The Creativity in Health and Care Workshops programme was a series of investigative workshops aimed at interrogating the subject of creativity with an over-arching objective of extending the understanding of the problems and possibilities of applying creativity within the health and care sector workforce. Included in the workshops was a concept analysis, which attempted to gain clearer understanding of creativity and innovation within this context. The analysis led to emergent theory regarding the central importance of aesthetics, emotion and (...) empathetic imagination to the generation of creative and innovative outcomes that have the capacity to promote wellbeing in the health and social care workforce. Drawing on expertise in the field, this paper outlines the concept analysis and subsequent reflection. (shrink)

Nicole Hassoun’s sufficientarian theory is based on a particular conception of caring, which she calls ‘care, simpliciter’. However, ‘care, simpliciter’ is not described in any detail. This essay tries to offer a critical revision of Hassoun’s concept of care in a way that would put the MGL theory on its strongest footing. To that end, I will contrast her view with a taxonomy of care that supplements the accounts of care provided by Stephen Darwall and (...) Lori Gruen. I then put forward a form of empathy that is best suited to the MGL theory, which fits the description of ‘care, simpliciter’. **Unpublished manuscript: feel free to cite.**. (shrink)

This Open Access book provides both a broad perspective and a focused examination of cow care as a subject of widespread ethical concern in India, and increasingly in other parts of the world. In the face of what has persisted as a highly charged political issue over cow protection in India, intellectual space must be made to bring the wealth of Indian traditional ethical discourse to bear on the realities of current human-animal relationships, particularly those of humans with cows. (...) Dharma, yoga, and bhakti paradigms serve as starting points for bringing Hindu--particularly Vaishnava Hindu--animal ethics into conversation with contemporary Western animal ethics. The author argues that a culture of bhakti--the inclusive, empathetic practice of spirituality centered in Krishna as the beloved cowherd of Vraja--can complement recently developed ethics-of-care thinking to create a solid basis for sustaining all kinds of cow care communities. (shrink)

Spirituality has been a part of nursing for many centuries and represents an essential value for people, including nurses and patients. Cumulative evidence points to the positive contribution of spiritually on health and wellbeing. However, there is little clarity about what spirituality means. The literature reveals that nurses have ascribed a diversity of interpretations to spirituality. However, no studies have investigated how registered nurses construct their understanding of spirituality using a critical discourse analysis approach. Therefore, the aim of this study (...) was to uncover how registered nurses construct their understanding of spirituality using a critical discourse analysis approach. Twenty registered nurses from a non‐denominational public hospital and a faith‐based private hospital were interviewed about their understanding of spirituality and practice of spiritual care. A critical discourse analysis approach was used in the examination of the interview texts to uncover underlying social and power features. Links were made between the linguistic features the registered nurses used in their interviews and the broader social context of the study. Three discourses emerged from the interview texts. These include constructing spirituality through personal religious beliefs discourse, holistic discourse and empathetic care discourse. The findings of this study have implications for nurse education and policy makers. (shrink)

When feminist philosophers first turned their attention to traditional ethical theory, its almost exclusive emphasis upon justice, rights, abstract rationality, and individual autonomy came under special criticism. Women’s experiences seemed to suggest the need for a focus on care, empathetic relations, and the interdependence of persons.The most influential readings of what has become an extremely lively and fruitful debate are reproduced here along with important new contributions by Alison Jaggar and Sara Ruddick. As this volume testifies, there is (...) no agreement on the important questions about the relationship between justice and care, but the debate has deepened and enriched our understanding in many ways. Justice and Care is a valuable collection of readings—an essential tool for anyone studying the state of feminist thought in particular or ethical theory in general. (shrink)

Medicine is not merely a job that requires technical expertise, but a profession concerned with making the best decisions and recommendations with reference to, and in consultation with, the patient. This means that the skill set required for healthcare professionals in order to provide good care is a combination of scientific knowledge, technical aptitude, and affective qualities or virtues such as compassion and empathy.

Emotions are an integral part of human cognition and they guide not only our understanding of the world but also our actions within it. As such, whether we soothe or flame an emotion is not inconsequential. Recent work in conversational AI has focused on responding empathetically to users, validating and soothing their emotions without a real basis. This AI-aided emotional regulation can have negative consequences for users and society, tending towards a one-noted happiness defined as only the absence of "negative" (...) emotions. We argue that we must carefully consider whether and how to respond to users' emotions. (shrink)

This article suggests that one means for empathetically and imaginatively engaging the intersectional differences of otherness to find commonality while still honoring, recognizing, and celebrating those differences is found in the notion of embodied care—the framing of feminist care ethics in terms of its physical elements. Because embodiment remains a common denominator among humans despite the strength of intersectional differences, the body is an important means of connectivity and thus a basis for at least partial understanding between embodied (...) beings. However, this is a humble commonality born out of responsiveness and listening because the body is also the site of inscribed differences. Authentic care is always responsive and thus respectful of the one cared for. Framing care as performed bodily actions is an effort to capture a corporal basis for morality that has the potential to help us negotiate powerful narratives of socially constructed otherness in order to engage identity-based injustice without silencing the voices and experiences of difference and dissent. Care is described as a performance of the body/self, and how such performances of the body can spark understanding across intersectional differences. The article suggests dramaturgical exercises for developing skills of caring for unfamiliar others. (shrink)

The rapid development of assisted reproduction technologies for the treatment of infertility appears to empower women through expanding their individual choice, but it is also creating new forms of suffering for them and their collaborators, especially in the context of transnational third-party reproduction. This paper explores the possibility of framing the ethical discourse around third-party reproduction by bringing attention to concerns of altruistic empathy for women who collaborate in the reproductive process, in addition to those of individualistic choice. This would (...) entail moving beyond an ethic of liberty that is based on self-interest and the language of rights, to an alternative ethic of care that is based on self-restraint and the language of responsibilities. An ethic of care and responsibility would cultivate the empathetic self-reflection of the autonomous actor in relation to those others who are part of the enterprise of bringing a child into the world. (shrink)

Life comes from physical or biological survival. But the good life comes from what we care about, what we value, what we think truly important, as distinguished from what we think merely trivial. What we care about is the source of the criteria we use to evaluate ideas, ideals, persons, events, things, and their importance in our lives. And it is these criteria that determine the judgments we make in our everyday lives. In the second edition of Thinking (...) in Education, Matthew Lipman has indicated the importance of fostering critical, creative and caring thinking in children, if one is to prepare them to make better judgments and live qualitatively better lives. He tells us that caring thinking is appreciative thinking, active thinking, normative thinking, affective thinking and empathetic thinking and then goes on to list a number of mental acts under each of these categories. Maybe it is because ‘caring thinking’ is not as common a term as ‘critical thinking’ and ‘creative thinking’ in everyday educational language that we stop for pause when we hear it. However when we read what Lipman says about caring thinking, we find ourselves nodding and saying to ourselves, ‘Yes, that makes sense. To think caringly means to think ethically, affectively, normatively, appreciatively and to actively participate in society with a concern for the common good’. In a real sense what we care about is manifest in how we perform, participate, build, contribute and how we relate to others. It is thinking that reveals our ideals as well as what we think is valuable, what we are willing to fight and suffer for. (shrink)

Nurses have traditionally been regarded as clinicians that deliver compassionate, safe, and empathetic health care (Nurses again outpace other professions for honesty & ethics, 2018). Caring is a fundamental characteristic, expectation, and moral obligation of the nursing and caregiving professions (Nursing: Scope and standards of practice, American Nurses Association, Silver Spring, MD, 2015). Along with caring, nurses are expected to undertake ever‐expanding duties and complex tasks. In part because of the growing physical, intellectual and emotional demandingness, of nursing (...) as well as technological advances, artificial intelligence (AI) and AI care robots are rapidly changing the healthcare landscape. As technology becomes more advanced, efficient, and economical, opportunities and pressure to introduce AI into nursing care will only increase. In the first part of the article, we review recent and existing applications of AI in nursing and speculate on future use. Second, situate our project within the recent literature on the ethics of nursing and AI. Third, we explore three dominant theories of caring and the two paradigmatic expressions of caring (touch and presence) and conclude that AI—at least for the foreseeable future—is incapable of caring in the sense central to nursing and caregiving ethics. We conclude that for AI to be implemented ethically, it cannot transgress the core values of nursing, usurp aspects of caring that can only meaningfully be carried out by human beings, and it must support, open, or improve opportunities for nurses to provide the uniquely human aspects of care. (shrink)

In the face of forced migrants’ urgent needs and ongoing human rights violations endured within and across borders, scholars note the ‘dual imperative’ (Jacobsen and Landau 2003) of documenting these realities while also responding through humanitarian advocacy and/or political activism. This article documents one such experience, that is, an action research process that began with the first author’s accompaniment of Central American asylum-seeking mothers and children in Boston and included witnessing to and documenting these mothers’ narratives in a context of (...) systemic injustice, while contributing to the creation of a humanitarian grassroots network. The latter supported migrants’ needs while advocating for their right to asylum. Reflecting on these experiences, we explore how research that creates knowledge while acting in the world, demands what we herein describe as feminist activist scholarship grounded in dialogic relationality and compassionate care. The latter moves beyond empathetically feeling for or documenting the suffering of others, towards mutual accompaniment to engage in concrete actions to alleviate that suffering. The dialogic relationships of care in which scholars accompany and act with those at the margins have the potential to transform conventional, post-positivist knowledge production strategies from distancing or objectifying processes towards mutual accompaniment and activist scholarship. (shrink)

BackgroundThe academic and medical literature highlights the positive effects of empathy for patient care. Yet, very little attention has been given to the impact of the requirement for empathy on the physicians themselves and on their emotional wellbeing.DiscussionThe medical profession requires doctors to be both clinically competent and empathetic towards the patients. In practice, accommodating both requirements can be difficult for physicians. The image of the technically skilful, rational, and emotionally detached doctor dominates the profession, and inhibits physicians (...) from engaging emotionally with their patients and their own feelings, which forms the basis for empathy. This inhibition has a negative impact not only on the patients but also on the physicians. The expression of emotions in medical practice is perceived as unprofessional and many doctors learn to supress and ignore their feelings. When facing stressful situations, these physicians are more likely to suffer from depression and burnout than those who engage with and reflect on their feelings. Physicians should be supported in their emotional work, which will help them develop empathy. Methods could include questionnaires that aid self-reflection, and discussion groups with peers and supervisors on emotional experiences. Yet, in order for these methods to work, the negative image associated with the expression of emotions should be questioned. Also, the work conditions of physicians should improve to allow them to make use of these tools.SummaryEmpathy should not only be expected from doctors but should be actively promoted, assisted and cultivated in the medical profession. (shrink)

Background Intensive and critical care nurses need to demonstrate ethical sensitivity especially in recognizing and dealing with ethical dilemmas particularly as they often care for patients living with life-threatening conditions. Theories suggest that there is a convergence between nurses’ empathy and ethical sensitivity. Evidence in the literature indicates that nurses’ emotional, demographic, and work characteristics are associated with their level of empathy and ethical sensitivity. Aim To investigate the relationship between nurses’ empathy and ethical sensitivity, considering their emotional (...) states (depression, anxiety, and stress), demographic and work characteristics, and test an empirical model describing potential predictors of empathy (as a mediator) and ethical sensitivity using path analysis. Research design Using a cross-sectional design, the philosophical theory of care ethics and empathy was extended and adopted as a conceptual framework for this study and tested by path analysis. Participants and research context: Data were collected from 347 intensive care nurses recruited by ten educational-medical hospitals in Iran using a questionnaire between February and March 2021. Ethical considerations The study was reviewed by the Ethical Advisory Board in Iran and conducted according to the Declaration of Helsinki. Findings Study participants demonstrated a mild level of stress, anxiety, and depression, alongside a relatively high level of empathy and ethical sensitivity. Nurses with good socioeconomic status had higher empathetic behavior with patients than those with weak status. Nurses aged over 40 who had received ethics training and had higher work experience were associated with higher ethical sensitivity compared to nurses under 20 years of age. Empathy directly affected ethical sensitivity; however, anxiety had an indirect effect on ethical sensitivity through empathy. Among demographic factors, age had a positive direct effect on ethical sensitivity. Conclusions Less anxiety and a high level of empathy contribute to higher levels of ethical sensitivity among intensive and critical care nurses. (shrink)

Objectives Medical futility at the end of life is a growing challenge to medicine. The goals of the authors were to elucidate how clinicians define futility, when they perceive life-sustaining treatment (LST) to be futile, how they communicate this situation and why LST is sometimes continued despite being recognised as futile. Methods The authors reviewed ethics case consultation protocols and conducted semi-structured interviews with 18 physicians and 11 nurses from adult intensive and palliative care units at a tertiary hospital (...) in Germany. The transcripts were subjected to qualitative content analysis. Results Futility was identified in the majority of case consultations. Interviewees associated futility with the failure to achieve goals of care that offer a benefit to the patient's quality of life and are proportionate to the risks, harms and costs. Prototypic examples mentioned are situations of irreversible dependence on LST, advanced metastatic malignancies and extensive brain injury. Participants agreed that futility should be assessed by physicians after consultation with the care team. Intensivists favoured an indirect and stepwise disclosure of the prognosis. Palliative care clinicians focused on a candid and empathetic information strategy. The reasons for continuing futile LST are primarily emotional, such as guilt, grief, fear of legal consequences and concerns about the family's reaction. Other obstacles are organisational routines, insufficient legal and palliative knowledge and treatment requests by patients or families. Conclusion Managing futility could be improved by communication training, knowledge transfer, organisational improvements and emotional and ethical support systems. The authors propose an algorithm for end-of-life decision making focusing on goals of treatment. (shrink)

This book makes the case for the news media to take the lead in combatting key threats to American society including racial injustice, economic disparity, and climate change by adopting an "ethics of care" in reporting practices. Examining how traditional news coverage of race, economics and climate change has been dedicated to straightforward facts, the author asserts that journalism should now respond to societal needs by adopting a moral philosophy of the "ethics of care," opening the door to (...) empathetic yet factual and fair coverage of news events, with a goal to move public opinion to the point that politicians are persuaded to take effective action. The book charts a clear path for how this style of ethics can be applied by today's journalists, tracing the emergence of this empathy-based ethics from feminist philosophy in the 1980s. It ultimately urges ethical news organizations to adopt the ethics of care, based on the human emotion prioritized by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume, and to pursue a more pro-active, solutions-seeking coverage of current events. This is an invaluable text for students and academics in the fields of journalism ethics, media ethics and media law, as well as for media professionals looking for a fresh perspective on practicing ethical journalism. (shrink)

Introduction: Empathy is a complex human experience that involves the subjective intersection of different individuals. In the context of nursing care in the geriatric setting, the benefits of empathetic relationships are directly related to the quality of the practice of nursing. Objective: Analyze scientific production on the benefits of empathy in the nurse–patient relationship in the geriatric care setting. Methods: An integrative review of the literature was performed using the PubMed, Cochrane, CINAHL, Scopus, PsycINFO, and Web of (...) Science databases. The articles retrieved were organized, evaluated, and classified based on the level of scientific evidence. Results: Relationships of empathy between nurses and older people were analyzed in quasi-experimental studies using different assessment tools, the majority of which had moderate levels of validity and reliability. Studies with a qualitative approach discussed the meaning of empathy in terms of the quality of care offered, compassion, and vulnerability. Discussion: Levels of empathy increase when activities are developed with the aim of teaching, sensitization, and training for relational care between nursing staff and older people. The analysis of empathetic relationships is important to the evaluation of the quality of care provided to older people. Conclusion: Empathy in the nurse–patient relationship in the geriatric care setting is an important ethical aspect that contributes to the quality of the practice of nursing. The present findings indicate the need for more robust assessment tools with adequate psychometric properties and the descriptive analysis of empathy. (shrink)

In this article, we explore the organization of assistance in multilingual interaction in Swedish residential care. The data that form the basis for the study cover care encounters involving three residents with a language background other than Swedish, totalling 13 hours and 14 minutes of video documentation. The empirical data consists of a collection of 134 instances where residents seek assistance with the realization of a practical action. For this article, three examples that involve the manipulation of an (...) object have been selected for analysis. We use the concept of ‘recruitment’ to encompass the various methods by which assistance is sought in the care encounter. In the first example, the need for assistance concerns the transfer of an object that is recognizable and physically available for both participants. This, in combination with the resident’s gestural work that pinpoints the description of the action, facilitates its realization. In the second and third examples, the realization of the action becomes more difficult because the object involved is not recognizable for the caregiver. The article highlights the collaborative ways in which residents manage to support their talk through bodily practices, and the strong and empathetic engagement with which caregivers become involved in interpreting the meaning of these practices. Finally, we discuss the implications of our findings for care provision in multilingual circumstances. (shrink)

Few sectors are more ethically contentious than dairy, with debates tending to be polarised between “intensification” and “abolitionist” narratives which often drown out alternative voices operating in-between. This paper examines the marginal spaces occupied by a group of farmers in the United Kingdom who are attempting to move towards what they see as “more ethical” dairying. Drawing on findings from ethnographic research on five farms which have adopted “cow-calf contact rearing”—which focuses on keeping calves with their mothers longer, in opposition (...) to conventional practices of removing them shortly after birth—it asks what values underpin this alternative approach, and how and why “ethical” dairies seek to dairy ethically. To do this, it draws on a feminist epistemology and methodology that sees ethics as situated and contextual, and finds an “ethics of care” to be central to changing entanglements between humans and nonhuman animals. Instead of casting dairy as either “good” or “bad”, it explores the activities of farms which are trying to move towards what they perceive to be “better”, and draws three conclusions: (a) “ethical” dairying demonstrates a heterogeneity of dairy practices which are grounded in “care” and are happening between narrative extremes of intensification versus abolition; (b) although this practice may be, and could be, commodified, farmers are primarily guided by strong ideological principles and influenced by affective and empathetic “entanglements” with cows and calves, the agency of bovines themselves, and their social and ecological environment; and (c) “cow-calf contact rearing” represents a significant shift from a focus on the broader welfare environment towards centring the quality of individual cows’ lives. Ultimately, the paper argues that we should pay greater attention to alternative economies built on an “ethics of care” when envisaging new sustainable food and agricultural systems. (shrink)

En el presente artículo investigamos acerca de las reflexiones del filósofo judío Baruch de Spinoza en torno a la noción de mal (de enorme peso tanto para la religión como para el ámbito político). Nos focalizamos, por una parte, en el singular intercambio epistolar que mantiene con Guillermo de Blyenbergh, quien plantea el tema de manera específica, dando lugar a una disputa que exige a Spinoza dar cuenta de las consecuencias éticas de su ontología. Y, por otra parte, profundizamos en (...) la sistematización de sus planteamientos sobre la cuestión a través de un análisis de la Ética. Con este texto, en primer lugar, ahondamos en la filosofía de un autor de gran influencia para la tarea filosófica actual; en segundo lugar, demostramos cómo el problema del mal y su resolución resultan un foco neurálgico que articula las tesis más importantes de la ontología absoluta; en tercer lugar, analizamos cómo la pregunta por mal patentiza el abandono, por parte del filósofo, de una lógica de la sustancia por una lógica de las relaciones modales; y, por último, explicitamos el criterio ético objetivo de la ética spinozista. (shrink)

The article is a critical discussion of "contractualism" in moral and political philosophy as developed by john rawls and applied by w. G. Runciman. It attempts to clarify the sense in which contractualism is a moral theory and to assess its powers as a normative account of moral criticism. It argues that the structure of contractualism suggests an attractive way of formulating rival moral theories but not a way of arguing for any moral theory, That this reduces the force of (...) a contractualist critique of utilitarianism, And that contractualism is incomplete as a normative account of moral criticism. (shrink)

A motivation problem may arise when morally principled public policy calls for serious sacrifice, relative to ways of life and levels of well-being, on the part of the meInbers of a free society. Apart from legal or other forms of “external” coercion, what will, could, or should move people to make the sacrifices required by morality? I explore the motivation problem in the context of morally principled public policyconcerning our legacy for future generations. In this context the problem raises special (...) moral-psychological difficulties. My inquiry suggests pessimism regarding our ability to solve the motivation problem relative to what morality requires on behalf of future generations. (shrink)

Partant du constat d’une certaine confusion régnant dans les études sur le néolibéralisme, cette étude entend apporter des éléments de clarification quant au sens et à l’histoire de la doctrine. Pour ce faire, elle s’efforce tout d’abord de dresser une typologie originale des diverses tendances (ordolibérale, néoclassique, autrichienne et française), puis essaie d’éclairer, à la lueur de cette cartographie, les différentes mutations du mouvement jusqu’à aujourd’hui.