importance of care to our moral lives). Second, we avoid two important objections to care ethics, namely, that it neglects justice, and that it contains no mechanism by which care can be regulated so as not to be become morally corrupt.

: This article considers what contribution the work of John Rawls can make to questions about animal ethics. It argues that there are more normative resources in A Theory of Justice for a concern with animal welfare than some of Rawls's critics acknowledge. However, the move from A Theory of Justice to Political Liberalism sees a depletion of normative resources in Rawlsian thought for addressing animal ethics. The article concludes by endorsing the implication of A Theory of Justice that we look for ways other than rights discourse to respect and protect the well-being of animals.

When theorists first struggled to define and distinguish care ethics from other moral theories, many chose to sharply differentiate it from justice. Now that care ethics has matured as a field, theorists no longer characterize care and justice as purely oppositional, giving rise to new questions about how the two moral concepts relate to one another. This article suggests that care ethics contributes to a richer social morality than traditional justice approaches in at least four areas: metaphysics, epistemology, psychology, and ethical content. Accordingly, taking care ethics seriously as a political framework can enrich our concept of social justice. I begin with an overview of the state of care theory and then offer a framework for understanding the continuity between care and justice. The bulk of the article addresses the contribution of care ethics to our understanding of social morality beyond justice.

In recent years, scholars of Confucian ethics have debated on important issues such as whether Confucian ethics embraces, or should embrace, universal values and impartiality. Some have argued that Confucian ethics integrates both care and justice, and that Confucian ethics is both particularistic and universalistic. In this essay, I will defend a view of the relation between care and justice and the relation between care ethics and justice ethics on the basis of the notion of 'configuration of values,' and show why care ethics and justice ethics cannot be integrated. I will support this view by a reading of some pertinent passages in the Mencius.

This article attends to an unnamed and often missing element of the cosmopolitanism discourse: care ethics. Developed out of feminist theory in the 1980s, care ethics privileges the relational, contextual, and affective aspects of morality. It is my suggestion that contemporary discussions of cosmopolitanism would benefit from integrating the moral commitments of care ethics. First, a definition of care ethics is offered followed by a delineation of themes of care in the cosmopolitan theorizing of an historical figure, Jane Addams, and a contemporary theorist, Kwame Anthony Appiah. Ultimately, the contention here is that cosmopolitan societies envisioned by Addams and Appiah cannot be exclusively founded on systems of justice (i.e., rights, principles, laws) but needs caring to provide the social cohesion necessary for organic international justice, as well as lasting peace.

Animal liberationism and environmentalism generally are considered incompatible positions. But, properly conceived, they simply provide answers to different questions, concerning moral standing and intrinsic value, respectively. The two views together constitute an environmental ethic that combines environmental justice and environmental care. I show that this approach is not only consistent but defensible.