Care Ethics Perspective Research Articles

Santykis su atliekomis žiedinėje ekonomikoje: rūpesčio etikos perspektyva

This article examines the ethical dimension of waste management within the context of the circular economy. The authors argue for a shift in focus from technological and practical issues in waste management to a more holistic consideration of the ontological and ethical aspects of waste. By building on the ethics of care perspective, the article proposes a relational approach which prioritizes attentiveness, responsibility, competence, responsiveness, and involvement in addressing waste issues. By examining the five stages of care within the ethics of care framework, the study shows how ethical considerations can inform individual and collective actions within the paradigm of the circular economy. Ultimately, the article reconceptualizes waste as an integral part of our moral and ethical landscape by highlighting relationships embedded in care across private, domestic, institutional, and public domains.

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.

(In)vulnerable Managers in an Immigration Context

Our study examines managerial vulnerability in a bureaucratic context, namely in Finnish immigration centres. We bring a care ethics perspective to the study of vulnerability and address how managers navigate relationships with vulnerable clients and their own vulnerability. Based on empirical data collected through interviews with immigration centre managers, we show how managers negotiated their (in)vulnerability through two alternating positionalities: (1) professionalism, through which they seek to control negative emotions in order to manage their own experiences of vulnerability and affective relationships with clients, and (2) temporal disconformity, which provides space to engage and manage with a variety of emotions and manoeuvre bureaucratic professional norms. Our study then contributes to the literature on managerial work by demonstrating how managers cope with their vulnerable selves and how different notions of care emerge in complex, ethically sensitive managerial situations.

An Ethics of Care Perspective on Care to Battlefield Casualties

ABSTRACT Soldiers hold special ethical obligations to prioritise care for those closest to them when dealing with combat casualties. This obligation draws on the unique, personal relationships already established, which soldiers have with their comrades. These relationships arguably overrule the need for impartiality barring only a significant difference in the severity of injuries. The bonds of fraternity deserve moral recognition that is not reflected in current conceptions of battlefield medical care. However, an ethics of care (or care ethics) approach does not reject care for enemies but suggests that extension to them occurs when there is no significant difference in severity to comrades first. It also calls on a different form of care called ethical caring, which as opposed to natural caring requires introspection on behalf of the caregiver. Ethics of care distinguishes treatment of the enemy from emotionally detached positions. Emotional detachment rejects the call to care and denies the development of a relationship, which is a foundational principle of care ethics.

Implementing school-based violence interventions from an ethics of care perspective: educators’ experiences

Even though numerous measures have been implemented to combat this issue, school violence still poses a significant challenge in South African schools. School violence is not just a challenge in regular schools, special schools also have to deal with it. Educators’ experiences with school violence interventions are covered in this article. This empirical paper uses the results from my doctoral thesis, which examined strategies for reducing school violence in a special needs school. An interpretive paradigm and a phenomenological case study design were used to perform a qualitative investigation. Five educators and 10 learners from a school with learners with disabilities were specifically chosen to participate in the doctoral study. Semi-structured interviews, qualitative questionnaires, and documents were employed to collect the data. The study found that because the participants believed their efforts were not appreciated, they lacked the motivation to contribute to the reduction of school violence. They believed that the present interventions were ineffective, and some participants complained that the educational system was overly forgiving of the learners. Additionally, they said that the Department of Basic Education and the parents were not providing them with enough support.

Accompaniment of minors during health care procedures

In clinical practice, it is not rare to encounter situations in which parents and families are asked to leave the child alone with the health care team in rooms full of devices throughout the performance of procedures, which at times may give rise not only to conflicts but, more importantly, emotional sequelae in children or adolescents.We conducted a narrative review of the literature by searching the digital library of the public health care system of Andalusia for articles concerning the experiences of health care professionals and families with the accompaniment of paediatric patients during health care procedures. We restricted the search to studies published in Spanish or English and conducted in humans.The review evinced the need to humanise care in order to improve care quality. The need to accompany minors is supported by the evidence from works that have analysed the factors involved in the persistence of these behaviours and attitudes in both professionals and parents. We consider it necessary to develop institutional policies and appoint mediators to compile the statements of different national and international societies, taking into account legal aspects but, above all, the pertinent values from a health care ethics perspective, and in pursuit of the best interests of the child.

Acompañamiento a los menores durante los procedimientos asistenciales

In clinical practice, it is not rare to encounter situations in which parents and families are asked to leave the child alone with the health care team in rooms full of devices throughout the performance of procedures, which at times may give rise not only to conflicts but, more importantly, emotional sequelae in children or adolescents.We conducted a narrative review of the literature by searching the digital library of the public health care system of Andalusia for articles concerning the experiences of health care professionals and families with the accompaniment of paediatric patients during health care procedures. We restricted the search to studies published in Spanish or English and conducted in humans.The review evinced the need to humanise care in order to improve care quality. The need to accompany minors is supported by the evidence from works that have analysed the factors involved in the persistence of these behaviours and attitudes in both professionals and parents. We consider it necessary to develop institutional policies and appoint mediators to compile the statements of different national and international societies, taking into account legal aspects but, above all, the pertinent values from a health care ethics perspective, and in pursuit of the best interests of the child.

Why Chaplaincy at Asylum Centers is a Good Idea: A Care Ethics Perspective on Spiritual Care for Refugees

This article argues in favor of introducing chaplaincy care at asylum centers and develops three arguments for doing so. First, chaplaincy is one way to protect the right to health of refugees and to improve their spiritual well-being. The positive contribution of chaplaincy services to mental health care is increasingly recognized, especially in the domain of PTSD. Second, chaplaincy services support asylum seekers in exercising their freedom of religion while entrusted to state care. Chaplains can create a safe space for asylum seekers to reflect on their spiritual and religious needs, orientation and belonging. Third, chaplains are well positioned to help asylum seekers in rebuilding their life-sustaining web, while at the same time promoting a climate of inclusion and respect in and outside the asylum center.

Process evaluation of workplace health promotion in a sheltered workplace: a care ethics perspective.

Despite the potential health benefits of workplace health promotion for employees in sheltered workplaces, participation is often limited. The aim of this study was (i) to understand this limited participation, and (ii) to find opportunities for adapting workplace health promotion, such that it better meets the needs of the target population. A responsive process evaluation of an extensive multi-component workplace health promotion program targeting lifestyle behaviors, financial behaviors, literacy and citizenship, was performed in a large, sheltered workplace in the Netherlands (>3500 employees). To understand the limited participation, interviews with employees (n = 8), supervisors (n = 7) and managers (n = 2), and 10 participant observations were performed. To find opportunities for improving workplace health promotion in the sheltered workplace, 7 dialogs with employees were performed (n = 30). The interview data on the barriers for participation were evaluated through the lens of care ethics, as this allowed to understand the role of various stakeholders in the limited participation, as well as the indirect role of the institutional context. Findings showed that participation in workplace health promotion could increase if it is organized in a way that it encourages employees to work on health together, allow to tailor activities to different needs and capabilities of employees, and connects activities to employees' daily lives. A strength of this study is that the responsive process evaluation focused both on barriers for participation, as well as on opportunities to increase participation.

Miss Be, Her Red Threads, and the Others. A Story about Social Justice and the Appreciation of Visual Art in Research Practice

In 2020, I started to write a PhD proposal. My interest is, how art-based communities can foster social justice for people with intellectual disability/ learning disability. As an art therapist and as a graduate student, I wondered how visual art could be integrated in my research project, if seen from different perspectives. Underlying to the idea of appreciating art in my research project is literature that indicates that art-based approaches are helpful to explore, understand, and transform complex social issues (McNiff, 1998; Barone and Eisner, 2012; Savin-Baden and Wimpenny, 2014; Leavy, 2015; Goopy and Kassan, 2019), and that opportunities of art in research projects are expanding, inviting a clearer, embodied praxis (Bresler, 2006, 2018; Visse, Hansen and Leget, 2019). In this story, firstly, I share my thoughts about social justice from a care ethics perspective, reflecting on the ideas of moral philosopher Margaret Urban Walker (1998, 2007). To her, social justice is a practice of responsibility in relationships. Secondly, I reflect on visual art as a medium in my art therapy practice and my PhD project inspired by German artist Joseph Beuys, and art therapist and researcher Shaun McNiff. To them, art is ahead of-, and challenging societal conventions, making way to new -so called- social sculptures. This story is a quest of visual art being a medium to connect and built relationships.

Sustainability and justice: farm animals in rural tourism and lessons to be learned

Farm animals are virtually ignored in tourism studies concerning sustainability and justice. This study argues that this conflicts with animal ethics and is a missed opportunity to reflect on sustainability and justice in tourism. It adopts an ecofeminist care ethics perspective and conducts autoethnographic research into farm animals, considered ‘silenced’ individuals belonging to a marginalised group in rural tourism. The case is used to discuss farm animal justice and identify some lessons on sustainability and justice in broader terms, more precisely about the power–responsibility link, some major obstacles, possible change agents, and the time frame for broad radical improvements. This study highlights the potential and challenges of autoethnography to gain insights into marginalised groups and extract lessons relevant to broader topics.

Is deception defensible in dementia care? A care ethics perspective.

Deception is common in dementia care, although its moral legitimacy is questionable. This paper conceptually clarifies when does dementia care involve deception and argues that care ethics is an appropriate ethical framework to guide dementia care compared with the mainstream ethical theories that emphasize abilities. From a perspective of care ethics, this paper claims that morally defensible deception is context-specific, embodied as a caring process that needs to be identified through instant, creative and interactive care procedures. According to this argument, it further analyses and concludes the moral rationality of deception in five common cases. While deception is morally justified in many situations, another concern is that it is usually not the last resort but a means of convenience. As the ability to interact, autonomy and dignity of persons with dementia (PWDs) are generally ignored; nurses need more training and education to master the essential procedures to ensure that the value of authenticity and autonomy is maintained and considered throughout dementia care.

Violence and Care: Fanon and the Ethics of Care on Harm, Trauma, and Repair

According to Frantz Fanon, the psychological and social-political are deeply intertwined in the colonial context. Psychologically, the colonizers perceive the colonized as inferior and the colonized internalize this in an inferiority complex. This psychological reality is co-constitutive of and by material relations of power—the imaginary of inferiority both creates and is created by colonial relations of power. It is also in this context that violence takes on significant political import: violence deployed by the colonized to rebel against these colonial relations and enact a different world will also be violent in its fundamental disruption of this imaginary. The ethics of care, on the other hand, does not seem to sit well with violence, and thus Fanon’s political theory more generally. Care ethics is concerned with everything we do to maintain and repair our worlds as well as reasonably possible. Violence, which ruptures our psycho-affective, material, and social-political realities, seems antithetical to this task. This article seeks to reconsider this apparent antinomy between violence and care via a dialogue between Fanon and the ethics of care. In so doing, this article mobilizes a relational conceptualization of violence that allows for the possibility that certain violences may, in fact, be justifiable from a care ethics perspective. At the same time, I contend that violence in any form will also eventually demand a caring response. Ultimately, this productive reading of Fanon’s political theory and the ethics of care encourages both postcolonial philosophers and care ethicists alike to examine critically the relation between violence and care, and the ways in which we cannot a priori draw lines between the two.

Caring animals and care ethics

Are there nonhuman animals who behave morally? In this paper I answer this question in the affirmative by applying the framework of care ethics to the animal morality debate. According to care ethics, empathic care is the wellspring of morality in humans. While there have been several suggestive analyses of nonhuman animals as empathic, much of the literature within the animal morality debate has marginalized analyses from the perspective of care ethics. In this paper I examine care ethics to extract its core commitments to what is required for moral care: emotional motivation that enables the intentional meeting of another’s needs, and forward-looking responsibility in particular relationships. What is not required, I argue, are metarepresentational capacities or the ability to scrutinize one’s reasons for action, and thus being retrospectively accountable. This minimal account of moral care is illustrated by moral practices of parental care seen in many nonhuman animal species. In response to the worry that parental care in nonhuman animals lacks all evaluation and is therefore nonmoral I point to cultural differences in human parenting and to normativity in nonhuman animals.

Information systems in nurses' work: Technical rationality versus an ethic of care

AbstractNurses increasingly interact with health information systems (HIS) in their daily work. This article examines how the problems that they confront in that interaction can be understood through the theoretical concepts of technical rationality and an ethic of care. The findings are based on a qualitative study of nurses in one Swedish hospital. They suggest that HIS did not support the holistic care of patients, and were not adapted to the varied and often urgent situations that nurses faced in their daily work, leaving them feeling isolated with their problems. In summary, HIS were found to serve the administrative aims of a hospital organisation, based on technical rationality, rather than supporting patients' needs as seen from an ethics of care perspective. The contribution of the study is to show how the use of these two conceptual tools connects nurses' daily problems with HIS to more fundamental issues about the values upon which healthcare is grounded.

Care-full academic activism for sustainable transformations in tourism

ABSTRACT The urgent need for radical changes towards sustainability provides an opportunity to reconsider the epistemology and methodology of tourism research. The present study discusses this opportunity by adopting the concept of deep leverage points for sustainable transformations and an ethic of care perspective. The discussion highlights the vital role that a deep form of reflexivity plays in care-based tourism research that aims at sustainable transformations. This reflexivity is identified as the core component of a conceptual model that is developed to illustrate the crucial aspects of a type of scholarly engagement that, in accord with feminist scholarship, is termed care-full academic activism. These aspects concern attentiveness and responsiveness, which relate to interconnectedness, and imagination and critical thinking, which relate to transformational agency. The present study emphasizes the communalities between the concept of sustainable transformation and the ethic of care. It provides a holistic and innovative view of care-based sustainability research and a practical guide for scholars.

Enterprise Risk Management and Earnings Volatility: Investigating the Role of Care Ethics

This study analyzes the impact of the ethics of care implementation, complemented by the effectiveness of enterprise risk management (ERM), on earnings volatility; and to investigate the moderating or mediating role of care ethics in the association. Care ethics emphasizes a good relationship with other stakeholders. This is interpreted in the corporate risk management context with adequate precautionary efforts to mitigate risks. Moreover, the complementary nature of care ethics and ERM implementation has been argued to affect a company’s performance in terms of earnings volatility. Data from a sample of companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange were collected for the period 2012–2016. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and panel regression. From the ethics of care perspective, companies are expected to manage the risks effectively, which is represented in the effectiveness of ERM implementation. The results confirm this proposition, that is, ERM complements care ethics principles applied by a company in alleviating earnings volatility. The additional analysis shows that care ethics strengthens the association between ERM and earnings volatility. ERM is a growing research topic and has been investigated in previous studies. This research complements the previous studies by presenting an alternative, innovative perspective to analyze the effectiveness of ERM in correspondence with the spirit of care ethics.

Collaborative Care Model Promotes Justice and Equity

Collaborative Care Model Promotes Justice and Equity

Ethical issues in biomedical research using electronic health records: a systematic review

Digitization of a health record changes its accessibility. An electronic health record (EHR) can be accessed by multiple authorized users. Health information from EHRs contributes to learning healthcare systems’ development. The objective of this systematic review is to answer a question: What are ethical issues concerning research using EHRs in the literature? We searched Medline Ovid, Embase and Scopus for publications concerning ethical issues of research use of EHRs. We employed the constant comparative method to retrieve common ethical themes. We descriptively summarized empirical studies. The study reveals the breadth, depth, and complexity of ethical problems associated with research use of EHRs. The central ethical question that emerges from the review is how to manage access to EHRs. Managing accessibility consists of interconnected and overlapping issues: streamlining research access to EHRs, minimizing risk, engaging and educating patients, as well as ensuring trustworthy governance of EHR data. Most of the ethical problems concerning EHR-based research arise from rapid cultural change. The framing of concepts of privacy, as well as individual and public dimensions of beneficence, are changing. We are currently living in the middle of this transition period. Human emotions and mental habits, as well as laws, are lagging behind technological developments. In the medical tradition, individual patient’s health has always been in the center. Transformation of healthcare care, its digitalization, seems to have some impacts on our perspective of health care ethics, research ethics and public health ethics.

Gender Differences in Making Moral Decisions: The Ethics of Care Perspective in Pakistan

ABSTRACT This research explored how an ethics of care is practised in a communitarian society in Karachi, Pakistan. To this end 24 participants were interviewed, 12 males and 12 females aged between 19 and 32 years. We used a culturally adapted version of The Ethics of Care Interview (ECI). This adapted measure focused on lived experiences of participants resulting in an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) of interview transcripts to explore ethics of care among study participants. The themes that emerged during IPA included the negotiation between norms related to religion and culture, familism, and gender differences. These analyses confirm the link between gender and the ethics of care indicating that women share higher concerns for care, often demonstrating empathy and sacrifice. The results also show that men expect women to care for others and behave in self-sacrificial ways. The intersectional nature of our study shows that culture and not gender may ultimately explain the ethical considerations of men and women. This means that both men and women justified their ethical choices of care because they believed they had a responsibility to do so. This shows that care ethics are more strongly dictated by societal norms of collectivism.