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Exploring “Embodied Care” in Relation to Social Sustainability

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Abstract

Although there has been a proliferation of interest in sustainable business practice, recent research has identified concerns with the relative neglect of the social versus environmental aspects of sustainability. It is argued here that due to its reliance on internally held, concrete and intrinsically motivated forms of responsiveness, as well as its ability to be authentically social versus parochial in nature, that the ethical construct of “embodied care” (Hamington, Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Feminist Ethics, 2004) has particular relevance as one path through which responsiveness to the human aspects of sustainable business practice might occur. Consideration is given to care as both an individual and organizational level construct. Business case examples are offered and directions for future research described.

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Notes

  1. Although it is beyond the scope of this article to full describe and evaluate the similarities and differences between extant perspectives on compassion and the emergent construct of “embodied care,” key similarities and differences exist. Similarities include that both constructs refer to emotional, cognitive, and behavioral components. The key difference is that although conceptions of compassion referred to in POS (e.g., Kanov et al. 2004; Lilius et al. 2008) typically involve “noticing” the suffering of others as a precursor to experiencing an empathic or visceral response to that pain, “embodied care” (Hamington 2004) emphasizes that a visceral or emotional response to the suffering of others is the precursor through which one notices (or imagines) that pain. A contextual framing of this might be that whereas current models of compassion seem to reflect the more dominant and conventional traditions emphasizing cognition or rationality as a starting point, an embodied understanding of care reflects an alternative (e.g., feminist) tradition emphasizing emotion or body as a starting point (see, for example, Held 1990). An additional set of frames through which it might be useful to understand and explore this distinction would be the contrast between a rational approach to ethical recognition and judgment that is predicated on the assumption of conscious reasoning (e.g., Rest 1986, 1994), and, a social intuitionist approach that is predicated on the assumption of implicit perception occurring below the level of conscious awareness (e.g., Haidt 2001).

  2. Readers interested in a detailed discussion of the history and nature of “care ethics” as a distinct philosophical framework (including a comparison of care ethics to other salient approaches such as justice approaches) could consult Maier (1997), Reiter (1996), or Simola (2003).

  3. Readers interested in an integrative discussion and analysis of the relationship between care and virtue ethics are directed to Hamington’s (2004) work (pp. 20–25).

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada grant to the author. I thank Susan Thompson and Andrea Wells for suggestions on earlier drafts.

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  1. Business Administration Program, Trent University, 1600 West Bank Drive, Peterborough, ON, K9J 7B8, Canada

    Sheldene Simola

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Correspondence to Sheldene Simola.

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Simola, S. Exploring “Embodied Care” in Relation to Social Sustainability. J Bus Ethics 107, 473–484 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-011-1059-7

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