Essay - An Ethics of Care

Still reading for my essay, but I have had a good study day today and I now have an introduction and an outline of each of the paragraphs (more or less). We also went to Annie's for tea, so I made food and had some social time too.

I am reading Dahlberg and Moss "Ethics and Politics in Early Childhood Education" (I think it's called). Reading about an 'ethics of care', which seems to be part of what I'm getting at for my essay.

Traditional, or universalistic, ethics are based on a rational idea of right and wrong, and the idea that if an action is 'right' for one person to do in a particular situation, then it will be 'right' for anybody else to do in the same sort of situation. It has as an ideal being not emotionally involved, but being dispassionate. Of keeping the situation at arm's length. It is rule based.

In contrast, an ethics of care has been written about by feminist theorists, but is not conceptualised as a 'woman's ethics', but as an approach available to both genders (and children, of course). The ethics of care comes at situations in relational terms and based on concrete and individual situations. What is best to do with these particular people in this particular situation at this time. (This is from memory.) It is not universalistic, as the 'right' thing may be different depending on the actor. It weights up the actor's responsibilities to the various people in the situation (this will include self).

There are two other types of ethics discussed by these authors in this chapter, but tomorrow will do. The point for my purposes is that helping children to think about the 'other' in concrete situations is probably more suitable for their learning, and basing caring actions on values such as 'kindness', rather than a set of abstract rules, resonates better with me. Although, there are rules which have served us well as proxies for moral development. For example "you can't mess up someone else's work/play".