Ethics Of Care Research Articles

Regulating AI in Mental Health: Ethics of Care Perspective.

This article contends that the responsible artificial intelligence (AI) approach-which is the dominant ethics approach ruling most regulatory and ethical guidance-falls short because it overlooks the impact of AI on human relationships. Focusing only on responsible AI principles reinforces a narrow concept of accountability and responsibility of companies developing AI. This article proposes that applying the ethics of care approach to AI regulation can offer a more comprehensive regulatory and ethical framework that addresses AI's impact on human relationships. This dual approach is essential for the effective regulation of AI in the domain of mental health care. The article delves into the emergence of the new "therapeutic" area facilitated by AI-based bots, which operate without a therapist. The article highlights the difficulties involved, mainly the absence of a defined duty of care toward users, and shows how implementing ethics of care can establish clear responsibilities for developers. It also sheds light on the potential for emotional manipulation and the risks involved. In conclusion, the article proposes a series of considerations grounded in the ethics of care for the developmental process of AI-powered therapeutic tools.

The dynamics of care and loyalty in peer relations

ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to enrich the care ethics framework by uncovering the relationship between care and loyalty, offering insights into the complexities of children’s experiences of care in school. Through twelve interviews with pupils in sixth grade, I analyse the intersection of loyalty and care. The findings reveal two dimensions, conceptualized as internal care loyalty and external care loyalty. Internal care loyalty involves the relationship between the one-caring and the cared-for, shaping the (1) motivation, (2) understanding, and (3) reciprocity of care. External care loyalty extends beyond this relationship, encompassing (1) social inclusion and (2) conflict support. Employing a perspective grounded in care ethics, deepens the understanding of the interconnection between care and loyalty among peers and actualize the question of partiality in an educational context. This article blends feminist philosophical theory with qualitative empiricism, shedding light on the complexity and nuances of caring in peer-relations.

On the Ethics of Mediating Embodied Vulnerability to Violence

Media ethics has long been haunted by the question of representing human beings’ vulnerability to violence. While journalism and photojournalism have an obligation to report on the realities of violence and suffering in the world, the “spectacle of suffering” is fraught with ethical dilemmas. In this essay, I seek to theorize the ethics of vulnerability to violence in media representation. As a starting point, I argue for the politics of embodiment as a generative process that constitutes differential vulnerabilities. I move then to consider the way embodied vulnerabilities play out in the media, as exemplified by recent events such as the Black Lives Matter and MeToo movements as well as in times of war, from Vietnam to, more recently, Ukraine and Israel/Palestine. This leads to considerations of spectatorship: who looks and who is looked at? How are these relations of gazing related to the vectors of social and geopolitical power? Are images of embodied vulnerability simply media spectacles that reinforce power hierarchies, or are they powerful prosocial messages that might mobilize humanitarian activism? To address these epistemic questions, I propose that the feminist ethics of care encompasses an invitational rhetoric that can guide media praxis. Care ethics is aligned with various religious epistemologies, and because of that, I argue for it as an umbrella framework that has application in a variety of national and cultural contexts.

The ethics of alterity and the ethics of care in literary studies

The ethics of care has regularly been described via contrast with deontological, consequentialist, and virtue theories of ethics. Often, such descriptions play care and justice against one another as potentially congruent but frequently competing social goods. This articulation of the field, which moves across major perspectives within moral and political philosophy, does not fully describe how ethics appears in some areas of humanities, particularly literary studies, where an ‘ethics of alterity’ has predominated for several decades. This ethics emphasizes a scene of encounter across difference, and an ethical responsibility to the other which has been narrativized via the scene of hospitality. This essay proposes that the ethics of care and the ethics of alterity share much—more than care ethics shares with other kinds of moral philosophy. But it also identifies differences which have made it easier to position alterity, rather than care, as a guiding ethos for literature, literary criticism, and literature education. Why is this so, and what would it mean for the ethics of care to be more central in literary study and literature education? Taking as an occasion a novel explicitly concerned with care-taking and care-giving, J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man (2005), the essay explores the prospects for a care-focused practice of literary studies.

Transformational Creativity, Care, and the Common Good: Toward a Refined Definition?

ABSTRACTThe concept of transformational creativity has been widely embraced as a desired shift in creativity research. Transformational creativity emphasizes the development of creativity in service to the common good. However, to date, what precisely constitutes this “common good” for researchers of transformational creativity remains unclear. As evidenced by the recent Handbook of Transformational Creativity, the term “common good” has been deployed on numerous occasions without any definition or rationalization of its meaning. The aim of this article was therefore to delineate what may constitute a common good which is worth contributing to. Motivated by transdisciplinary outlooks, it explores the concept of the common good through the lenses of human needs, degrowth, and the ethics of care. This article redefines transformational creativity as the creation of new ideas, artifacts, or practices that promote the common good by fostering caring, needs‐responsive relationships and enabling communities to collectively contribute to their well‐being and support a sustainable, ecologically nurturing, and preserving livelihood.

Exploring possibilities for a feminist ethic of collective care in suicide research

Suicide is a major public health concern responsible for around 700,000 deaths globally every year. In response, researchers worldwide seek to understand suicide and suicide prevention, primarily using quantitative methods. As such, the development of qualitative methods tailored for the complexities of working with participants, for whom the primary ethical concern occupying researchers and ethics committees alike is whether taking part in the research will increase suicidal distress and contribute to a greater risk of dying by suicide, is in its infancy. Seeking to address this gap, in this article, I draw on feminist research methods to explore the unique design considerations and challenges faced when doing interview-based, qualitative suicide research. I argue that qualitative suicide research must resist risk focussed approaches to ethics, and instead reframe our ethical decision-making to centre a feminist ethic of care, drawing on Brannelly and Barnes’ concept of “care-full” research practices. Central to this reframing is recognition of the ways in which reciprocal relationships between researchers, research participants, and research institutions are inherent to qualitative research, meaning that no single research actor can be thought of in isolation from the other, necessitating a relational approach to our feminist research ethic.

Emotional Labor and the Problem of Exploitation in Roboticized Care Practices: Enriching the Framework of Care Centred Value Sensitive Design

Care ethics has been advanced as a suitable framework for evaluating the ethical significance of assistive robotics. One of the most prominent care ethical contributions to the ethical assessment of assistive robots comes through the work of Aimee Van Wynsberghe, who has developed the Care-Centred Value-Sensitive Design framework (CCVSD) in order to incorporate care values into the design of assistive robots. Building upon the care ethics work of Joan Tronto, CCVSD has been able to highlight a number of ways in which care practices can undergo significant ethical transformations upon the introduction of assistive robots. In this paper, we too build upon the work of Tronto in an effort to enrich the CCVSD framework. Combining insights from Tronto’s work with the sociological concept of emotional labor, we argue that CCVSD remains underdeveloped with respect to the impact robots may have on the emotional labor required by paid care workers. Emotional labor consists of the managing of emotions and of emotional bonding, both of which signify a demanding yet potentially fulfilling dimension of paid care work. Because of the conditions in which care labor is performed nowadays, emotional labor is also susceptible to exploitation. While CCVSD can acknowledge some manifestations of unrecognized emotional labor in care delivery, it remains limited in capturing the structural conditions that fuel this vulnerability to exploitation. We propose that the idea of privileged irresponsibility, coined by Tronto, helps to understand how the exploitation of emotional labor can be prone to happen in roboticized care practices.

Putting patients first: when home-based care staff prioritise loyalty to patients above the system and themselves. An ethnographic study

BackgroundThe growing number of older people worldwide poses challenges for health policy, particularly in the Global North, where policymakers increasingly expect seniors to live and receive care at home. However, healthcare professionals, particularly in home-based care, face dilemmas between adhering to care ideals and meeting external demands. Although they strive to uphold ethical care standards, they must deal with patients’ needs, cooperation with colleagues and management guidelines. Home-based care is an essential part of healthcare services in Norway, but staff struggle with high patient numbers and time management. This article focuses on how staff deal with ethical challenges related to contextual and organisational constraints.MethodsAn ethnographic fieldwork in three municipalities in South-East Norway. The first author conducted three to four months of participant observation in each municipality. In addition, she conducted in-depth interviews with key informants in two municipalities and a focus group interview with seven home-based care workers in one municipality. The data was analysed by using a reflexive thematic analysis.ResultsStaff in home-based care are frequently more loyal to the patient than to the system and to their own needs. To provide good care, all informants disregarded the patient’s formal decision, i.e. they provided more care than the formalised decision stipulated. To prioritise beneficence to patients, informants also disregarded some of the rules applicable in home-based care. In addition, staff accepted risks to their own safety and health to provide care in the patient’s home.ConclusionThe loyalty of home-based care staff to their patients can go beyond their loyalty to the rules of the system and even their own safety. This commitment might be attributed to a sense of doing meaningful work, to providing relationship-based and individualised care, and to strong moral courage. However, the staff’s emphasis on flexibility and individualised care also brings challenges related to unclear boundaries related to patient care.

Theoretical foundations of clinical ethics consultation in psychiatry

Clinical ethics consultants support mental health professionals in identifying and analyzing moral problems in clinical practice. Presentation of key ethical concepts and normative theories that are relevant for clinical ethics consultation in mental healthcare. Conceptual and ethical analyses. After distinguishing between morality, ethics and law, moral problems are differentiated from other types of problems encountered in clinical practice. Subsequently, key ethical concepts and the concept of moral distress are clarified. In relation to the normative framework a distinction is made between philosophical ethical theories and medical ethical theories, such as principlism and the ethics of care. Finally, justification tests for ethical decision-making in situations of danger to self or others based on the harm principle and soft paternalism are proposed. Knowledge of key ethical concepts and normative theories is important for the identification and analysis of moral problems in mental healthcare and should be given greater weight in the training of clinical ethics consultants.

Evaluation of an E-Learning Training Package by Nurses of Various Designations for Developing Clinical Skills and Knowledge

Education helps nurses maintain, improve and broaden their professional knowledge to meet their obligations to provide ethical, safe and competent care. Globally, electronic learning (e-learning) has emerged in the last decade as a flexible mechanism to provide education for nurses. However, not enough is known about how nurses view e-learning as continuing education and whether the skills and knowledge gained are transferable to daily practice. A descriptive correlational design applying a non-experimental quantitative approach was employed to evaluate an e-learning training package used by nurses of various designations for developing clinical skills and knowledge at a private hospital in Perth, Western Australia. Data were collected via a survey method over 3 years. Findings suggest an e-learning training package effectiveness is mainly dependent on the implementation process, the way learning is packaged and sequenced, and the instructional design of the package. When the e-learning training package uses materials participants can apply with patients in the clinical setting, there is higher active engagement and application of content to practice. This study’s findings reveal more flexible implementation approaches might be considered in the future, including blended learning.

Critical geographies of disaster, and the geographical imagination

This paper combines assemblage theory, feminist ethics of care and decolonial theory to build on recent work in disaster studies that seeks to address the systematic and intersectional inequalities that underlie the emergence of disaster. We argue that Western logics of “risk” do not always have traction with communities, and so researchers must “stay with the trouble” in engaging with tensions between lifeworlds. We suggest that geographical imaginaries provide a means to analyze the diverse ways of being and knowing that are involved in this process.

Virtuous leadership: Ambiguities, challenges, and precedents

AbstractVirtuous leadership is the focus of a growing body of academic literature but is little discussed by contemporary philosophers. Current treatments tend to over‐generalisation: assimilating diverse features to a few broad categories and applying simplified ethical theories. This essay argues that virtue and character education need to be keyed to specific activities, that “virtuous leadership” is in danger of being confused with extrinsic activism, and that the history of ethics in health care provides an instructive example of thinking ethically about practice. Questions commonly posed in the literature—What specific virtues are required for leadership? How may these be formed?—are unduly simple and often rest on faulty assumptions about the nature of leadership and of the structure of virtuous action. Philosophers engaged in advising professionals about the virtues of leadership would do well to consider how the relevant points apply to their own practice.

Educating gender equity through non-competitive cooperative motor games: Transforming stereotypes and socio-affective dynamics

Non-competitive cooperative motor games hold the potential to educate gender equity from a relational perspective. These motor games present educational relational challenges where different genders interact for mutual benefit. Such interactions generate emotional well-being, enhance socio-affective relationships, and promote feminized motor conducts that potentially perform gender hegemonies and reduce gender stereotypes. This study, grounded in the ethics of care and motor praxeology, explored the effects of non-competitive cooperative motor games on group and cross-gender socio-affective rejections, gender stereotypes and emotional well-being, along with the mediation effects of these interconnected variables. Researchers conducted a quasi-experimental study where 11 participants (Mage = 11.16; SD = 1.35) from a summer sports camp played non-competitive cooperative motor games. The study employed sociometric questionnaires, emotional questionnaires (PANAS-C) and gender stereotype questionnaires (NATGEN). Data were analyzed using inferential and descriptive statistical techniques, social network analysis and mediation analysis. Results revealed the effectiveness of non-competitive cooperative motor games in reducing cross-gender rejections among girls, maintaining low group rejections, promoting emotional well-being and reducing gender stereotypes. Mediation analysis showed that gender stereotypes and positive emotions act as a protective barrier against group rejection. This study presents an innovative educational perspective that combines the scientific foundations of motor praxeology with the theoretical bases of the ethics of care. The research provides teachers and researchers with a practical pedagogical tool based on non-competitive cooperative motor games. These games are designed to enhance gender equity, promote emotional well-being, and reduce gender-based rejection and stereotypes. Keywords: sociometry, group cohesion, non-formal education, friendship, feminism, sport, inclusion, social acceptance

Digital ethics of care and digital citizenship in UK primary schools: Children as interviewers

ABSTRACT A digital ethics of care (DEC) framework was initially developed with adolescents (11 to 18-years) to provide an infrastructure for understanding their digital social and emotional literacy, focusing on their ability to understand emotions and build respectful relationships online. In this study, we explore how that framework can be utilised with younger children aged 10 to 11-years-old. All children in class participated in a teacher-led lesson to develop skills and an understanding of interviewing. From this class, 18 children participated and interviewed each other in pairs. The interviews were conducted using a semi-structured approach consisting of question clusters framed around digital media use, wellbeing, social interactions online, empathy and kindness, and actions following negative behaviours. Using thematic analysis, four themes were developed: 1) recognising DEC in practice, 2) emotional consequences and coping with online adversity, 3) need for education on digital citizenship, and 4) developing a Digital Ethics of Care lesson. The results of the study led to the framework being refined. From this, a toolkit with lesson plans was created which was founded in the children’s contributions and ideas for use by schools.

Compassionate inquiry: digital storytelling and the ethics of care

ABSTRACT In this paper, we identify the use of Digital Storytelling (DS) as a mode of pedagogy aligned with an ethics of care. We consider how DS, as summative assessment, may foreground care ethics such as attentiveness, responsiveness, and trust. Our interest in this topic stems from our concern over the impact on staff and students of the massification of higher education, which includes low attendance, social isolation, and educator burnout. This paper presents an empirical study of students’ summative work and educators’ views on the use of DS in the classroom in the context of a large, international cohort of first year undergraduates on an Education Studies programme. We conclude that DS may help students overcome some of the negative issues of massification and the legacy of Covid-19 identified in this paper, and that educators may also derive benefits from its use.

Trustworthy and ethical AI-enabled cardiovascular care: a rapid review

BackgroundArtificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly used for prevention, diagnosis, monitoring, and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. Despite the potential for AI to improve care, ethical concerns and mistrust in AI-enabled healthcare exist among the public and medical community. Given the rapid and transformative recent growth of AI in cardiovascular care, to inform practice guidelines and regulatory policies that facilitate ethical and trustworthy use of AI in medicine, we conducted a literature review to identify key ethical and trust barriers and facilitators from patients’ and healthcare providers’ perspectives when using AI in cardiovascular care.MethodsIn this rapid literature review, we searched six bibliographic databases to identify publications discussing transparency, trust, or ethical concerns (outcomes of interest) associated with AI-based medical devices (interventions of interest) in the context of cardiovascular care from patients’, caregivers’, or healthcare providers’ perspectives. The search was completed on May 24, 2022 and was not limited by date or study design.ResultsAfter reviewing 7,925 papers from six databases and 3,603 papers identified through citation chasing, 145 articles were included. Key ethical concerns included privacy, security, or confidentiality issues (n = 59, 40.7%); risk of healthcare inequity or disparity (n = 36, 24.8%); risk of patient harm (n = 24, 16.6%); accountability and responsibility concerns (n = 19, 13.1%); problematic informed consent and potential loss of patient autonomy (n = 17, 11.7%); and issues related to data ownership (n = 11, 7.6%). Major trust barriers included data privacy and security concerns, potential risk of patient harm, perceived lack of transparency about AI-enabled medical devices, concerns about AI replacing human aspects of care, concerns about prioritizing profits over patients’ interests, and lack of robust evidence related to the accuracy and limitations of AI-based medical devices. Ethical and trust facilitators included ensuring data privacy and data validation, conducting clinical trials in diverse cohorts, providing appropriate training and resources to patients and healthcare providers and improving their engagement in different phases of AI implementation, and establishing further regulatory oversights.ConclusionThis review revealed key ethical concerns and barriers and facilitators of trust in AI-enabled medical devices from patients’ and healthcare providers’ perspectives. Successful integration of AI into cardiovascular care necessitates implementation of mitigation strategies. These strategies should focus on enhanced regulatory oversight on the use of patient data and promoting transparency around the use of AI in patient care.

Situating pluralism in biomedical healthcare practices: Lessons from the ethnomedical approach

Healthcare interactions have become increasingly varied, prompting the need for revised person-centred approaches that call for curriculum reform. This paper describes the perceived impact of the intentional insertion of medical pluralism into an inclusive, interprofessional health sciences module. A phased multi-method research design was applied. Phase 1 gathered data for an early curricular review. Phase 2 implemented a revised approach focusing on medical plurality. Phase 3 collected qualitative data through structured reflective journaling. Descriptive statistical analysis of quantitative data and thematic analysis of the qualitative data were performed. 41 2022 first-year students (30%) participated in Phase 1, with 83% indicating that engagement was encouraged (83%) within a space of mutual respect (83%). Structured reflective journaling was employed in 2023 with 121 (97%) first-year students participating in Phases 2 and 3 to describe the impact of the revised approach on student learning. Five themes emerged from this experience: uncertainty, fear, overwhelm, gratefulness, and personal impact. Through creating a practically orientated and inclusive curricular space founded on medical pluralism and pedagogy of care, cross-cultural graduate attribute training was transformed to be more contextually relevant and future-focused to effectively steer students towards developing the attributes of desirability, ethics of care, and responsible citizenship.

Platforms mediating domestic care work as service gigs in European cities: Reorganisation of social reproduction through marketisation

In European cities, lean labour platforms increasingly mediate domestic service gigs related to social reproduction, such as food delivery and cleaning tasks on-demand. This fast-growing type of platform depends on spatial proximity and the population density of cities, economic relations enabled by digital technologies and embodied gendered and racialised norms. At the same time, platforms are linked to the crisis of social reproduction and to a constant supply of people in precarious positions looking for income. The paper tackles the question how platform-mediated service gigs related to grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning change caring relationships. This comprises considerations of the dimensions of marketisation and the transformation of reproductive work symbolically, materially, and socially and is presented with a feminist perspective pointing to social reproduction as an essential but devalued part of everyday life. These endeavours are explored with findings from various case studies dealing with food delivery and cleaning platforms in Austria and Germany and are discussed with reference to relational care ethics. Put forward here is a reflection on the ways in which digital mediation of domestic care work relies on gendered and racialised norms – and how this dependence intensifies structural inequalities inherent to social reproduction.

Can We Accept Today That the Museum Continues to Convey Colonial Ideology? An Analysis of Two Fundamental European Instruments to Decolonize Museums

The article intends to broaden the debate about colonial collections and their potential repatriation. In some countries, official guidelines on how to deal with colonial collections are long overdue and many museums seem to find that inaction is the perfect strategy. Supported by the latest developments at European level and offering a detailed analysis of the Macron Report and the recommendations of the Deutscher Museumsbund (German Museums Association), this article seeks to provide food for thought that will serve as an in-depth, wide-ranging debate about colonial collections. It makes a comprehensive review of these two European instruments to implement ethical care for colonial collections. Admitting that colonialism has permeated all modern institutions, including the museum, and that many collection items located in Western museums are historically and culturally “sensitive” underscores the moral and ethical obligation that each museum must face, inter alia, as a way to contribute to the deconstruction of a colonial ideology which is perpetuated far beyond the formal end of colonialism. The article aims, furthermore, to demonstrate how awareness and research are the cornerstones of the process that will allow us to rethink colonial collections and document them from a less dated perspective.

“We Are All Animals”: Multispecies Entanglements and More-than-Human Politics in Romesh Gunesekera’s Heaven’s Edge and Suncatcher

Despite differences in genre, Romesh Gunesekera’s novels, Heaven’s Edge (2002) and Suncatcher (2019) both contain a narrative pattern that draws attention to multispecies entanglements by prominently featuring them in the climactic moments of the novels. Drawing on theories of multispecies entanglement, care, and politics as interspecies practices, I argue that the novels present the nation as a more-than-human configuration and reveal the possibilities and limitations of developing practices and ethics of care and resistance that can lead to a more-than-human politics, i.e., a politics that envisions creating conditions of socio-ecological flourishing for all.