Caring, Journalism, and the Power of Particularism

Why do some people donate blood while most eligible individuals do not? Why do many self-identified environmentalists eat meat? Why do numerous people who are concerned with social justice ignore oppressive practices affecting women? These questions have both ethical and psychological dimensions. Ethics, as it is traditionally understood in terms of rules, rights, and consequences, emphasizes rationality but often reason is not enough to compel moral action. One can make compelling rational arguments with empirical evidence to support donating blood, becoming vegan, and advocating education and aid to assist girls and women in developing nations. Yet, cognitive assent is insufficient to change the behavior of many people. Until individuals make a personal, affective connection – until people care – creating change and taking moral action are a challenging struggle. One way to view Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide is as a case study for eliciting care within the complexities of contemporary international society. There is a fascinating contradiction of social forces at work today. On a large scale or macro level, evidence suggests that human society is becoming more cooperative, empathetic, and understanding as a matter of survival and communal flourishing. A spate of books has documented this phenomenon. In Empathetic Civilization, Jeremy Rifkin views empathy as the basis of civilization: “More complex social structures, then, promote greater selfhood, greater exposure to diverse others, and a greater likelihood of extended empathy”. In The Age of Empathy: Nature’s Lessons for a Kinder Society, Frans de Waal suggests that modern studies of primates reveal an outstanding capacity for cooperation and compassion, not just competition as often portrayed in the ruthless “survival of the fitness” characterizations of nature. De Waal describes how, “many animals survive through cooperation, so there is a long evolutionary history to compromise, peaceful coexistence, and caring for others. Empathy is part of the survival package, and human society depends on it as much as many other animal societies do”. Despite the historic tide of human cooperation and empathy, there appear to be pockets of backlash against empathy sometimes entangled in efforts to maintain systems of power and at other times tied to complacency and apathy. For example, in the United States, the growing disparity between the wealthy and the poor/working class is in part held in place by rhetoric antithetical to empathizing with those who need social services and thus painting taxes or transfer payments as a social evil even though they fund those services. The anti-caring rhetoric is so strong that President Barack Obama was criticized for suggesting that a Supreme Court justice nominee should exhibit empathy. In an ironic twist, empathy was characterized as anathema to the ability to carry out justice. Of course, international conflict and violence also demonstrate failure to care. Amidst the contradictory social forces, Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn offer a path to caring for women and girls who live in distant lands and cultures. Half the Sky presents story after story regarding the plight of women facing oppressive practices. These stories allow the reader to enter an imaginative relationship with the girls and women described that is only possible when the abstract is moved to the concrete. Kristof and WuDunn also offer stories of successful interventions on behalf of women that provide concrete examples and means for the reader to enact care

Feminist Care Ethics Confronts Mainstream Philosophy

Editorial for the Special Issue Feminist Care Ethics Confronts Mainstream Philosophy This Special Issue of Philosophies is devoted to dialogue between feminist care ethics and mainstream philosophical figures and concepts. As care ethics has evolved from its origins in the 1980s, it is clear that it does not always fit neatly within traditional philosophical categories. Yet, the philosophical implications of the ethics of care are robust and extend beyond ethics as such, with care theorists positing ontological, epistemological, and political significance to its approach. Despite these implications, and the growing acceptance of care ethics in a variety of academic literatures, it remains a somewhat marginalized philosophical framework. The original contributions to this volume juxtapose care theory with established philosophers and philosophical thought. The goal is to catalyze further intellectual interest and attention in how care enriches philosophy across a variety of subjects. More specifically, we anticipate articles that address the intersection of care and the work of philosophers such as Fanon, Latour, Edith Stein, Kant, Rawls, Foucault, Zizek, Latour, Nussbaum, Dewey, and others. On the one hand, these articles will develop linkages between the ethics of care and the insights of mainstream philosophical thinkers, including those just noted, by highlighting fruitful sites for synthesis and by working through productive tensions. On the other hand, these articles will also demonstrate how the ethics of care can usefully challenge, expand, or amend mainstream philosophical approaches in ways that center the ontological, political, and moral insights of a care perspective. In attending to both the intersections and interstices between care ethics and established philosophical theories and approaches, the contributions in this Special Issue will provide a unique intellectual space for dialogue between significant philosophical figures and care ethics, with the aim of enriching both philosophical traditions. Accordingly, this Special Issue will appeal to scholars and practitioners from mainstream philosophy traditions, as well as those engaged with feminist philosophy, care theory, and the ethics of care

A Spirit of Care with Maurice Hamington

Overview & Shownotes Care impacts all of our lives intimately. Whether you’re the recipient of care, a caregiver, or both, you know that the practice of care can be fraught with ethical and moral questions. On today’s episode of Examining Ethics, we’re going to discuss the basics of care ethics with Maurice Hamington, a professor at Portland State University whose work on care spans decades. He explains that unlike utilitarianism or virtue ethics, care ethics can be difficult to reduce to a simple set of guidelines. For the episode transcript, download a copy or read it below. Contact us at [email protected] Links to people and ideas mentioned in the show Maurice Hamington kindly provided the list of resources below: Madeleine Bunting, Labours of Love: The Crisis of Care (Granta, 2020) [This book is up for a non-fiction prize and the author is well-known in the UK and a contributor to the Guardian. The most in-demand care ethicist today is political theorist Joan Tronto who recently retired from the University of Minnesota. Her most recent book is Caring, Democracy: Markets, Equality, and Justice (NewYork University Press, 2013). An example of how care has become interdisciplinary is Performing Care: New Perspectives on Socially Engaged Performance (Manchester University Press, 2020)which addresses some of the aesthetics of care. A very moving book that challenges ideas about masculinity and care is Worlds of Care: The Emotional Lives of Fathers Caring for Children with Disabilities (University of California Press, 2021) written by an anthropologist. There is an International Journal of Care and Caring and an international books series on Peeters Publishers. Maurice Hamington, Embodied Care (University of Illinois Press, 2004) and Care Ethics and Poetry (written with a poet, Ce Rosenow) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s table of contents Normative Credits Thanks to Evelyn Brosius for our logo. Music featured in the show: Partly Sage by Blue Dot Sessions Colrain by Blue Dot Session

Care Ethics, Religion, and Spiritual Traditions

Care Ethics, Religion, and Spiritual Traditions is a collection of original essays that address the intersection between contemporary feminist care ethics and religious morality. Feminist care ethics is one of the most dynamic areas in modern theory. This relational approach to morality emphasizes context, emotion, and imagination over consequences, rules, and rights has only been around for about four decades, with its definition still being negotiated. Still, the respect for this approach is demonstrated by its widespread inclusion in moral discourse. Historically, care has been an overlooked concept in philosophy, but religion\u27s ambivalence toward care ethics is even more pronounced. On the one hand, caring is a fundamental value espoused by virtually all religions and spiritual traditions. Yet, on the other hand, deontological principles so essential to many religious moralities create clear categories of adjudication antithetical to feminist care ethics. Care Ethics, Religion, and Spiritual Traditions engages theorists from various disciplines in discussing the continuities, discontinuities, and applications of feminist care ethics, spiritual traditions, and religion. This collection includes contributions from Ruth E. Groenhout, Maurice Hamington, Adriana Jesenková, Luigina Mortari, Sarah Munawar, Inge van Nistelrooij, Kimberley D. Parzuchowski, Jamie Pitts, Martin Robb, Jason Rubenstein, Robert Michael Ruehl, Maureen Sander-Staudt, Steven Steyl, and Sarah Zager. The volume also includes a foreword by Catherine Keller

The empath and the psychopath: ethics, imagination, and intercorporeality in Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal

The long-form television drama series Hannibal (Fuller 2013-2015) thematises the embodied imagination and the elicitation of empathy and ethical understanding at the level of narrative and characterisation as well as through character engagement and screen aesthetics. Using Hannibal as a case study, this research investigates how stylistic choices frame the experiences of screen characters and engender forms of intersubjectivity based on corporeal and cognitive routes to empathy; in particular, it examines the capacity for screen media to facilitate what neuroscientist Vittorio Gallese terms intercorporeality. As a constitutive aspect of intersubjectivity and social understanding that works through embodied simulation, intercorporeality invites a reconceptualisation of empathy and its association with ethical motivation and insight. Hannibal also introduces cannibalism as a dark metaphor for the incorporation of another into oneself, reflecting on empathy's ill-understood potential for negative affect and unethical consequences

University Studies Leadership: Vision and Challenge

Although University Studies at Portland State University often receives attention for its signature curricular structure of year-long thematic mentored Freshman Inquiry, thematic mentored Sophomore Inquiry, thematic departmental Cluster courses, and community-based Capstone courses, it is the underlying pedagogical values and philosophy that represent the real revolution in higher education—a revolution that is ongoing at Portland State. Few large state universities can claim to offer a quarter-century of experience with general education change of this magnitude. This article addresses how a shared purpose evolved over the course of University Studies\u27 history and was impacted by what various leaders emphasized during their tenure. Representing bookends of the quarter-century existence of University Studies, two voices make up the authorship of the article: the president of Portland State at the time of the founding of University Studies, who catalyzed the processes that led to this ground-breaking program, and the current executive director, who has made transparent the ethic of care embedded in the program from the start. Together, the authors tell the story of University Studies\u27 past and present and look to its future, highlighting how evidence-based, relational, caring innovation has resulted in the program through the collaborations of its empowered constituents

Proximity epistemology in Jane Addams (1860-1935)

Maurice Hamington, Portland State Universit