Notes on What ethics? Universalism, postmodern ethics, ethics of care and ethics of the encounter

Universal ethics

• Beatrice Hanssen foregrounds a long-running tension in ethics: how to reconcile a universal recognition of others (ethical, cultural, or legal) with the concrete particularity, difference, or alterity of others, and how to redress epistemic violence enacted by Western discourses against subaltern others.
• Critique of Kantian universalism and liberal modernity: Kant’s utopian universal history of atomistic moral agents is contrasted with the globalized, pragmatic liberal order (including corporate multiculturalism) that reduces the Other to a potential economic competitor.
• The opening stance is that ethics is a practical, contextual project, not just theory: ethics is the systematic and critical reflection on human action and occurs in all kinds of social practice, not only in academic theory.
• Universal ethics is linked to the Enlightenment project: morality grounded in universal, rational principles derived from autonomous human reason.
• The core features of universal ethics (as Kant represents them):
  • Morality as autonomous, separate from empirical reality; universal, abstract, formal principles; a duty-bound, impartial perspective; a view from nowhere; the social/political dimension is not central to morality itself.
  • The moral subject is a detached, autonomous agent with responsibility for universal obligations; freedom means independence from bodily/historical contingencies.
  • Kant’s categorical imperative: $ext{I ought never to act except in such a way that I can also will that my maxim becomes a universal law}$
  • The subject is an atomistic unit with a pre-determined identity, akin to the modern ideal of a rational, autonomous, objective thinker who can stand outside the world and know it “as it really is.”
• Rights and duties are tightly linked in universal ethics: when one fulfills moral obligations, one gains rights; rights function as the cement of social order.
• Liberalism and the “liberal micro-ethics”: a calculation-based ethics where rights are granted only to those from whom corresponding duties can be demanded (restricted reciprocity).
  • Quote: rights can only be granted to those from whom we can demand corresponding duties.
  • This approach is linear: one subject, one action, one consequence; it yields ethical criteria for minor acts but not for major actions made possible by technology.
• In early childhood policy, universal ethics underpins curricula, goals, standards, and standardized assessments; these provide norms against which “right” and “normal” are judged, shaping practice without requiring active ethical reflection.
• Consequences of universal ethics in care settings: emphasis on codes and legal imperatives rather than moral deliberation; responsibility is outsourced to legislation and expert-defined criteria.
• Bauman’s critique of modernity (as a foil to universal ethics): modernity replaces ethics with order, rules, and institutionally mandated morality; it suppresses moral ambivalence by prescribing duties and prohibitions.
  • Quote: the modern project seeks a world free from sin through law; moral ambivalence is displaced by fixed prescriptions.
• Postmodernity challenges the idea of universal absolutes and promotes situatedness, responsibility, and otherness.
• In sum, universal ethics anchors morality in universal principles, rationality, and contract-like relations, often at the expense of acknowledging particular contexts, relationships, and the alterity of others.

Postmodern ethics

• Ethic of postmodernity shifts away from universal codes toward responsibility, relationships, situatedness, and otherness.
• The disenchantment with liberal universality leads to reconfiguring what counts as ethical: not rules, but wisdom and practical judgment in concrete situations.
• Three key moves in postmodern ethics:
  • Move away from the autonomous, sovereign subject toward a relational, situated self that recognises dependence and interdependence.
  • Move away from universal prescriptions toward trust in ordinary individuals’ capacities to decide what is best in context.
  • Embrace ambiguity, contingency, and provisionality in ethical decision-making; reject fixed, universal criteria in favor of flexible moral reasoning.
• Bauman’s central claim in postmodern ethics: ethics exists but cannot be reduced to a fixed set of rules; moral action is not fully rational or calculable. Choices between good and evil are made openly, with responsibility resting on the moral agent rather than on contract or law.
  • Key quotes: ethics exists, but not a grand universal code; choices are made in daylight with full knowledge that a choice is being made; responsibility follows from having choice.
• The postmodern stance rejects totalizing theories and embraces an ethics of care and an ethics of encounter as more adequate responses to alterity.
• Implications: postmodern ethics demands more from individuals, who must think for themselves and bear responsibility for their choices rather than defer to experts or universal norms. It resists relativism by insisting that while there may be no universal foundation, there is still a meaningful, demanding ethical responsibility in concrete situations.

The ethics of care

• The ethics of care emerges as a feminist-tinged approach challenging universalist, rights-based ethics. It emphasizes context, relationships, and dependency rather than abstract rules.
• Core shifts from universalism:
  • From rights and duties to responsibilities and relationships; from formal, abstract rules to situated moral activity; from autonomy to a relational self embedded in the world.
  • The ethical subject is a being with concrete social ties, not an atomistic, pre-social individual. The self is processual, capable of change, and formed through ongoing relationships.
• Key thinkers and values:
  • Tronto (1993) defines care as a practice of maintaining, renewing, and repairing our world so we can live well; values include attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness.
  • Sevenhuijsen (1998) highlights empathy, intuition, compassion, love, relationality, and commitment; central values are responsibility and communication.
  • The ethics of care foregrounds concrete situations and the need to respond to dependency; it treats ethical problems as matters of responsibility rather than rights.
• Distinctions from universal ethics (Four main points):
  • Care ethics centers on responsibilities and relationships rather than abstract rights and rules.
  • It is bound to concrete situations, not formal universal norms.
  • It is a moral activity, not a fixed set of principles.
  • The ethical subject is rooted in the real world, not an ideal, detached agent.
• The economics of care also broaden morality beyond human relations to include environmental considerations and the world we inhabit.
• The ethics of care posits a relational, relational-self: the self is not pre-social or atomistic but constituted through ongoing ties. A feminist version of care blends care with postmodern instability and plurality, allowing for diversity and alterity.
• The ethics of care emphasizes listening and responsiveness; it warns against over-control of the Other, which can smother care. It argues for an openness to difference and for negotiation in relationships rather than coercive imposition of sameness.
• The ethics of care is not gendered per se; Tronto argues against essentializing care as women’s morality, instead viewing care as a broad moral stance that values compassion, emotion, and communication.
• Practical implication: cultivates a capacity to interpret and fulfill responsibility to others in nuanced, context-driven ways, especially in settings of dependency (e.g., early childhood care).

Levinas and the ethics of an encounter

• Levinas centers the philosophy of the Other (alterity) and argues that ethical relation is prior to knowledge and rational calculation.
• Core claims:
  • Knowledge tends to assimilate the Other, making the Other into the Same through grasping; this is a violence of totalisation.
  • Ethics precedes ontology: the ethical relation is the first philosophy, prior to logic and reason.
  • Alterity is not simply difference; alterity is the ungraspable, transcendent Other that cannot be totalised or captured by concepts.
  • The ethical relation is grounded in the face-to-face encounter, where the Other summons responsibility. The face is not a cognitive object; it is a demand that calls me into question.
  • The ethical relation is asymmetrical: I am obligated to the Other without expectation of reciprocity or return (unconditional responsibility).
  • The relation is characterized by proximity and distance: one must be close enough to respond while allowing the Other to remain irreducibly other.
• Concepts developed by Levinas and expanded by Derrida and others:
  • The welcome or hospitality: Levinas is associated with hospitality, reframed as the subject as host.
  • Heteronomy: community understood in terms of interdependence rather than autonomous self-sufficiency.
• The face-to-face is an ethical summons that disrupts the ego and resists being captured by knowledge; it requires responsiveness rather than calculation.
• Levinas is sometimes criticized as overly demanding or impractical; his reply emphasizes that ethical obligation is utopian in the sense that it guides all moral action, even if imperfectly realized in daily life.
• Connections to other strands: Levinas’s insistence on absolute alterity and responsibility resonates with Bauman’s critique of universal codes and with care ethics’ emphasis on responsiveness and relationship, offering a non-reductive, non-calculus-based framework for engaging with the Other.

Three themes in the concern with otherness

• Responsibility: For Bauman, responsibility for the Other is the central challenge of postmodern morality; postmodern responsibility extends beyond humans to other species and the environment (Santos).
• Respect for otherness: Care ethics and Levinas emphasize recognizing difference and avoiding assimilation of the Other into one’s own categories; listening and opening space for the Other’s singularity are key practices (Tronto; Santos; Sevenhuijsen).
• Rejection of calculative rationality: The critique of liberal micro-ethics and modern instrumental rationality; emphasis on non-calculative, context-driven moral judgment.
• These strands share a move away from the sovereign, autonomous subject toward interdependence, responsibility, and openness to alterity. They draw on Heidegger, Foucault, Derrida, and others to critique the dominance of totalising systems and to imagine forms of ethics that foreground relationality and responsibility.

Philosophical influences and the broader conversation about practice

• The critique of modernity’s instrumental rationality is linked to a series of thinkers across philosophies of ethics and social theory:
  • Heidegger: critique of instrumental thinking and the need to let the Other be in its difference; emphasis on attentiveness and distance.
  • Foucault and Derrida: the Other is marginalized or homogenized by Western cognitive machinery; totalisation of difference is a problem.
  • Butler and other poststructuralists: problems with unity and the violence of attempts to totalize the social world.
  • Cherryholmes (critical pragmatism): ethics involves epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic choices within communities, not universal, objective decisions.
• These strands converge on a shared project: resist universal codes, foreground responsibility to the Other, and develop ethical sensibilities that are context-bound, relational, and provisional.

Implications for preschool practice and policy

• The question posed: What would it mean for preschools to be sites of ethical practice? How can ethics trump or recalibrate technical or instrumental concerns?
• The practical turn: ethics is not only theory but a basis for everyday practice; decisions about teaching, care, and curriculum should reflect ethical reflection and responsiveness to the alterity of children, families, and staff.
• Potential approaches to implement in preschools:
  • Create spaces for ethical reflection among staff, children, and families; encourage discussion of dilemmas rather than reliance on universal codes alone.
  • Emphasize relational care: attentiveness to children’s needs, responsibility for their well-being, competence in responsive practices, and openness to feedback.
  • Avoid instrumentalization of children as means to policy targets; resist reducing care to checkbox compliance or standardised testing.
  • Foster listening as a core practice: listening to children, listening to parents, listening to each other as a basis for ethical decisions; cultivate an “injunction to listen” to the Other (as a stance within everyday practice).
  • Encourage a relational, processual sense of the self among staff and children: acknowledge that identities are dynamic and formed through ongoing relationships, not fixed and atomistic.
  • Integrate an ethics of care with an ethics of encounter: balance attentiveness and responsibility with respect for alterity and the unpredictable demands of the Other.
• Possible hypothetical scenarios in preschools:
  • A dilemma between data-driven targets and a child’s immediate emotional needs: choose a response that prioritizes the child’s relational well-being and seeks to understand the child’s perspective, rather than simply meeting a metric.
  • A decision about inclusion of a child with diverse needs: weigh the child’s right to participate with sensitivity to the family’s context, potential tensions, and the importance of meaningful engagement with the child as a unique other.
  • Policy changes that rely on universal curricula: implement codes and standards but pair them with reflective practice sessions that foreground care ethics and the ethics of encounter to interpret and adapt policies in context.
• Ethical responsibility in practice: embracing a postmodern, care-based, or encounter-based ethics requires that preschool staff and policy-makers acknowledge ambiguity, avoid simplistic triumphalism of universal codes, and commit to ongoing, situated moral judgment and accountability.
• Concluding implication: moving toward ethics-centered preschools involves rethinking the relation between ethics and governance, promoting practices that respect otherness, nurture responsibility, and resist instrumental rationality in favor of human-scale, relational, and contextual moral reasoning.