In “Conceptions of Care,” Tove Pettersen discusses and articulates select ways in which care can be comprehended. Several difficulties related to an altruistic understanding of care are examined before the author presents the case for a more favorable concept: mature care. Mature care is intended to take into account the interests of both parties to the caring relationship. This understanding of care facilitates the expression of the relational and reciprocal aspects of caring while emphasizing the equal worth of all involved. (...) Also attended to is the embeddedness of care in wider cultural and political contexts. (shrink)

Chenyang Li argues, in an article originally published in Hypatia, that the ethics of care and Confucian ethics constitute similar approaches to ethics. The present paper takes issue with this claim. It is more accurate to view Confucian ethics as a kind of virtue ethics, rather than as a kind of care ethics. In the process of criticizing Li's claim, the distinctiveness of care ethics is defended, against attempts to assimilate it to virtue ethics.

Although previous treatments of affective injustice have identified some particular types of affective injustice, the general concept of affective injustice remains unclear. This article proposes a novel articulation of this general concept, according to which affective injustice is defined as a state in which individuals or groups are deprived of “affective goods” which are owed to them. On this basis, I sketch an approach to the philosophical investigation of affective injustice that begins by establishing which affective goods are fundamental, and (...) then considers which subsidiary goods—such as freedoms, resources, opportunities, and forms of recognition—may be necessary for the provision of those fundamental affective goods. Drawing from and developing ideas in the extant literature, I argue that two such fundamental affective goods include subjective well-being and emotional aptness. I then show that by analyzing deprivations of the subsidiary goods that enable a person to pursue and attain subjective well-being and emotional aptness, it is possible to shed new light on the cases of affective injustice that have been described in the extant literature, while also identifying other kinds of cases that have not been theorized to the same extent. (shrink)

As part of a project on professionals' lived experience of ethics, this article explores the guiding concepts and values concerning ethics of mental health professionals in Cuba. The data, obtained through individual interviews and focus groups with 28 professionals, indicate that Cubans conceptualize applied ethics in terms of its central role in professional practice and its connection to the social context and subjective processes. Findings also show that Cuban professionals are guided not only by a set of professional values but (...) by a specific set of civic values as well. The former are subdivided into other-oriented values and self-oriented values. The study of ethics in another culture such as Cuba offers a unique point of view from which to critique the social construction of our own conceptions of applied ethics in North America. (shrink)

In a market economy, members of professions—or at least those for whom their profession is a vocation—are vulnerable to a distinctive kind of objectionable exploitation, namely the exploitation of their vocational commitment. That they are vulnerable in this way arises out of central features both of professions and of a market economy. And, for certain professions—the care professions—this exploitation is particularly objectionable, since, for these professions, the exploitation at issue is not only exploitation of the professional’s vocational commitment but also (...) of her even more basic commitment to morality. (shrink)

This paper explores early Australasian philosophy in some detail. Two approaches have dominated Western philosophy in Australia: idealism and materialism. Idealism was prevalent between the 1880s and the 1930s, but dissipated thereafter. Idealism in Australia often reflected Kantian themes, but it also reflected the revival of interest in Hegel through the work of ‘absolute idealists’ such as T. H. Green, F. H. Bradley, and Henry Jones. A number of the early New Zealand philosophers were also educated in the idealist tradition (...) and were influential in their communities, but produced relatively little. In Australia, materialism gained prominence through the work of John Anderson, who arrived in Australia in 1927, and continues to be influential. John Anderson had been a student of Henry Jones, who might therefore be said to have influenced both main strands of Australian philosophical thought. (shrink)

Practically every development in medicine in the post–World War II period distanced the physician and the hospital from the patient and the community, disrupting personal connections and severing bonds of trust. We need an ethics that include bodily mediated knowledge as a complement to intellectual knowledge. Care is a challenging concept to explore, in part because it is employed widely and often without thoughtful parsing. Moreover, it has gained increasing significance in ethical discourse.1 Since the 1980s, feminist theorists have used (...) the term care ethics to describe a relational approach to morality that does not rely on rubrics of adjudication such as rules or consequences. The.. (shrink)

Little is known about whether followers who perceive ethical leadership are more easily moved to act compassionately with peers. This study hypothesizes four compassionate feelings as mediators of the relationship between ethical leadership and interpersonal citizenship behavior directed at peers: empathic concern or an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of a peer in need; mindfulness, a state of consciousness in which attention is focused on present-moment phenomena; kindness, understanding the pain or suffering of peers; (...) and common humanity, viewing peers’ experiences as part of the larger human experience. Data were obtained from 300 followers working in three-member groups with a common leader in each of 100 investment banks in the city of London. Results indicated that: ethical leadership was significantly and positively linked to compassion and peer-focused citizenship and common humanity is the only compassionate feeling that mediates the link between ethical leadership and peer-focused citizenship. Findings suggest that supervisors who act morally more easily move their followers to become sensitized to peers’ setbacks and misfortunes and take action in the form of interpersonal OCBs to lessen or relieve their suffering. (shrink)

Recent conceptualizations of sustainable global development have reflected societal concerns not only with environmental stewardship, but also with social amelioration. However, the tripartite goals of corporate profitability, environmental protection, and social responsiveness are unlikely to be achieved through conventional models of globalization. The emergent approach known as sustainable global enterprise provides a promising strategic alternate, but requires the development of “native capability” [Hart, S. L.: 2005, Capitalism at the Crossroads: The Unlimited Business Opportunities In Solving the World’s Most Difficult Problems. (...) (Pearson Education, Inc., Publishing as Wharton School Publishing, Upper Saddle River, NJ)] that comprises specific relational competencies not typically required by traditional transnational models. This article demonstrates the usefulness of an ethic of care for enhancing understanding of the competencies comprising native capability, and, provides practical insights from a care approach on the development of those skills. (shrink)

Making better choices about future technologies that are being researched or developed is an important motivator behind lay ethics interventions. However, in practice, they do not always succeed to serve that goal. Especially authors who have noted that lay ethicists sometimes take recourse to well-known themes which stem from old, even ‘archetypical’ stories, have been criticized for making too little room for agency and decision-making in their approach. This paper aims to contribute to a reflection on how lay ethics can (...) acquire more practical relevance. It will use resources in narrative ethics to suggest that in order to be relevant for action, facilitators of lay ethics interventions need to invite participants to engage in a narrative quest. As part of a quest, lay ethicists should be asked to reflect on a specific question or choice, use diverse input which is informative about the heterogeneity of viewpoints that are defended in society and argue for their standpoints. (shrink)

Few contemporary philosophers discuss the ways in which the emotion of shame may be gendered. This paper addresses this situation, examining Gabriele Taylor's account of genuine vs. false shame. 1 argue that, by attending to the social pressures placed on many women to conform to a certain vision of femininity, an analysis of the shame to which women may be prone shows that Taylor's account of shame remains incomplete.

Although there are important aspects of ecofeminist valuations of women's caring, a greater degree of skepticism than is now found in ecofeminist scholarship is in order. In this article I argue that there are political risks in celebrating women's association with caring, as both an ethic and a practice, and in reducing women's ethico-political life to care. I support this position by drawing on the work of feminist theorists who argue that the positive identification of women with caring ought to (...) be treated cautiously for it obscures some of the negative implications of feminized care and narrows our understanding of women as political actors. I explain why I think ecofeminists would be better served by using feminist theories of citizenship to understand and interpret women's engagement in politics. (shrink)

There is an awakening of interest in links between geography and moral philosophy, or ethics. This paper reviews a range of issues where common ground might be found on this new disciplinary interface. These issues include the historical geography of moralities, the notion of moral geographies, inclusion and exclusion in the context of the bounding of spaces, and the moral significance of distance and proximity, as well as the more familiar concern with social justice. Environmental ethics provides a link with (...) the physical side of the subject. Some suggestions are made as to the possible contribution of geography to the understanding of moral issues. (shrink)

In _Caring_, Peta Bowden extends and challenges recent debates on feminist ethics. She takes issue with accounts of the ethics of care that focus on alleged principles of caring rather than analysing caring in practice. Caring, Bowden argues, must be understood by 'working through examples'. Following this approach, Bowden explores four main caring practices: mothering, friendship, nursing and citizenship. Her analysis of the differences and similarities in these practices - their varying degrees of intimacy and reciprocity, formality and informality, vulnerability (...) and choice - reveals the practical complexity of the ethics of care. _Caring_ recognizes that ethical practices constantly outrun the theories that attempt to explain them, and Bowden's unique approach provides major new insights into the nature of care without resorting to indiscriminate unitary models. It will be essential reading for all those interested in ethics, gender studies, nursing and the caring professions. (shrink)

Since Carol Gilligan's analysis of the “Heinz dilemma,” many philosophers working on care have articulated critiques of abstraction and principles in ethics. Their objections to abstraction and principles have not always been systematically set out. In this paper, I try to clarify the debate. I begin by distinguishing several aspects of the care critique. I then consider the strengths of each from a Kantian perspective. I conclude that, although some of these objections point out potential misuses of abstraction and principle, (...) and in doing so, suggest strategies and cautions for their correct and careful use in ethics, they do not present a successful challenge to abstraction or principles as such. (shrink)

This article contextualizes some of the more specifically focused articles in this Special Issue of ‘Women and Mental Health’ by reviewing general historical and political currents structuring contemporary discussions around questions of models, treatment and provision for women within British mental health services. We highlight some particularities of the current British context (in relation to other national scenes) in terms of the forms and expressions of feminist activity around mental or emotional distress. While not absolute mirrors of each other, resonances (...) between general trends in feminist debates and organizational forms within feminist mental health work give rise to a wide spectrum of sites of intervention. We discuss some of the conditions that gave rise to these forms of (visible) feminist intervention within mental health service provision, focusing particularly on women's counselling and therapy services, and we offer an analysis of the range and conceptual tensions within which such interventions may be situated, including contested perspectives on power and empowerment. We also consider ways in which women's political activity around mental health issues is likely not to be noticed as such, given women's prototypical positions as patients and practitioners. We end by identifying what we see as current challenges for feminist activism around distress and its links with the conditions of women's lives and oppression more generally, not only as instances of more general tensions and challenges within contemporary feminisms, but also as offering an arena of opportunity for broader alliance and coalition-building. (shrink)

Bioethics has increasingly become a standard part of medical school education and the training of healthcare professionals more generally. This is a promising development, as it has the potential to help future practitioners become more attentive to moral concerns and, perhaps, better moral reasoners. At the same time, there is growing recognition within bioethics that nonideal theory can play an important role in formulating normative recommendations. In this chapter we discuss what this shift toward nonideal theory means for ethical curricula (...) within healthcare education. In particular, we contend that more attention to the particularities of historical and social context needs to be incorporated into bioethics training. To make this argument, we focus on two examples: teaching units on race and medicine and those that focus on stigma and coercion in mental health. For both, we show how a pedagogical approach in which educators focus on social injustice could influence how practitioners engage in ethics in the clinic. This chapter, then, demonstrates what a commitment to nonideal theory can mean practically when it comes to bioethics education. (shrink)

. Morality is often dismissed as irrelevant in what is seen as the global anarchy of rival states each pursuing its national interest. When morality is invoked, it is usually the morality of justice with its associated moral conceptions of individual rights, equality, and universal law. In the area of moral theory, an alternative moral approach, the ethics of care, has been developed in recent years. It is beginning to influence how some see their global responsibilities.

The purpose of this article is to introduce a model of value-based leadership. The model is based on tensions among values, interests, and power ; and tensions that take place within and among citizens, workers, and leaders. The VIP-CWL model describes the forces at play in the promotion of value-based practice and formulates recommendations for value-based leadership. The ability to enact certain values is conditioned by power and personal interests of communities, workers, and leaders of organizations. People experience internal conflicts (...) related to VIP as well as external conflicts related to disagreements with the CWL. Value-based practice is predicated on the ability to alleviate these tensions. Leaders have 4 main roles in promoting value-based practice: clarify values, promote personal harmony among VIP, enhance congruence of VIP among CWL, and confront people and groups subverting values or abusing power to promote personal interests. (shrink)

In this essay, Ben-Porath begins from the assumption that just war theory should be extended to include a jus post bellum component. Postwar conduct should be significantly informed by a care ethics perspective, particularly its political aspects as developed by Joan Tronto and others. Care ethics should be extended to the international postwar arena with one significant amendment, namely, weakening the aim of ending dependence.

Interviews with Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) growers in Iowa, a majority of whom are women, shed light on the relationship between gender and CSA as a system of resource management. Growers, male and female alike, are differentiated by care and caring-practices. Care-practices, historically associated with women, place priority on local context and relationships. The concern of these growers for community, nature, land, water, soil, and other resources is manifest in care-motives and care-practices. Their specific mix of motives differs: providing safe (...) and nutritious food, educating self and others, and building relationships with other growers, shareholder-members, and the land. Care-practices include reducing or eliminating chemical usage, encouraging or accepting beneficial insects and wildlife, building soil, and creating resource management partnerships with shareholder members. CSA, viewed through a lens of care, may offer a means of transcending gender stereotypes. (shrink)

This paper analyses a situation where a patient's suffering provoked feelings of compassion in a student nurse, and distress at her patient's circumstances. The reported behaviour of qualified nurses within the situation suggests that they lacked compassion, had inadequate knowledge, and that they failed to understand their patient's plight. An account of the situation is followed by an exploration of the nature of moral agency, and understanding in nursing. Nurses' capacity for moral imagination is shown to be of crucial importance (...) to the care that patients receive. The extent of nurses' responsibility for their behaviour is considered, and in particular, the extent of nurses' responsibility during times when they experience strain. Argument leads to the conclusion that we are justified in holding nurses responsible for their behaviour in situations of patient care, although we must not judge a nurse's behaviour too hastily. Attention is drawn to the need for a moral climate to sustain those nurses who struggle to give good patient care, despite the strain that is ever present within today's world of health care. (shrink)

There is an awakening of interest in links between geography and moral philosophy, or ethics. This paper reviews a range of issues where common ground might be found on this new disciplinary interface. These issues include the historical geography of moralities, the notion of moral geographies, inclusion and exclusion in the context of the bounding of spaces, and the moral significance of distance and proximity, as well as the more familiar concern with social justice. Environmental ethics provides a link with (...) the physical side of the subject. Some suggestions are made as to the possible contribution of geography to the understanding of moral issues. (shrink)

This essay interrogates the common assumption that good care is necessarily human care. It looks to disruptive fictional representations of robot care to assist its development of a theory of posthuman care that jettisons the implied anthropocentrism of ethics of care philosophy but retains care’s foregrounding of entanglement, embodiment and obligation. The essay reads speculative representations of robot care, particularly the Swedish television programme Äkta människor (Real Humans), alongside ethics of care philosophy and critical posthumanism to highlight their synergetic critiques (...) of neoliberal affective economies and humanist hierarchies that treat some bodies and affects as more real than others. These texts and discourses assist me in proposing a theory of care that regards vulnerability as the normative effect of posthuman vital embodiment, as opposed to an anomalous state that can be overcome or corrected via neoliberal practice. (shrink)

This article is the second one in a series dealing with mental health ethics in Cuba. It reports on ethical dilemmas, resources and limitations to their resolution, and recommendations for action. The data, obtained through individual interviews and focus groups with 28 professionals, indicate that Cubans experience dilemmas related to the interests of clients, their personal interests, and the interest of the state. These conflicts are related to power differentials among clients and professionals, professionals from various disciplines, and professionals and (...) organizational authorities. Resources to solve ethical dilemmas include government support, ethics committees, and collegial dialogue. Limitations include minimal training in ethics, lack of safe space to discuss professional disagreements, and little tolerance for criticism. Recommendations to address ethical dilemmas include better training, implementation of a code of ethics, and provision of safe space to discuss ethical dilemmas. The findings are discussed in light of the role of power in applied ethics. (shrink)

This paper examines normative feminist care scholarship through the lens of a sexual bathhouse. At first glance, a space dedicated to casual sexual pleasure seems at odds with feminist care. Drawing on the Toronto Women's Bathhouse (TWB) as a case study, this paper argues that bathhouse spaces can exemplify feminist care norms. At the same time, as a casual sexual space oriented towards personal autonomy, carefree conduct, and self-care, TWB also challenges certain feminist care assumptions. Drawing on these challenges, in (...) the light of wider problems with normative care theorizing, particularly the sanitization and idealization of personal relationships, the paper seeks to revision care along non-normative lines. (shrink)

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)

The model emphasizes the ethical dynamics of compassion in hospitality settings by suggesting that under an organizational ethical climate, the hotel staff will be more morally aware of peers’ pain and suffering, and motivated to participate in delivering compassion. Based on the positive psychology focus on compassion as individual states and traits supporting interpersonal dealings, the paper operationalizes compassion based on four individual factors involved in the compassionate process: empathic concern, or an other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with (...) the perceived welfare of a person in need; mindfulness, a state of consciousness in which attention is focused on present-moment phenomena occurring both externally and internally; kindness, or understanding the pain or suffering of others; and common humanity, or seeing others’ experiences as part of the larger human experience. Data were collected from 280 employees at ten hotels in the Canary Islands. With the exception of self-interest, results of multiple linear regressions demonstrate that each of the six interpreted factors of ethical climate has substantive effects on any of the studied elements of staff compassion. The egoistic-related and principle-related climate factors generated a more consistent and intense compassionate reaction, suggesting that the staff is moved to act out of compassion either to assure that the team succeeds or to support each other out of moral obligation. (shrink)