Conducting feminist research during the global COVID-19 pandemic has evoked a renewed interest in the concept of care within our research team. The purpose of this paper is to provide concrete examples of how feminist ethics of care changed the initial and ongoing design of a community-engaged research project in Ontario, Canada. Drawing from examples and lessons learned, we focus on various adjustments to our methodological decision-making that intentionally honoured and prioritized our (...) responsibilities to community partners, research participants, broader communities impacted by research, and the research team. By illustrating the methodological and ethical implications of these decisions, we argue that attending to these responsibilities prioritized both feminist research ethics and feminist ethics of care. As a result, we propose moving towards a conceptualization of a feminist research ethics of care, and discuss the value of this concept for researchers studying social justice. (shrink)

CareVisions (2022–2026) is an interdisciplinary researcj project reflecting on care experiences during and beyond the COVID-19 pandemic to re-imagine care relations, practices and policies in Irela...

Background:The public domain of midwifery practice, represented by the educational and hospital institutions could be blamed for a subconscious ethical dilemma for midwifery practitioners. The result of such tension can be seen in complaints from maternity service users of dehumanised care. When expectations are not met, women report dehumanising experiences that carry long term consequences to both them and their child.Objectives:To revisit the ethical foundation of midwifery practice to reflect the feminist Ethic of Care and reframe what (...) is valuable to women and midwives during the childbirth experience.Research Design:A comprehensive literature review is presented from the midwifery and feminist ethics discourse.Ethical Considerations:Nil to report.Findings:Women are vulnerable during childbirth as they need care, yet they prioritise elements of relationship in their experience. The Ethic of Care approach equalises the relationship between the midwife and the woman, providing the space for relationship building and allowing midwives to meet the expectations of their accepted responsibility.Discussion:Some midwives manage to balance the demands of the institution with the needs of the woman. This is described as both an emotional and professionally challenging balancing act.Conclusion:Until there is a formal acknowledgement of the different ethical approach to midwifery practice from within the profession and the Institution, midwifery identity and practice will continue to be compromised. (shrink)

The rapidly changing field of genetics affects society through advances in health-care and through implications of genetic research. This study addresses the impacts of new genetic discoveries and technologies on different segments of today's society. The book begins with a chapter on genetic complexity, and subsequent chapters discuss moral and ethical questions arising from today's genetics from the perspectives of health care professionals, the media, the general public, special interest groups and commercial interests.

Feminist reflections on the sexual division of labour have given rise to a body of knowledge on the ethics of care from different disciplines, including philosophy, in which outstanding contributions to the topic have been formulated. This approach is applicable to the analysis of any phenomenon and particularly that of disasters. As various investigations have highlighted, the consequences on the population throughout all of a disaster’s phases (prevention, emergency, and reconstruction) require an analysis of differentiated vulnerabilities based (...) on gender and other identity categories, such as social class, ethnicity, age, disability, sexual identity, etc. The interrelation between all these variables gives rise to differentiated impacts that cannot be ignored in catastrophic contexts, where survival and sustaining life are at stake, so care becomes a central issue. Research on the topic has also identified that, along with the analysis of social vulnerability, we must consider the capacity for agency, both individual and collective, where care is once again of vital importance. Considering the gender approach and its multiple intersections is thus a fundamental theoretical-practical proposal for the study of disasters from philosophy, as it implies an unavoidable epistemic, ontological, and ethical reflection in the face of risk reduction. (shrink)

This paper explores how Schutz’s ideas enrich and extend the ethic of care promulgated by feminist theorists such as Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Sara Ruddick, and Eva Feder Kittay. Using Schutz’s ideas about the I-Thou relationship, systems of relevances, and growing old together, the author lays a foundation for continuing dialogue between feminist theorists of care and Schutzian phenomenologists.

This paper explores how Schutz’s ideas enrich and extend the ethic of care promulgated by feminist theorists such as Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Sara Ruddick, and Eva Feder Kittay. Using Schutz’s ideas about the I-Thou relationship, systems of relevances, and growing old together, the author lays a foundation for continuing dialogue between feminist theorists of care and Schutzian phenomenologists.

In recent years a growing body of literature on the ethics of care has made significant contributions to understanding the multiple dimensions of care. Feminist theories provide the resource for this interdisciplinary research in which there has been scant attention given to black women's approaches to moral deliberations and understandings of care. Although there are differing interests and diversity among black women, this article seeks to disrupt current frameworks surrounding the ethics of (...) class='Hi'>care and discusses a more relevant conceptual framework to bring diverse perspectives to bear in the current wave of interest in caring. By applying black feminist thought to the complexities of black womanhood in the broader society, this paper considers cultural antecedents and lived experiences as a starting point for ethical concerns in reclaiming the everyday world as self-defined by black women themselves to open up new insights into care and its multiple dimensions. (shrink)

Recently ethical implications of human resource management have intensified the focus on care perspectives in management and organization studies. Appeals have also been made for the concept of organizational care to be grounded in philosophies of care rather than business theories. Care perspectives see individuals, especially women, as primarily relational and view work as a means by which people can increase in self-esteem, self-develop and be fulfilled. The ethic of care has received attention in (...) class='Hi'>feminist ethics and is often socially construed as a feminine ethic. Although well developed in the caring professions there remains no model or definition of the care ethic in management literature with little care research undertaken. This paper develops the concept of the care ethic using Heidegger’s philosophy, namely, care is fundamental to human being. To show Heideggerian care, an individual notices, pays attention to another and responds in ways to empower and enable. In a study which aimed to analyze women’s lived experience of career, we applied the philosophically grounded methodology hermeneutic phenomenology. Findings revealed the power of Heideggerian care, Sorge, as a key factor in creating meaning. From this, we propose that care has potential as a theoretical and philosophically based construct with strong practical implications. It provides a way of understanding the care ethic, lies at the heart of our being, and is essential to meaning in our grelationships and undertakings. Crucially, it can provide reprieve from the existential angst that trademarks our being. (shrink)

In the face of forced migrants’ urgent needs and ongoing human rights violations endured within and across borders, scholars note the ‘dual imperative’ (Jacobsen and Landau 2003) of documenting these realities while also responding through humanitarian advocacy and/or political activism. This article documents one such experience, that is, an action research process that began with the first author’s accompaniment of Central American asylum-seeking mothers and children in Boston and included witnessing to and documenting these mothers’ narratives in a context (...) of systemic injustice, while contributing to the creation of a humanitarian grassroots network. The latter supported migrants’ needs while advocating for their right to asylum. Reflecting on these experiences, we explore how research that creates knowledge while acting in the world, demands what we herein describe as feminist activist scholarship grounded in dialogic relationality and compassionate care. The latter moves beyond empathetically feeling for or documenting the suffering of others, towards mutual accompaniment to engage in concrete actions to alleviate that suffering. The dialogic relationships of care in which scholars accompany and act with those at the margins have the potential to transform conventional, post-positivist knowledge production strategies from distancing or objectifying processes towards mutual accompaniment and activist scholarship. (shrink)

A care deficit is clearly evident in global cities such as London and is attributable to an ageing population, the increased employment of native-born women, prevalent gender ideologies that continue to exempt men from much reproductive work, as well as the failure of the state to provide viable alternatives. However, while it is now acknowledged that migrant women, and to a lesser extent, migrant men, step in to provide care in cities such as London, there is less (...) class='Hi'>research on how this shapes the nature, politics and ethics of care. Drawing upon empirical research with low-paid migrant workers employed as domiciliary care providers in London, this paper explores the emergence of a distinct migrant ethic of care that is critically shaped by the caring work that migrant women and men perform. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to get from a phenomenology of birth towards an ethics of obstetric care: Human rights violations in obstetrics are currently a globally debated phenomenon. Research suggests that maltreatment is widespread and a global phenomenon. However, the prevalence cannot yet be clearly quantified. In view of this problem, it is necessary to take the subjective perspective of those affected seriously. Narrative and phenomenological accounts of birth experiences could help to foster the dialogue (...) between persons giving birth and health professionals. First, I will present narrative accounts of birth experiences recorded by feminist phenomenologists. Second, I will interpret these narrative accounts within a feminist phenomenological framework in order to contribute to a phenomenology of birth, which, in a third step, shall help to develop an ethics of obstetric care. In engaging with the phenomenology of care outlined by feminist care ethicists, I will analyze the elements and conditions of good care, and draw conclusions for an ethic of obstetric and midwifery care. Drawing additionally on the theory of relational autonomy, my paper argues for a relational implementation of self-determination in childbirth. Lastly, I will discuss to what extent the ethical ideal of care has an affinity to the midwifery model of childbirth, and how the current situation of obstetrics prevents a women-centered birth culture. (shrink)

Introduction -- The ethics of care and global politics -- Rethinking human security -- 'Women's work' : the global care and sex economies -- Humanitarian intervention and global security governance -- Peacebuilding and paternalism : reading care through postcolonialism -- Health and human security : gender, care and HIV/AIDS -- Gender, care, and the ethics of environmental security -- Conclusion. Security through care.

Recent work in clinical nursing ethics has been influenced by two main areas of insight associated with the challenge levelled by the women's movement to traditional thinking about morality and ethics. Broadly speaking these two realms have been distinguished as articulating ‘feminist’ socio‐political and ‘feminine’ ethic of care concerns. Often these two impulses are seen as pulling against each other, or worse, the ‘feminine’ emphasis on the ethics of care is seen as reinforcing the (...) dynamics that elicit the ‘feminist’ concern. In this paper I suggest how an expanded understanding of an ethic of care in clinical settings can provide resources for dealing with both concerns. A discussion of the way institutional relations can ride rough‐shod over the ‘feminist’ insights of ethical care, in the second part of the paper, provides evidence for my conclusion that ethical nursing care depends on recognizing that both areas of insight are imperative for its success. (shrink)

Published in 1982, Carol Gilligan's _In a Different Voice_ proposed a new model of moral reasoning based on care, arguing that it better described the moral life of women. ____An Ethic of Care__ is the first volume to bring together key contributions to the extensive debate engaging Gilligan's work. It provides the highlights of the often impassioned discussion of the ethic of care, drawing on the literature of the wide range of disciplines that have entered into the debate. (...) _Contributors:_ Annette Baier, Diana Baumrind, Lawrence A. Blum, Mary Brabeck, John Broughton, Owen Flanagan, Marilyn Friedman, Carol Gilligan, Catherine G. Greeno, Catherine Jackson, Linda K. Kerber, Mary Jeanne Larrabee, Zella Luria, Eleanor E. Maccoby, Linda Nicholson, Bill Puka, Carol B. Stack, Joan C. Tronto, Lawrence Walker, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler. (shrink)

In early 2020, as the first of many COVID lockdowns began across Australia, a collective of feminist and queer performance scholars and artists embarked on the research project Staging Australian Women’s Lives: Theatre, Feminism and Socially Engaged Art. Our aim was to document contributions of womxn theatre makers, while conducting a feminist analysis of strategies used to deal with gender inequality and oppression, on stage and off. While pivoting to the digital and the virtual, we recognised a (...) need to support womxn theatre makers whose lives and livelihoods are thrown into further precarity by the pandemic. This paper speaks to our commitment to bringing together critical theory, arts practices and everyday life in ethical forms and encounters that make visible, recognise and express care for one another and for the work. (shrink)

In this article, we interpret sex education from the perspective of feminist care ethics, emphasizing the concept of caring democracy, advanced by Joan Tronto one of the most influential feminist political theorists. According to Tronto, these theories show that a deficit of care and a lack of democracy are mutually conducive. We argue that, as in other areas of life, a lack of care in sexuality and sex education leads to social inequalities that eventually (...) translate into an unequal approach to freedom, equality, and justice, and to a deficit of democracy in the lives of some people. At the same time, we believe that, as a moral theory, care ethics, with its emphasis on the needs of men and women, can be adequately applied to the design of research projects, as well as to sexuality policies and practices. This may contribute to overcoming the stalemate in the debate on sex education and other topics in Slovakia. (shrink)

Published in 1982, Carol Gilligan's _In a Different Voice_ proposed a new model of moral reasoning based on care, arguing that it better described the moral life of women. ____An Ethic of Care__ is the first volume to bring together key contributions to the extensive debate engaging Gilligan's work. It provides the highlights of the often impassioned discussion of the ethic of care, drawing on the literature of the wide range of disciplines that have entered into the debate. (...) _Contributors:_ Annette Baier, Diana Baumrind, Lawrence A. Blum, Mary Brabeck, John Broughton, Owen Flanagan, Marilyn Friedman, Carol Gilligan, Catherine G. Greeno, Catherine Jackson, Linda K. Kerber, Mary Jeanne Larrabee, Zella Luria, Eleanor E. Maccoby, Linda Nicholson, Bill Puka, Carol B. Stack, Joan C. Tronto, Lawrence Walker, Gertrud Nunner-Winkler. (shrink)

The object of this essay is to explore the central role played by the ‘ethic of care’ in debates within and beyond feminist legal theory. The author claims that the ethic of care has attracted feminist legal scholars in particular, as a means of resolving the theoretical, political and strategic difficulties to which the perceived ‘crisis of subjectivity’ in feminist theory has given rise. She argues that feminist legal scholars are peculiarly placed in relation (...) to this crisis because of their reliance on the social ‘woman’ whose interests are the predominant concern of feminist legal engagement. With the problematisation of subjectivity, the object of feminist legal attention disappears and it is in attempts to deflect the negative political consequences of this that the ethic of care has been invoked, the author argues, unsuccessfully. The essay concludes with suggestions as to how the feminist project in law might proceed in the wake of the crisis of subjectivity and the failure of the ethic of care to resolve it. (shrink)

This is an exploration of women’s tradition of hospitality, the epistemic and moral contribution of their practices of welcoming the other and their historical experience as providers of care. The essay claims that female hospitality has largely consisted of care for others, which challenges a social model based on individualism and self-sufficiency. The argument is rooted in ethnography and Jewish thought and reclaims the home as an ethical space. This text analyses two disturbing and painful stories from the (...) Tanakh that are both examples of the consequences of extreme or absolute hospitality and violence against women. The famous works of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Lévinas on hospitality as ethics and hospitality as the feminine are discussed vis-à-vis anthropological and feminist approaches to the connection between the female welcoming of the other and the ethics of care. Finally, the reflections of the members of Beit Midrash Arevot shed light on a traditionist feminism that develops an ethics and practice of hospitality as welcoming otherness. (shrink)

This book is a comprehensive and unique text and reference in medical ethics. By far the most inclusive set of primary documents and articles in the field ever published, it contains over 100 selections. Virtually all pieces appear in their entirety, and a significant number would be difficult to obtain elsewhere. The volume draws upon the literature of history, medicine, philosophical and religious ethics, economics, and sociology. A wide range of topics and issues are covered, such as law (...) and medicine, truth-telling by the physician, research, population policy, genetics, abortion, dying, and individual rights in medical care. The selections span the centuries, beginning with material from the works of Hippocrates, continuing through Thomas Percival, John Stuart Mill, and Claude Bernard, down to modern commentators like Henry K. Beecher, Walsh McDermott, David L. Bazelon, Paul Freund, H. L. A. Hart, John Rawls, Paul Ramsey, Richard McCormick, Rashi Fein, and Bernard Barber. The text has eight major divisions, beginning with sections on the ethical dimensions of the physician-patient relationship in history; the moral bases of medical ethics; and regulation, compulsion, and protection of the consumer in clinical medicine and public health. Each of these sections includes key essays that appear for the first time. All of the book's major divisions contain primary documents: codes such as the Hippocratic Oath, Medieval Law for the Regulation of Medicine, and the first as well as the most recent code of the American Medical Association; court decisions, including those on Karen Quinlan and on abortion in the United States and West Germany; government documents such as the statement of the National Commission on the Protection of Human Subjects, the Tuskegee Syphilis Report, the British Parliamentary debate on euthanasia, and the Council of Europe on rights of the sick and dying; and various published guidelines such as the Harvard Medical School brain death criteria, the American Hospital Association on patient's rights, and Pope Pius XII on the prolongation of life. Cases that illustrate moral dilemmas are provided for discussion purposes. Each section is preceded by a succinct editor's introduction. The documents and essays are of practical value for practitioners and students in medicine, law, ethics, and counselling, and for individual patients and groups concerned with medical care. Through encompassing divergent viewpoints, the essays and primary documents were selected to encourage humane practices and deepen understanding of the multiple traditions that shaped and do shape the development of medicine. (shrink)

In this paper I seek to distinguish a feminist virtue ethics of care from (1) justice ethics, (2) narrative ethics, (3) care ethics and (4) virtue ethics. I also connect this contemporary discussion of what makes a virtue ethics of care feminist to eighteenth and nineteenth century debates about male, female, and human virtue. I conclude that by focusing on issues related to gender - primarily those related to the (...) systems, structures, and ideologies that create and sustain patterns of male domination and female subordination - we can begin to appreciate that true care and bona-fide virtue can flourish only in societies that treat all persons with equal respect and consideration. (shrink)

In her Nobel speech in 2019, Olga Tokarczuk presented the category of tenderness as a new way of narrating the contemporary world. This article is a proposal for the analysis and interpretation of tenderness in ethical and aesthetic terms. (1) From an ethical perspective, tenderness is interpreted as an extension and complement of feminist relational ethics, i.e., the ethics of care. In the proposed approach, tenderness is a broader and more universal quality than care in (...) the feminist understanding. This article opens with a brief discussion of feminist interventions in ethics, with particular emphasis on the ethics of care. Next, the differences between care and tenderness are enumerated and described, in order to show how tenderness can serve as an extension and complement of the feminist ethic of care. These considerations are guided by the question of why tenderness is a better—more appropriate and more responsive to contemporary challenges—moral guidepost than care. (2) From the aesthetic perspective, tenderness is the negation of a contemplative, distanced, impersonal, and rational view of reality. As an aesthetic imperative, tenderness implies engaged experience of the beauty of reality in all of its manifestations. Therefore, in the last part of the article, existential tender attunement is described in aesthetic terms, as a position serving to sensitize others to the beauty and complexity of the post-anthropocentric world. (shrink)

A man with Alzheimer's who wanders around, a caregiver who disconnects the alarm, a daughter acting on het own, and a doctor who is not consulted set the stage for a feminist reflection on capacity/competence assessment. Feminist theory attempts to account for gender inequality in the political and in the epistemological realm. One of its tasks is to unravel the settings in which actual practices, i.c. capacity/competence assessment take place and offer an alternative. In this article the focus (...) will be on a feminist ethics of care in which relationality, care, vulnerability, and responsibility are privileged concepts and attitudes. The emphasis on these notions leads to a specific view of autonomy that has consequences for both carereceivers (patients, clients) and caregivers (professional and not professional). These concepts constitute a default setting that shapes the context for capacity/competence assessment. Whereas this notion is meant to distinguish between those who need to be taken care of and those who do not, reflection on what it means to say ‘those who need to be taken care of’ is also required. The feminist analysis presented here emphasizes the necessity of the contextualization of assessment of competence. It sketches the multifold and complex grid that comprehends capacity assessment. (shrink)

Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. The ethics of care is only a few decades old, yet it is by now a distinct moral theory or normative approach to the problems we face. It is relevant to global and political matters as well as to the personal relations that can most clearly exemplify care. This book clarifies just (...) what the ethics of care is: what its characteristics are, what it holds, and what it enables us to do. It discusses the feminist roots of this moral approach and why the ethics of care can be a morality with universal appeal. Held examines what we mean by "care," and what a caring person is like. Where other moral theories demand impartiality above all, the ethics of care understands the moral import of our ties to our families and groups. It evaluates such ties, focusing on caring relations rather than simply on the virtues of individuals. The book proposes how such values as justice, equality, and individual rights can "fit together" with such values as care, trust, mutual consideration, and solidarity. In the second part of the book, Held examines the potential of the ethics of care for dealing with social issues. She shows how the ethics of care is more promising than Kantian moral theory and utilitarianism for advice on how expansive, or not, markets should be, and on when other values than market ones should prevail. She connects the ethics of care with the rising interest in civil society, and considers the limits appropriate for the language of rights. Finally, she shows the promise of the ethics of care for dealing with global problems and seeing anew the outlines of international civility. (shrink)

This article is autoethnographic, based upon the authors’ experiences and reflections upon encountered moments of ethical tension whilst conducting research in rural Malawi. Given that knowledge production, as a process, has been marred by colonial forms of power, the project was underpinned by efforts to achieve a decolonial approach to the research, including the research ethics. The authors share of their endeavours to counterbalance the challenges of power asymmetries whilst researching and working with an Indigenous community (...) whose reality can be marginalised by the Western canon. The authors attempted to ensure that the values and customs of the researched community were respected and central to the research approach. When researchers are guided by local culture and customs, the participants are able to drive the research approach, incorporate their voice and share knowledge that is true to their context and reality. In this way, the research study is illustrative of how an ethics of care can help to facilitate decolonial research practice. (shrink)

Proponents of the ethic of care regard it as a personal ethic created by women which reveals the deficiencies of the male-defined ethic of justice. In contrast, feminist critics of the ethic of care hold that the ethic of care is parochial and renounces justice and therefore inconsistent with feminist goals. In my dissertation I resolve this debate by examining the concepts of care, justice, autonomy, and public and private spheres. ;Care and autonomy (...) are often thought to be mutually exclusive because care is based on a social conception of the self, while autonomy is based on an individualistic conception of the self. I challenge this dichotomy by showing that autonomy presupposes that we are socially constituted, and that care requires that we be able to individuate ourselves from others. I also examine the symbolic and institutional structures that construct care and autonomy in opposition to each other in our society. ;Moral theorists usually understand care and justice as having different domains, with their boundaries drawn along public-private lines. I challenge the traditional boundaries of care, showing that the expansion of care need not come at the expense of justice, but instead can serve to enrich our conception of justice. I also explore some of the moral issues that arise in attempts to apply the ethic of care to public questions of pacifism and welfare policy. ;The conflicts between the ethic of care and the ethic of justice need not lead us to accept one at the expense of the other, but can help us distinguish between better and worse versions of each ethic, providing the groundwork for a feminist ethic of care. However, despite the theoretical compatibility of the two ethics, I argue that given their present social contexts, integrating them into a comprehensive ethic brings the danger that the ethic of care will be subsumed by the ethic of justice. (shrink)

In Justice, Care, and Value Thomas Randall advances the radical potential of care ethics as a distinct (and preferable) theory of distributive justice. Advancing the care ethical literature this book defends a vision of society that can best enable such relations to flourish. Specifically, Randall uses breakthrough arguments to propose a values-driven theory of care ethics that identifies good caring relations through classifying the values of care. He argues that such a theory gives (...) us unique and meaningful solutions to contemporary questions and encourages us to think about distributive justice across personal, political, global, and intergenerational domains. Through this the book makes significant strides to engage care ethics with the broader moral and political philosophy literature. Topical and interdisciplinary, Randall demonstrates that care ethics has the conceptual resources to ground distributive theories of socialism, territorial and natural resource rights, obligations to future generations, and historic redress. The book will be of great interest for academics, researchers, and students in feminist philosophy, but also in liberalism, global and intergenerational theories of justice, and political economy. (shrink)

Eminent moral philosopher Michael Slote argues that care ethics presents an important challenge to other ethical traditions and that a philosophically developed care ethics should, and can, offer its own comprehensive view of the whole of morality. Taking inspiration from British moral sentimentalism and drawing on recent psychological literature on empathy, he shows that the use of that notion allows care ethics to develop its own sentimentalist account of respect, autonomy, social justice, and deontology. (...) Furthermore, he argues that care ethics gives a more persuasive account of these topics than theories offered by contemporary Kantian liberalism. The most philosophically rich and challenging exploration of the theory and practice of care to date, _The Ethics of Care and Empathy_ also shows the manifold connections that can be drawn between philosophical issues and leading ideas in the fields of psychology, education, and women's studies. (shrink)

Confucian traditions have ingrained gender stratifications in Chinese culture today. Yuan proposes re-reading early Confucian texts as a vision of Ren with Dao with the unity of heaven, earth, and humanity, in order to reclaim the egalitarian aspects and develop openness for gender equity with integration of feminist critical care ethics.

Virginia Held assesses the ethics of care as a promising alternative to the familiar moral theories that serve so inadequately to guide our lives. The ethics of care is only a few decades old, yet it is by now a distinct moral theory or normative approach to the problems we face. It is relevant to global and political matters as well as to the personal relations that can most clearly exemplify care. This book clarifies just (...) what the ethics of care is: what its characteristics are, what it holds, and what it enables us to do. It discusses the feminist roots of this moral approach and why the ethics of care can be a morality with universal appeal. Held examines what we mean by "care," and what a caring person is like. Where other moral theories demand impartiality above all, the ethics of care understands the moral import of our ties to our families and groups. It evaluates such ties, focusing on caring relations rather than simply on the virtues of individuals. The book proposes how such values as justice, equality, and individual rights can "fit together" with such values as care, trust, mutual consideration, and solidarity. In the second part of the book, Held examines the potential of the ethics of care for dealing with social issues. She shows how the ethics of care is more promising than Kantian moral theory and utilitarianism for advice on how expansive, or not, markets should be, and on when other values than market ones should prevail. She connects the ethics of care with the rising interest in civil society, and considers the limits appropriate for the language of rights. Finally, she shows the promise of the ethics of care for dealing with global problems and seeing anew the outlines of international civility. (shrink)

The intersection between virtue and care ethics is underexplored in contemporary moral philosophy. This thesis approaches care ethics from a neo-Aristotelian virtue ethical perspective, comparing the two frameworks and drawing on recent work on care to develop a theory thereof. It is split into seven substantive chapters serving three major argumentative purposes, namely the establishment of significant intertheoretical agreement, the compilation and analysis of extant and new distinctions between the two theories, and the synthesis of (...) care ethical insights with neo-Aristotelianism to generate a virtue ethical theory of care. In the first two chapters, I outline virtue ethics and care ethics, and argue for considerable agreement over central premises. Chapter 2 summarises the foundational commitments of care ethics, focusing particularly on their relational ontology and its links to the other ethical claims care ethicists universally ascribe to, namely particularism, partialism, the moral salience of emotions, and the rejection of hard public/private distinctions. Chapter 3 lays out the central concepts in neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics, including eudaimonism, virtue, and character traits, and drawing a number of comparisons between virtue and care ethics specifically with regard to relational ontology and the meta-ethical commitments it underpins. In addition to doing the necessary expository work for the remainder of the thesis, Chapters 2 and 3 also argue that care ethics and virtue ethics have much more in common than is typically acknowledged – the first major contribution of this thesis to the literature. Chapters 2 and 3 to provide at least a prima facie justification for pursuit of the questions I confront in the remainder of the thesis. In Chapter 4, I ask what differentiates these two ethical theories. I survey some of the differences which philosophers in either camp have identified and offer some of my own. I suggest that several of those differences either rest on misunderstandings of one ethic or the other, or that in erecting a divide between virtue and care ethics they also disunify ethics of care. I do, however, identify two differences which seem defensible. Specifically, they are that virtue ethics seems to lack an account of care, which I define minimally as a response or responsiveness to need, and that virtue and care ethics organise their meta-ethical and normative concepts differently. This chapter thus presents a second contribution to the literature: a study of the differences between virtue ethics and care ethics. It also serves to set the trajectory for the remaining chapters, where I respond to the claim that virtue ethics lack an account of care. I spend the remainder of the thesis constructing what I take to be a satisfying foundation for a virtue ethical theory of care. In Chapter 5, I offer three initially viable means of incorporating care into virtue ethics, all of which treat care as a virtue. These are the analogical approach, according to which care is analogous to an existing virtue; the additive approach, according to which care is a novel virtue; and the bundling approach, according to which care is a bundle of virtues. I also offer and evaluate reasons to reject the claim that care is a virtue, concluding that the claim is indeed a viable one so long as the concept of care is sufficiently thick, and I contend that analogical approaches, and particularly analogies with charity, outperform the others. Chapter 5 therefore serves two ends. First, it proffers a novel meta-analysis of concepts of care as a virtue, and thus makes a third contribution to the literature. In doing so, it makes an inroad into the second: the development of a neo-Aristotelian theory of care. Chapter 6 continues this project. I attempt to show how care can be construed as an act-type and a practice. I argue in this chapter that practices are a subcategory of actions, and that care qualifies as an Anscombean act-type which aims at the meeting of needs relating to the care-recipient’s flourishing. I go on to consider the implications of this account for ethics which deploy care as a moral concept, maintaining that it not only offers a better account of consequences than theories of care which include success criteria, but also that it affords us interesting insights into the distinction between ‘caring about’ and ‘caring for’ which allow us to make sense of certain tenets of neo-Aristotelianism. This represents a contribution to both discourses, since neither care nor virtue ethicists working at the intersection of their respective normative theories have delved very deeply into the philosophy of action. Chapter 7 discusses caring relations, suggesting that a virtue ethical theory of caring relations can lean on the work care ethicists have done, and adding some necessary refinements, such as a distinction between ideal and non-ideal caring relations, and a theory of caring relations as reasons for action. This final chapter also draws these three concepts of care together by arguing that virtuous caregivers who are invested in the flourishing of those for whom they care are also sensitive to the relations those care-recipients bear to their institutional environment. I argue that because they are caring participants in caring relations, virtuous agents are characteristically motivated by states of need and dependency to engage in certain sorts of conventionally political practices. In other words, the virtue or virtues of caring characteristically manifest in certain sorts of political or social practices, relating specifically to those areas of moral life. This allows us to build upon recent work in feminist virtue ethics of the sort offered by Tessman and Friedman. I also offer a novel analysis of migration, suggesting that the account of care presenting here is analytically useful both when it comes to historical cases of migration such as the underground railroads and escapes from Nazi-occupied Europe, but also for contemporary issues such as the migrations occurring in the Southern United States and in much of Europe. I thus conclude not only that virtue ethicists ought to incorporate care into their normative framework, and that the theory of care presented here is a coherent one, but that this leads us naturally into applied topics such as virtue politics. I conclude the thesis by considering some its implications and by identifying some further avenues for research. (shrink)

This book brings together new work by some of the foremost writers in the health care law arena. It presents exciting new insights,drawing on feminist theory and methodology to further our understanding of health care law. Whilst the book makes a real contribution to both feminist debates and the analysis of this area of law, it is also accessible to the undergraduate student who is approaching this area of legal scholarship and feminist jurisprudence for the (...) first time. Its focus is not merely on those issues which have traditionally excited feminist attention, but also includes those subjects which have proved of less apparent interest such as confidentiality, medical research, medical negligence and professional discipline. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

What could a social-justice oriented, feminist data studies look like? The current datalogical turn foregrounds the digital datafication of everyday life, increasing algorithmic processing and data as an emergent regime of power/knowledge. Scholars celebrate the politics of big data knowledge production for its omnipotent objectivity or dismiss it outright as data fundamentalism that may lead to methodological genocide. In this feminist and postcolonial intervention into gender-, race- and geography-blind ‘big data’ ideologies, I call for ethical, anti-oppressive digital data-driven (...) research in the social sciences and humanities. I argue that a reflexive data scholarship can emerge from the reintegration of feminist and postcolonial science studies and ethics of care ideals. Although it is not a panacea for all ails of data mining, I offer a road map for an alternative data-analysis practice that is more power-sensitive and accountable. By incorporating a people-centric and context-aware perspective that acknowledges relationships of dependency, reflects on temptations, and scrutinises benefits and harm, an ‘asymmetrically reciprocal’ (Young, 1997) research encounter may be achieved. I bring this perspective to bear on experiences of a two-year research project with eighty-four young Londoners on digital identities and living in a highly diverse city. I align awareness of uneven relations of power and knowledge with the messy relation of dependency between human and non-human actors in data analysis. This framework productively recognises that digital data cannot be expected to speak for itself, that data do not emerge from a vacuum, and that isolated data patterns cannot be the end-goal of a situated and reflexive research endeavor. Data-driven research, in turn, shows the urgency for renewed feminist ethical reflection on how digital mediation impacts upon responsibility, intersectional power relations, human subjectivity and the autonomy of research participants over their own data. (shrink)

Purpose This paper aims to provide a brief overview of the ethical challenges facing researchers engaging with web archival materials and demonstrates a framework and method for conducting research with historical web data created by young people. Design/methodology/approach This paper’s methodology is informed by the conceptual framing of data materials in research on the “right to be forgotten” (Crossen-White, 2015; GDPR, 2018; Tsesis, 2014), data afterlives (Agostinho, 2019; Stevenson and Gehl, 2019; Sutherland, 2017), indigenous data sovereignty and governance (...) (Wemigwans, 2018) and feminist ethics of care (Cifor et al., 2019; Cowan, 2020; Franzke et al., 2020; Luka and Millette, 2018). It demonstrates a new method called an archive promenade, which builds on the walkthrough and scroll-back methods (Light et al., 2018; Robards and Lincoln, 2017). Findings The archive promenades demonstrate how individual attachments to digital traces vary and are often unpredictable, which necessitates further steps to ensure that privacy and data sovereignty are maintained through research with web archives. Originality/value This paper demonstrates how the archive promenade methodological intervention can lead to better practices of care with sensitive web materials and brings together previous work on ethical fabrications (Markham, 2012), speculation (Luka and Millette, 2018) and thick context (Marzullo et al., 2018), to yield new insights for research on the experiences of growing up online. (shrink)

In recent discussion on comparative ethics, extensive scholarship has been devoted to a comparative study of Confucian ren 仁 (often translated as humaneness or benevolence) and feminist ethics of care, while such cross‐cultural study on the Daoist concept of ci 慈 (customarily translated as compassion) and its intersection with care ethics has been lacking. This paper explores the reasons and concludes that Daoists do care. However, their conception of care goes beyond the (...) Confucian ren and pure care ethics or even counter‐opposes them so as to bring forward the true meaning of care. Daoist care is a powerful tool in our approach to ecology. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to re-examine an ethic of care as the main ethical approach to nursing practice in light of past and present developments in nursing ethics, and to briefly speculate whether or not it will survive within nursing in the future. Overall, it is maintained throughout that the terms ?caring?, ?nursing? and an ?ethic of care? are inextricably linked. This is because, it is argued, professionally focused nursing practices are based predominantly on a (...) well-recognised moral commitment to deliver expert care, and that a care-based ethic is the major factor in the construction and maintenance of these practices. Subsequently, the influences and developments of a caring ethic in nursing are firstly re-examined, and the discussion is supported by evidence from more recent nursing research and theoretical developments. Consideration is given to the philosophical underpinnings of both care theory and caring ethics, and the fundamental importance of caring in nursing, as an interpersonal relationship and as an appropriate ethical response, is made transparent. Finally, an outline of the future possibilities that may affect an ethic of care in nursing is offered. (shrink)

Management and organization researchers are being called to conduct research that is more caring, yet the concept of care and how to practice it within the profession is undertheorized. Adopting a feminist epistemology and methodology, we develop the concept of care by weaving the personal, ethical, and political into the research process. First, we reflect critically on how aspects of care—attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness (Tronto, Moral boundaries: a political argument for an ethic of (...) care, Routledge, 1993; Tronto, Caring democracy: markets, equality, and justice, New York University Press, 2013)—unfolded in our personal research experiences, and secondly, we conduct a review of articles published in management and organization studies and analyse expressed or concealed conceptions of care in scholars’ accounts of research purpose and ethics. We find three ethical sensibilities at the heart of enacting care: encountering the ‘other’, interpreting roles and responsibilities, and deliberating needs and resources. We contribute to a feminist research ethics by highlighting issues related to care that are concealed in dominant ethos guiding management and organization research. Further, we develop methodological insights for implementing an ethic of care as an alternative ethical standpoint in business research ethics. Finally, we provide suggestions for how to embed more care within research ethics practices in academic institutions. (shrink)

In her essay ‘The Curious Coincidence of Feminine and African Moralities’ (1987), Sandra Harding was perhaps the first to note parallels between a typical Western feminist ethic and a characteristically African, i.e., indigenous sub-Saharan, approach to morality. Beyond Harding’s analysis, one now frequently encounters the suggestion, in a variety of discourses in both the Anglo-American and sub-Saharan traditions, that an ethic of care and an African ethic are more or less the same or share many commonalities. While the (...) two ethical perspectives are indeed sisters, in this article I argue, first, that they are not identical twins, and, more strongly, that the family resemblance between the two is significantly less than has been recognized. I highlight key differences between representative forms of an ethic of care and a sub-Saharan communitarian morality, after which I argue, second, that the latter better captures some central feminist concerns and moral considerations generally. That is, I maintain that an African ideal of community, when understood in a philosophically refined way, provides an important, relational corrective to the ethic of care. (shrink)

Notwithstanding the EU endorsement, so far Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) is discussed as regards its definition, its features and its conceptual core: innovation and responsibility. This conceptual indeterminacy is a source of disagreements at the political level, giving rise to a plurality of outcomes and versions upheld within the same model of governance. Following a Charles Taylor’s suggestion, this conceptual opening of the RRI model can be explained by the existence of plural, clashing moral frameworks: discourse ethics, (...) Aristotelian ethics, care ethics, dignitarian ethics, rights-based moralities etc. Given the diffusion in the RRI literature of references to care ethics and its justification of participation and responsibility, I will compare the conceptual premises of this philosophical line with those of ethics of rights, which have been criticised by advocates of care ethics. I will argue that public engagement based on only needs cannot lead to responsible outcomes since it produces however the exclusion of some needs, covered instead by rights. In order for participation to be effective, rights or an alliance between the two perspectives is required. (shrink)

This comparative study of the ethics of care and the Confucian concept of jen argue against two assumptions made by Chenyang Li in his own study of these two traditions. Against him, I argue that a "feminine" morality is not adequate to address human equality, and that care-orientated theories like jen and care seem incompatible with the feminist commitment to oppose the subjection of women.