Care ethics week 1

C.E. main idea

Morality involves caring and maintaining relationships, beyond just rules and consequences.

Core concepts care ethics

Relationality, vulnerability, emotions, needs, contextuality, responsibility, affectivity, embodiment, power, position, practices.

Care vs. Justice

Justice asks what is fair universally; rules, rights, autonomy, impartiality. Care asks what specific individuals need.

Care Ethics Critique: Slave Morality

The concern that care ethics encourages harmful self-sacrifice.

Care Ethics Critique: Empirically Flawed

Gilligan's research does not conclusively prove that men and women reason differently.

Care Ethics Critique: Theoretically Indistinct

Care ethics struggles to distinguish itself from frameworks like virtue ethics.

Care Ethics Critique: Parochial & Essentialist

Risks favoritism toward close contacts and wrongly associates women universally with caring.

Care ethics criticism: ambiguous

Without universal rules, how do we know what the morally right action actually is?

Leget et al. Main Idea

Care ethics should be an open, interdisciplinary field bridging theory and empirical research.

Leget et al. Criticisms

Klaver et al. claim care needs boundaries; Edwards calls it too vague to count as distinct moral theory for its lack of rules.

Statements of c.e.: what is care ethics?

Care ethics is an interdisciplinary field of inquiry, which is driven by societal concerns. Care is a social and political practice. Key question is what's morally good from perspective of care in this situation.

Statements of c.e.: theoretical framework build around…

Theoretical framework built around concept of care and is fed by interdisciplinary discussions and empirical research. Conceptual and empirical in dialectical relationship. Shared insights guiding (vulnerability, practices, etc.)

Statements of care ethics: empirical research

Empirical research focuses on lived experiences, practices of care and way society is organized. Methods used are auto-ethnography, phenomenology, visual data analysis, etc.

Statements c.e.: Empirical research directed towards…

Summarizing the theoretical framework and 'shared insights' direct the empirical research approaches towards (a) the lived experiences of those who are involved in caring practices, (b) on these practices as such and/or (c) their political context. In this way, insights are gained about the morally good that emerges here.

When is something morally good? (3)

It must be connected with (a) the experience of being meaningful for those engaged in the practice, (b) it must be in accordance with the internal standards of that particular practice and (c) it must be in accordance with some form of justice

Statements of c.e.: epistemological position

Expressive-collaborative-embodied