Virtues Of Care Research Articles

HAPPINESS, PLEASURE, INTER-PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP AND CARE: A CONCEPTUAL ANALYSIS

The primary focus in the paper is on analysing the concept of happiness in having a significant connection with inter-personal relationships and with the virtues of care and compassion. In other words, according to the inference made in the paper, happiness co-exists in relating oneself with others by transcending narrow conception of self-centredness and in seeking pleasures/joys beyond parochial contexts. I have combined happiness as a concept that reflects on matters of lived experience, and as a content matter for Philosophy of a well-lived life. The critical argument, put forth in the paper, is that personal happiness gets affirmed and accentuated by living amicably with others. I have also reflected upon the notion of pleasure, as put forth in Philosophical approaches, to highlight on the significant space that amicable relationships, and compassionate conduct and empathy hold in the concept of happiness. It is duly noted that most Philosophies, explicated here, have not explicated pleasure being antithetical to happiness. However, these approaches have reflected on comparing and even contrasting it with the meaning of happiness in the context of leading a life of excellence, acting out of compassion and care, and in being self-aware and having a stable emotional and mental state. This paper concludes by contextualising the analysis of happiness and inter- personal relatedness in the current state of living with pandemic, issues of isolation and social-distancing alongside the twenty first century global and local world-view.

Ethics of Care in Laudato Si’: A Postcolonial Ecofeminist Critique

This article engages with the care ethics of Laudato Si’ through the lens of postcolonial ecofeminism. Laudato Si’ speaks of the family of creation where nature is both a nurturing mother and a vulnerable sister, reflecting patriarchal associations of women with nature, fragility, and the virtue of care. This indirectly undermines the need for men to engage in care/social reproduction work as well as the strengthening of women’s agency. While this kin-centric ecology acknowledges the interdependence of creatures, it maintains the hierarchy of humans over nature and underlines this family’s headship by an all-powerful Father. Laudato Si’s family ecology and God language inadvertently reifies women–nature–care connection and reinforces the logic of male domination. This study recommends exploring gender inclusive images of the Trinity and the family of creation in mutual relations to foster care that promotes both the agency of women and nature.

The disability-rights perspective within the bioethics agenda.

The life perspectives of persons with disabilities have been neglected in many countries and particularly in lower- and middle-income countries that have fewer resources to adequately address the societal needs of these persons. Bioethics purports normative standards for the way in which we treat with others, and the virtue of care should be at the heart of everyday life. Human rights are norms that aspire to protect all persons everywhere. Within this milieu, persons with disabilities who make up a significant portion of all societies worldwide meet many social barriers that inhibit their quality of life and leave them greatly disadvantaged in comparison to able-bodied persons. This article focuses on the notion of quality of life, the presumed perspectives of biomedicine and bioethics on disability, the neglect of the lived experience of persons with disabilities, and the discrimination underlying the struggle for equal rights and opportunities for persons with disability. It argues for equal access to social and beneficial medical interventions for persons with disabilities; that persons with disabilities should be seen as different but equal; that their contributions to societal deliberations would enhance the richness of thought, views, narratives and perspectives; and that society should stop using the term disability and use instead the less value-laden term anomaly. Finally, it recommends educational campaigns to change negative attitudes towards persons with predicaments or anomalies, the respecting of human diversity, collaboration between upper-income and lower- and middle-income countries to develop strategies that seek to change negative attitudes towards persons with anomalies, and the inclusion worldwide of all these matters as a part of a bioethics agenda that advocates for respecting the human rights of persons with anomalies.

The Future of Teaching-learning in Africa: The Quest for Ubuntu Justice in Higher Education

Much of the pedagogical work with which I have been involved over the last three decades in higher education directly concerns my relations with students and vice a versa. More recently (Waghid, 2019), I have given some thought to my pedagogical relations vis-à-vis the virtue of caring in an attempt to make sense of my encounters with students in higher education. This article reflects a closer look at pedagogical encounters between students and myself (as a university educator). In a way, I firstly reflect on my teaching and learning in a university context by making a connection between what it means to engage in pedagogical encounters through the act of caring. Secondly, I show how pedagogical encounters constituted by care could enhance both teacher and student autonomy, before, thirdly, tackling the notion that caring in pedagogical encounters cannot be remiss of deliberative iterations. Finally, I argue why caring pedagogical encounters are inextricably connected to an enactment of play which, in my view, corroborates the future of teaching.

The Virtue of Care

There have been many attempts to define care in terms of the virtues, but meta‐analyses of these attempts are conspicuously absent from the literature. No taxonomies have been offered to situate them within the broader care ethical and virtue theoretical discourses, nor have any substantial discussions of each option's merits and shortcomings. I attempt to fill this lacuna by presenting an analysis of the claim that care is a virtue (what I call the “virtue thesis” about care). I begin by distinguishing weaker and stronger versions of the virtue thesis, arguing that the weaker version is an orthodox view among care ethicists. I then go on to develop a taxonomy of approaches available to care ethicists seeking to flesh out the virtue thesis. The three I identify are analogical approaches, according to which care is analogous to some existing virtue; supplementalist approaches, according to which care is a novel virtue; and cardinalist approaches, according to which care is a cardinal virtue. Following this, I defend the virtue thesis from some foreseeable objections and argue that its most promising version is analogical.

‘Heard melodies are sweet but those unheard are sweeter’: an unfinished response

This brief response to a symposium discusses some of the themes sounded by Oishik Sircar (pathos, minor literatures, and benign neglect), Adil Hasan Khan (Quixotism in international law from the antechambers of history of interregnums) and Debolina Dutta (relatedness as a virtue of care and responsibility in doing legal pedagogy, and social activism).

The Nature and Ethics of Indifference

Indifference is sometimes said to be a virtue. Perhaps more frequently it is said to be a vice. Yet who is indifferent; to what; and in what way is poorly understood, and frequently subject to controversy and confusion. This paper presents a framework for the interpretation and analysis of ethically significant forms of indifference in terms of how subjects of indifference are variously related to their objects in different circumstances; and how an indifferent orientation can be either more or less dynamic, or more or less sensitive to the nature and state of its object. The resulting analysis is located in a wider context of moral psychology and ethical theory; in particular with respect to work on the virtues of care, empathy and other forms of affective engagement. During the course of this discussion, a number of recent claims associated with the ethics of care and empathy are shown to be either misleading or implausible.

Care and phronesis in teaching and coaching: dealing with personality disorder

My aim in this article is to contribute to the discussion about how teachers and coaches come to act in appropriate ways given the complex nature of both practices. I focus on two specific dispositions or qualities from the philosophical literature, namely the virtue of care and the Aristotelian concept of phronesis (or practical wisdom), which have been put forward as possible explanations. I argue that care and phronesis are fundamental qualities for both good teachers and coaches. Talk of care and phronesis in the literature is welcome, but these concepts are themselves complex. Care and phronesis, like other virtues are context-specific, difficult to acquire (or teach) and their particular expression depends on a host of complex factors, not least one's character and personal and professional experience. I illustrate my argument with reference to a former professional football player who exhibited symptoms of personality disorder from an early age and who presented challenges to his teachers and coaches through his disruptive behaviour.

I—Amber D. Carpenter: Ethics of Substance

Aristotle bequeathed to us a powerful metaphysical picture, of substances in which properties inhere. The picture has turned out to be highly problematic in many ways; but it is nevertheless a picture not easy to dislodge. Less obvious are the normative tones implicit in the picture and the way these permeate our system of values, especially when thinking of ourselves and our ambitions, hopes and fears. These have proved, if anything, even harder to dislodge than the metaphysical picture which supports them. This paper first draws out the ethics suggested by a conception of being as individual substances, and finds both inner tensions among these values—expressed in divergent characteristics in the history of philosophy—and a neglect of a significant set of values. Substance metaphysics prefers freedom, independence and autonomy over relational and reciprocal values, which can even be regarded as existentially threatening. A prominent attempt to accommodate both sorts of values without eschewing substantialist metaphysics is briefly considered, before turning to examine an alternative metaphysics and the values it implies. A metaphysics which takes being as becoming, it is argued, supports an ethics centred on relational values, and their associated virtues of care.

Maintaining Connections: Some Thoughts on the Value of Intensive Care Unit Rounding for General Medicine Ward Teams

When established ward patients are unexpectedly transferred to an intensive care unit (ICU), the ward team should continue to follow them. Although there may be reasons not to do so, the advantages outweigh the obstacles. Great pedagogic value can be gained from following patients after acute decompensation, but a more important reason is that by following patients into the ICU, the ward team can enact for both patients and their families the twin virtues of caring and continuity. Doing so also demonstrates the highest ideals of medicine-that we are focused not on defined areas of turf, but on our patient's well-being. It shows that we are not merely doing narrowly defined "shift work," but that we truly care about our patients. Rounding on established patients who have been transferred into the ICU is the sort of behavior that undergirds the fundamental bases of professionalism. It takes a few minutes from a busy day, but it can be incredibly beneficial for families, patients, and the ideals of medicine.

Gandhiand the Virtue of Care

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Gandhi and the Virtue of Care

The film Gandhi expands our understanding of how the virtue of care can function in the public sphere by portraying Gandhi dealing with Indian independence from Britain, the subjugation of women and Untouchables, and strife between Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi illustrates in his social and political activism how the virtue of care is animated by benevolence and structured by the building blocks of the care perspective: responsibility and need, relationship and mutual dependency, context and narrative.

Care As a Virtue for Journalists

The prevailing normative model of contemporary journalism, drawn primarily from a liberal enlightenment tradition emphasizing universal notions of rights, contributes to what many perceive as a crisis in contemporary journalism; at the least, Kantian models are too "thin" to provide an adequate ethical standard. We consider the extent to which an ethic of care, reconceived to address weaknesses identified in recent scholarly critiques, provides journalists with an alternative framework for moral decision making. We use the concept of unequal ethical pull to rework caring and to promote caring for distant others because caring that remains at the personal level is inadequate as a moral value. We conclude by noting that public journalism and our retooled ethic of care share several important ideals. We suggest a program of mutually beneficial exploration, one that might help today's journalists cultivate the virtue of care as they work toward justice.

Knowing (with) Others

Feminist epistemologists and feminist philosophers of science have argued that our efforts to know the world are always situated, accompanied by such things as desires, beliefs, and interests that guide and shape what it is we discover and perhaps even what we can know. If this is the case, how is one to be receptive to that which is outside of the purview of one's current understanding of the world? Some feminists have argued that in order to know more effectively and more broadly we need to make our knowledge communities as diverse as possible so as to insure the greatest possible range of discovery. Others have argued that we need to begin by adopting the perspectives of those marginalized by society. These suggestions of where we ought to begin our inquiry, however, do not adequately guide us in how we ought to proceed. In both cases (beginning with diverse communities or focusing on the experiences of those marginalized), it is critical that we know and understand others as a condition for broadening the range of our sources of knowledge. Knowing others is a crucial yet often neglected epistemological problem. In this paper I begin by examining some problems that can arise with how we understand others. Drawing on the work of Cora Diamond, I suggest some possibilities that may help us with the problems sketched in the first part. Finally I argue that developing the virtue of care is critical if we are to further our possibilities for knowing the world in general.

Acting from the virtue of caring in nursing.

The author challenges the recently argued position of Helga Kuhse that caring is merely a preparatory stage to moral action and that impartial, principled thinking is required to make action moral, by suggesting a notion of caring as virtue. If caring is a virtue then acting from that virtue will be acting well. Acting from the virtue of caring involves eight features, which include not only that of being sensitive to, and concerned about, the patient, but also that of being aware of, and sensitive to, the relevant ethical principles. In this way, caring is seen as an overarching quality that gives action its moral character. The moral character of an action does not derive only from its having been performed in the light of principles.

Moral Education is Not Good Enough Because Education is Not Moral Enough

Abstract For education to be moral enough, its goal is defined not as to help individuals to learn the life ideals of church or state (which means centuries of practice whereby a group of individuals is trying to impose these ideals upon another group) but to create moral individuals‐‐people who are willing and able to treat each other as equals, and who are willing and able to feel compassion towards one another. Consideration is given to lessons from psychotherapy about the potential of autonomous human individual development for programmes of social change, in order for these programmes to be carried out without government and education resorting to imposition of the life ideals presupposed by them. In conclusion recognition is given to a trend of ethical thought, revitalising the moral significance of responsiveness to the reality of other people, grounded in the virtue of care for particular people. Adding the virtues of care and compassion to the virtues of impartiality and fairness offers a much de...

Virtue Ethics, Caring, and Nursing

Virtue ethics is proposed as an alternative method for evaluating nursing practice. Unlike deontological and utilitarian ethical theories, which center on the action and outcome of moral behavior, respectively, virtue ethics focuses on the nature of the agent as the determining factor in analyzing ethical conduct. A historical development of virtue ethics traces its religious roots, its fall from favor by moral philosophers, and the renewed interest in the field.Caring is identified as the central virtue for nursing. Three perspectives on the virtue of caring are presented: virtue as an attribute; virtue as individual actions reflective of the agent’s nature; and virtue as meeting the obligations of role. The implications of each for nursing practice are explored.If nursing is to be considered virtuous, caring must be demonstrated through the care given by nurses. This is a professional commitment toward which nurses must work collectively.