In July 1993, the Scottish Highlands Centre for Human Caring sponsored a conference with the title Exploring the Spirituality in Caring. The papers given at the conference and included in this volume are offered as a contribution to the debate that must take place in nursing and in the wider context of health care provision. Ann Bradshaw's paper puts the debate in context arguing that nursing is fundamentally a loving response to the human being created in the image of God.

In this essay, I reflect on the way that the COVID-19 pandemic deepens the care crisis and the radical, democratic transformation this turning point demands. Beginning with an assessment of the status of the free-riding on care and the gender division of labor, I continue with an analysis of the hegemonic justifications that, as Wendy Brown has shown, underpin such unbalance. I conclude with some remarks on the imminent challenge to advance towards a model of state, society and citizenship capable (...) of securing a sustained and co-responsible social compromise with the care of the community. (shrink)

The use of coercive measures in the care for the addicted has changed over the past 20 years. Laws that have adopted the “dangerousness” criterion in order to secure patients’ rights to non-intervention are increasingly subjected to critique as many authors plead for wider dangerousness criteria. One of the most salient moral issues at stake is whether addicts who are at risk of causing danger to themselves should be involuntarily admitted and/or treated. In this article, it is argued that the (...) dilemma between coercion on the one hand and abandonment on the other cannot be analysed without differentiated perspectives on the key notions that are used in these debates. The ambiguity these notions carry within care practice indicates that the conflict between the prevention of danger and respect for autonomy is not as sharp as the legal systems seem to imply. Some coercive measures need not be interpreted as an infringement of autonomy—rather, they should be interpreted as a way to provide good care. (shrink)

The contemporary emphasis on vulnerability and interdependence stresses the ethical necessity of a critical care concept to undermine the individualistic paradigm of autonomy and the modern understanding of well-being regarding individual self-achievement and world mastery. This paper analyzes how the philosophical investigation of vulnerability has led to an existential, social, and ethical reflection that brought to light a fundamental interdependence among living beings. This chapter examines the nature of this interdependence and the type of relations involved in these dynamics. The (...) author argues that caring for the living involves a holistic approach of the human being that considers not only the plurality of her interpersonal relations but also her relation to the environment and her relation to her ‘self’ as a person with rights and responsibility. Moreover, speaking of interdependence also implies examining the philosophical understanding of our modern concepts of nature and culture along the lines of a philosophical critique of the immunity paradigm and cultural biology anew. Drawing on phenomenological ethics, this chapter shows that the concept of responsibility that stems from this renewed understanding of interdependence implies an ethics based on responsiveness and responsibility that articulates the dignity of human beings as persons with the care for the living they demonstrate in the ‘forms of life’ they inhabit with others. It bears consequences for contemporary issues in bioethics, such as caring for vulnerable people or determining the moral standing of our relations. (shrink)

McNamara, Laurence J Person-centred care is the mantra of contemporary health and aged care. Delivering such care effectively is an enormous challenge. Much effort goes into the basics of care delivery. In an era of limited resources and financial constraints the temptation arises for aged care in particular to ignore some of the non-measurable dimensions of care. This paper puts forward a range of issues that merit greater attention as we reflect on the realities of human ageing in Australia today. (...) If taken seriously, I suggest, they will contribute to the delivery and quality of person-centred care. (shrink)

The essay aims to demonstrate that participatory ecological art focused on plant-ing, sowing, and cultivation serves as a means to promote a culture of environ-mental care. After exploring several artistic projects involving community engage-ment in landscape stewardship, the essay focuses on the debate concerning ges-ture and behavioral patterns. Finally, by examining artist Egle Oddo’s Performative Habitats project, it seeks to understand how art can influence the formation of new habits through both increased environmental awareness and repeated action, employing key theoretical (...) frameworks of Everyday Aesthetics. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In order to get out of present day discussions between determinism and free will, creationism and evolution, bios and zoē, human existence and biological life – those dead end binaries of our present day thinking into which we have manoeuvred ourselves – we need to revisit the Ancient discussions relating to the care of the soul and human existence. I will draw together these two themes from Jan Patočka’s writings by anchor-ing them in his account of Socrates who was the (...) first to emphasise the idea of human re-sponsibility not only for thinking but also for human acting in the world. I will argue that the significant common feature – the care for our own being, our existence – brings Patočka’s reflections on the care for the soul and care for our human existence together. While, according to Patočka, the notion of the care for the soul was displaced from the philosophical reflection by the modern scientific venture, the idea of human existence is, although problematic from the scientific point of view, still a part of our experience.Para librarnos de discusiones contemporáneas entre determinismo y libre albedrío, creacionismo y evolución, bios y zoē, existencia humana y vida biológica, estos binomios, callejones de salida del pensamiento de hoy en los que nos hemos metido, tenemos que volver a escuchar las discusiones de la Antigüedad sobre el cuidado del alma y la existencia humana. Voy a recuperar estos dos temas de escritos de Jan Patočka, anclándolos en su interpretación de Sócrates, el primero en poner énfasis en la idea de responsabilidad humana no solo de su pensamiento sino también de su actuar en el mundo. Argumentaré que el significativo rasgo común, esto es, el cuidado por nuestro propio ser, nuestra existencia, es lo que une las reflexiones de Patočka sobre el cuidado del alma y el cuidado de la exitencia humana. Mientras que, según Patočka, la noción del cuidado del alma ha sido desplazada de la reflexión filosófica por la empresa científica moderna, la idea de la existencia humana, a pesar de lo problemático que puede resultar desde un punto de vista científi-co, todavía forma parte de nuestra experiencia. (shrink)

According to Giorgio Agamben, the messianic thinking of Saint Paul opens a new way of understanding our human existence. Paul’s ho nyn kairos or ‘the time of the now’ is a specific experience of time in which new possibilities of conceiving human lifeare unfolded. Agamben furthermore argues that we should not interpret the Pauline letters as testimonies of the past, but rather as texts that point to a radical contemporary experience. In this article, this radical actualisation of the Pauline heritage (...) is analyzed. It is argued that Agamben infuses Pauline thinking in his own understanding of contemporary political life. By applying a methodology of displacement to both the contemporary experience of human political life and the past messianic experience of Pauline community, a new interpretation of the human form of life is introduced by Agamben. This new form of life testifies of a non-representable human residue beyond every possible political representational act. This human residue is according to Agamben the true ‘subject’ of a new political ethos. In his philosophical thinking, Paul’s ‘time of the now’ thereby becomes a messianic possibility of our own ‘present’ or our own current historical moment. (shrink)

이 논문은 나딩스의 배려 윤리에서 배려 받는 자가 누구이며 배려 관계에서 어떤 역할 을 하는지의 물음에 집중한다. 통상적으로 배려는 여성적 인 개념으로서 여성적 관점의 윤리를 일컫는 것이라고 이해되고 있다. 그러나 논자는 나딩스가 배려 받는 자를 강조함으 로써 단지 여성적 입장을 대변하는 윤리가 아니라 타자 전체를 책임지는 관계로서 배려 윤 리의 새로운 지평이 열린다고 본다. 말하자면 캐롤 길리건이 여성의 다른 목소리 를 통해 배려 윤리를 이해했다면, 나딩스는 배려 받는 자의 중요성을 보여 줌으로써 타자와 그 타 자에 응답하는 자로서 주체라는 보다 분명한 (...) 타자와 주체 간의 관계를 보여 준다. 나딩스 의 배려 윤리에서 배려 받는 자의 역할의 중요성에 대한 논의는 더 나아가 또 다른 타자들 에 대한 책임의 확대 문제를 불러일으킨다. 따라서 논자는 이를 바탕으로 배려가 친밀한 관계로부터 낯선 타자에 이르기까지 어떻게 확장될 수 있는지를 보여주고 그것이 결국 주 체인 나의 책임을 강조하고 있음을 보여주고자 한다. 이런 논의를 위해 우선 논자는 메이어옵과 길리건 그리고 나딩스에 이르기까지 이들의 논의에서 배려가 단순히 여성적 관점만을 지칭하는 것이 아니라는 점을 보여줄 것이다. 이어서 나딩스의 배려 윤리에서 배려 받는 자가 배려 관계를 완수하는 지표로서 중요한 역 할을 담당하고 있음을 이해하면서 배려 받는 자의 의미를 이해하게 될 것이다. 마지막으로 친밀함이라는 관계 속에서 이루어지는 배려 관계가 낯선 자, 즉 제삼자에 이르기까지 원과 사슬이라는 관계를 통해 배려에 대한 책임이 확장될 수 있다는 것을 이해하게 될 것이다. 이런 논의 속에서 논자는 배려 받는 자를 위한 자로서, 즉 그런 배려 받는 자와 관계하는 혹은 부름에 답하는 유일한 자로서 주체의 정체성에 대해 다시 한 번 확인하게 될 것이다. (shrink)

Health care organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve quality of care and one of the often-posed solutions to deliver ‘good care’ is reflexivity. Several authors stress that enhancing the organizations’ and caregivers’ reflexivity allows for more situated, and therefore better care. Within quality improvement initiatives, devices that guarantee quality are also seen as key to the delivery of good care. These devices do not solely aim at standardizing work practices, but are also of importance in facilitating reflexivity. In this (...) article, we study how quality improvement devices position the relationship between situated reflection and standardization of work processes. By exploring the work of Michel Callon, Michael Lynch, and Lucy Suchman on reflexivity in work practices, we study the development and introduction of the Care Living Plan. This device aimed to transform care organizations of older people from their orientation towards the system of care into organizations that take a client-centred approach. Our analysis of the construction of specific forms of reflexivity in quality devices indicates that the question of reflexivity does not need to be opposed to standardization and needs to be addressed not only at the level of where reflexivity is organizationally situated and who gets to do the reflecting, but also on the content of reflexivity, such as what are the issues that care workers can and cannot reflect upon. In this paper we point out the theoretical importance of a more detailed empirical study of the framing of reflexivity in care practices. (shrink)

Researchers and others involved in the research enterprise from 12 African countries met with those working in ethics and oversight in the United States as part of an effort to develop research ethics capacity. Drawing on a wealth of experience among participants, discussions at the meeting revealed five categories of issues that warrant careful attention by those engaged in similar efforts as well as international policymakers and those charged with oversight of research. (1) Principal investigators should build ‘true research teams’ (...) where members of the team are meaningfully involved in decisions regarding the protocol and its implementation. (2)There should be explicit discussion about the ‘standard of care’ at the outset of project planning that includes clarification of the terminology that is being used. (3) While internationally collaborative research may involve populations that have inherent vulnerabilities, it is important to recognize the limitations of host country solutions (such as elaborated consent processes) and look for means to negotiate appropriate protections for those willing to participate. (4) In conducting research involving biological materials it would be prudent to develop material transfer agreements at the outset of the study to clarify expectations and to minimize the likelihood of harm. (5) Those engaged in internationally collaborative research need to be alert to the potential conflicts of interests of host country ethics committees during the approval process and to take measures to manage them if they indeed exist. (shrink)

Health care organizations are constantly seeking ways to improve quality of care and one of the often-posed solutions to deliver ‘good care’ is reflexivity. Several authors stress that enhancing the organizations’ and caregivers’ reflexivity allows for more situated, and therefore better care. Within quality improvement initiatives, devices that guarantee quality are also seen as key to the delivery of good care. These devices do not solely aim at standardizing work practices, but are also of importance in facilitating reflexivity. In this (...) article, we study how quality improvement devices position the relationship between situated reflection and standardization of work processes. By exploring the work of Michel Callon, Michael Lynch, and Lucy Suchman on reflexivity in work practices, we study the development and introduction of the Care Living Plan. This device aimed to transform care organizations of older people from their orientation towards the system of care into organizations that take a client-centred approach. Our analysis of the construction of specific forms of reflexivity in quality devices indicates that the question of reflexivity does not need to be opposed to standardization and needs to be addressed not only at the level of where reflexivity is organizationally situated and who gets to do the reflecting, but also on the content of reflexivity, such as what are the issues that care workers can and cannot reflect upon. In this paper we point out the theoretical importance of a more detailed empirical study of the framing of reflexivity in care practices. (shrink)

Effectiveness, efficiency and equity in health care are discussed in this article against the background of concerns that cost containment may lead to reductions in quality of care. It is suggested that effectiveness is best seen from the patient's point of view and that it relates to more than simply improved health status. Efficiency and equity are better viewed from a societal stance.The paper discusses the role of the medical profession in effectiveness, efficiency and equity and argues that the role (...) of medical doctors needs to be constrained. (shrink)

Stimulated by our conversations at the 2018 International Philosophy of Nursing Society Conference and our shared interests, the coauthors present an argument for augmenting the broader discussion of “missed care” with our synthesized concept called structural missingness. We take the problem of missed care to be largely grounded on a particular economic construction of the healthcare system within an era of what some are calling the Capitalocene, capturing the pervasive influence of capitalism on nature, humanity and the world order. Our (...) perspective is that of the United States, however, extrapolations can be made to the social and healthcare systems in other countries. We are concerned with the underlying conditions that structurally reify inequality and ultimately undermine nursing practice. To situate the discussion, we briefly review existing literature on the contextualization of missed care. We understand contemporary circumstances of missed care as a function of the neoliberalization of healthcare, including the idea of nursing as a commodity. From this, we discuss the implications of missed care, which forms the basis of our critique. Synthesizing the term “structural missingness, we locate a moral imperative in the professional and disciplinary commitments of nursing to consider who and what have been left out. This moral imperative for the nursing profession, along with other social and health related professions, underscores our obligation to be involved in uncovering inequities and conceptualizing upstream solutions for structural missingness. (shrink)

Re-Imagining Ecological Democracy offers an original, thought-provoking, and engaging treatment of why and how democracy should be re-imagined in reaction to today's ecological crisis. The book explains that one need to re-imagine both the view on nature and democratic ideals within the same framework in the Anthropocene, the present geological epoch of human-made instability in the Earth system and its planetary boundaries. This book proposes unique and challenging readings of green political theory and its development of ecological democracy in the (...) last four decades. The book is the first to offer a systematic and detailed interpretation of the role of critical theory vis-à-vis green political theory through an update regarding current non-anthropocentric critical theorists and how they may contribute to the further development of ecological democracy. Re-Imagining Ecological Democracy builds further on deep ecology, ecophenomenology, and animism by articulating an ecocentric view on nature which defends an intrinsic moral value of all existence as well as formulating the democratic principle of all ecologically affected parties. This book provides a sophisticated, convincing, and accessible argument for how to re-imagine ecological democracy as ecocentrism in practice: ecological love. To love ecologically means caring for and encountering all existence on the Earth and in the cosmos. This book is multi-disciplinary and will be of great value to researchers as well as undergraduate and postgraduate students from many disciplines. (shrink)

The current Ebola virus epidemic in Western Africa appears to be spiraling out of control. The worst-case projections suggested that the unchecked spread could result in almost 1.4 million cases by the end of January 2015 with a case fatality rate of at least 50%. The United States and European nations have begun to respond in earnest with promises of supplies, isolation beds, and trained health care personnel in an effort to contain the epidemic and care for the sick. However, (...) there is neither a vaccine nor specific treatment for Ebola infection, and therapy is ideally centered on supportive care. I have previously argued that the provision of palliative care is obligatory during an overwhelming health catastrophe, notably pandemic influenza. Since affected Ebola patients have best outcomes with technologically advanced intensive care—resources in scarce supply in the area—I suggest that the only acceptable approach to large numbers of very sick, dying, and suffering Ebola patients who overwhelm the reso.. (shrink)

The degree of success in creating quality care for people suffering from dementia is limited despite extensive research. This article describes Healthcare providers’ experience with the ethical challenges and possibilities in the relationship with patients suffering from dementia and its impact on quality care. The material is based on qualitative, in-depth individual narrative interviews with 12 professional Healthcare providers from two different nursing homes. The transcribed interview texts were subjected to a phenomenological–hermeneutical interpretation. To provide quality care to patients with (...) dementia, the Healthcare providers emphasized the importance of sensing and understanding the patients’ emotional and bodily expressions through sentient attentiveness and recognition of the patient as a person. They also described reciprocity of expressions in the relationship where the patient recognized them both as persons and Healthcare providers. The analyses of the findings are, inter alia, discussed in light of Løgstrup’s relational philosophy of ethics. (shrink)

The drive for cost-effective use of medical interventions has advantages, but can also be challenging in the context of end-of-life palliative treatments. A quality-adjusted life-year (QALY) provides a common currency to assess the extent of the benefits gained from a variety of interventions in terms of health-related quality of life and survival for the patient. However, since it is in the nature of end-of-life palliative care that the benefits it brings to its patients are of short duration, it fares poorly (...) under a policy of QALY-maximization. Nevertheless, we argue that the goals of palliative care and QALY are not incompatible, and optimal integration of palliative care into the calculation of QALY may reveal a mechanism to modify considerations of how optimal quality of life can be achieved, even in the face of terminal illness. The use of QALYs in resource allocation means that palliative care will always compete with alternative uses of the same money. More research should be conducted to evaluate choices between palliative care and more aggressive therapies for the terminally ill. However, current limited data show that investing in palliative care makes more sense not only ethically, but also financially. (shrink)

Donation after cardiac death (DCD) is associated with many problems, including ischemic injury, high rates of delayed allograft function, and frequent organ discard. Furthermore, many potential DCD donors fail to progress to asystole in a manner that would enable safe organ transplantation and no organs are recovered. DCD protocols are based upon the principle that the donor must be declared dead prior to organ recovery. A new protocol is proposed whereby after a donor family agrees to withdrawal of life-sustaining treatments, (...) premortem nephrectomy is performed in advance of end-of-life management. Since nephrectomy should not cause the donor's death, this approach satisfies the dead donor rule. The donor family's wishes are best met by organ donation, successful outcomes for the recipients, and a dignified death for the deceased. This proposal improves the likelihood of achieving these objectives. (shrink)

The analysis of data from electronic health records aspires to facilitate healthcare efficiencies and biomedical innovation. There are also ethical, legal and social implications from the handling of sensitive patient information. The paper explores the concerns, expectations and implications of the National Health Service England care.data programme: a national data sharing initiative of linked electronic health records for healthcare and other research purposes. Using Nissenbaum’s contextual integrity of privacy framework through a critical Science and Technology Studies lens, it examines the (...) way technologies and policies are developed to promote sustainability, governance and economic growth as the de facto social values, while reducing privacy to an individualistic preference. The state, acting as a new, central data broker reappropriates public ownership rights and establishes those information flows and transmission principles that facilitate the assetisation of NHS datasets for the knowledge economy. Various actors and processes from other contexts attempt to erode the public healthcare sector and privilege new information recipients. However, such data sharing initiatives in healthcare will be resisted if we continue to focus only on the monetary and scientific values of these datasets and keep ignoring their equally important social and ethical values. (shrink)

The care of terminally ill patients can be physically, emotionally as well as psychologically exhausting. In the era where everyone is busy with his or her hectic daily schedule, caring for someone diagnosed with HIV on her or his deathbed can be a daunting challenge. Caring for someone dying of AIDS does not only challenge the physical being but rather leaves the carer emotionally drained. What was of concern to the author was to see the struggle that the caregiver goes (...) through whilst caring for the sufferer. More often than not, pastoral care and counselling concentrate mainly on the pain and the suffering of the sick person. In the process, pastoral care loses sight of the agony, the emotional strain and, above all, the trauma of the caregivers in their search for answers as they care for the infected. This scenario has prompted the author to look into the theology of caring with an emphasis on pastoral care of the carers with a view of alleviating their emotional burden in caring for the HIV patients. (shrink)

Many environmentalists believe that religion has been a major contributor to our ecological crisis, for Judeo-Christians have been taught that they have dominion over the earth and so do not consider themselves part of a biotic community. In this book a philosopher of environmental ethics acknowledges that religion may contribute to environmental problems but argues that religion can also play an important role in solving these problems―that religion can provide an ethical context that will help people to become sensitive to (...) the environment and to elect leaders who are genuinely responsive to the ecological crisis. Examining a broad range of Western religious traditions―from conservative Christianity and orthodox Judaism to Goddess feminism and nature religion―Max Oelschlaeger provides a sociolinguistic analysis of their creation stories and finds environmentally positive aspects in each of them. He asserts that religious discourse in the public arena can offer a way for such environmental issues as biodiversity, pollution, and population to be addressed outside the realm of special-interest politics. And he urges local churches to make "caring for creation" a theme for worship in their services; the majority of Americans, says Oelschlaeger, will discover an environmental ethic only through their religious faith. (shrink)

Ethics consultation in institutions of the healthcare system has been given a standard form based on three pillars: education, the development of guidelines and concrete ethics consultation in case conferences. The spread of ethics committees, which perform these tasks on an organizational level, is a remarkable historic achievement. At the same time it cannot be denied that modern ethics consultation neglects relevant aspects of care ethics approaches. In our essay we present an “ethics of care” approach as well as an (...) empirical pilot project—“Ethics from the bottom up”—which organizes ethics consultation based on this focus. Findings and philosophy of the project will be discussed as far as relevant for ethics consultation in the healthcare system. (shrink)

Over the past 20 years, there has been a shift in history education away from a view of history as the pursuit of an objective, universal story about the past toward ‘historical consciousness,’ which seeks to cultivate an understanding of the past as something that makes moral demands on us here and now. According to Roger Simon, historical consciousness calls us to ‘live historically’ – to live in a particular kind of ethical relationship with the past. However, no matter how (...) much educators might believe in the importance of learning to live historically, if students do not see it that way, even the most thoughtfully designed program in history education will never get off the ground. This paper is an attempt to see whether the notion of ‘caring for the past,’ based on Nel Noddings' ethic of care, might help us begin to address the problem of moral motivation in educating for historical consciousness. (shrink)

Froom and Froom all attention to referral bias as a frequent cause for misinterpreting the medical literature. This is particularly a source of false certainty, and therefore false science, in U.S. practice, where referral centers are often seen as the only legitimate source of medical knowledge and where primary care is discounted as a source of scientific observations. Appreciation of the primary care setting is therefore a critical element in theoretical understanding of medical epistemology.

Two potentially lifesaving protocols, emergency preservation and resuscitation and uncontrolled donation after circulatory determination of death, currently implemented in some U.S. emergency departments, have similar eligibility criteria and initial technical procedures, but critically different goals. Both follow unsuccessful cardiopulmonary resuscitation and induce hypothermia to “buy time”: one in trauma patients suffering cardiac arrest, to enable surgical repair, and the other in patients who unexpectedly die in the ED, to enable organ donation. This article argues that to fulfill patient-focused fiduciary obligations (...) and maintain community trust, institutions implementing both protocols should adopt and publicize policies to guide ED physicians to utilize either protocol for particular patients, in order to address the appearance of conflict of interest arising from the protocols' similarities. It concludes by analyzing ethical implications of incentives that may influence institutions to develop the expertise required for uDCDD but not EPR. (shrink)

The rhetoric of 'needs' has been used to legitimate all major turns in UK health policy since 1936. This study identifies the ethical, policy and technical issues arising from the concept of needs. In the first part a theory of needs is developed, which takes into account both the philosophical traditions and the practical problems arising in daily health care. In a second part, health systems throughout the world are described and compared, addressing ethical as well as economical questions. Its (...) interdisciplinary approach will make The Need for Healthcare important reading not only for those interested in or employed in the health care sector but also for students of philosophy. (shrink)

The arguments against managed care can be divided into two general clusters. One cluster concerns the way managed care undermines the ethical ideals of medical professionalism. Since those ideals largely focus on the physician-patient relation, the first cluster comes under the rubric of micro-ethics; namely, the ethics of individual-individual relations. The second cluster of criticisms focuses on macro-ethical issues, primarily on issues of justice and policy. By reviewing these arguments, it becomes clear that managed care does not easily fit within (...) traditional modes of ethical analysis. It poses a radical challenge to current medical and socio-political norms, and even resists the distinction between micro- and macro-ethical domains, a distinction that reflects the private/public distinction. Managed care organizations call for a third way, an inter-ethic for middle level organizations. The essays in this Journal provide a first step in this radical reassessment, laying the foundation for an organizational ethic that is responsive to the realities and promise of managed care. (shrink)

Immediately following the approval of the Belgian law on euthanasia, Caritas Catholica Vlaanderen sent a position paper to all affiliated institutions in which its standpoint regarding care for a dignified end of life is clarified. We would like to sketch very briefly the context in which this position paper should be placed, before reproducing the complete text of the recommendation.Caritas Catholica Vlaanderen is an umbrella organization for cooperation and consultation between the Verbond der Verzorgingsinstellingen [Association of Care Institutions], grouping health-care (...) institutions and services, and the Vlaams Welzijnsverbond [Flemish Association for Public Welfare], grouping welfare institutions and services. The Verbond der Verzorgingsinstellingen is responsible for 52 general hospitals, 94 mental-health institutions and 326 geriatric-care institutions. The Vlaams Welzijnsverbond groups 397 facilities for handicapped persons and 344 facilities for public welfare. (shrink)

In recent years, the flow of undocumented labor from the global South to richer nations has increased considerably. Many undocumented women workers find employment as caregivers for the dependent elderly, whose numbers are burgeoning in affluent countries. Here we present a profile of undocumented non-citizen caregivers in the United States and delineate some of the key injustices they suffer. After identifying the causal factors responsible for the flow of undocumented labor from the global South to richer nations like the United (...) States, we discuss the criteria that a theory of transnational justice must meet if it is to address the problem of justice for this population. We argue that Iris Young's "social connection" model of responsibility is a promising approach for helping to correct the injustices suffered by undocumented, non-citizen caregivers. (shrink)

Midway in Martha Holstein’s article, these words occur: “[P]eople [should] get the help they need, when they need it, in the way that they would like to receive it, without exploiting family members or imperiling their dignity or self-respect” (24). In an essay that brims over with worrisome news, that this seemingly anodyne sentence appears in the section devoted to utopian thinking is perhaps the most dispiriting thought it conveys. Not that there isn’t keen competition for the role. Holstein reminds (...) her readers that the roots of the present and building crisis in long-term care sink deeply into an ideology especially entrenched in the United States; she suggests, as well, that the pernicious norms.. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOrganization and management researchers praise the value of care in the workplace. However, they overlook the conflict between caring for work and for coworkers, which resonates with the dilemma of care allocation highlighted by ethicists of care. Through an in-depth qualitative study of two organizations, we examine how this dilemma is confronted in everyday organizational life. We draw on the concept of boundary work to explain how employees negotiate the boundary of their caring responsibilities in ways that grants or denies (...) care to coworkers. We argue that the possibility of an ethics of care for coworkers requires boundary work that suspends the separation of personal and professional selves and constitutes the worker as a whole person. We contribute to research on care in organizations by showing how care for coworkers may be enabled or undermined by maintaining or suppressing the care allocation dilemma. (shrink)

The federal government has a generally unquestioned obligation to provide health care to veterans for diseases or disabilities acquired during military service. Much argued, however, is the government's obligation to offer care for nonservice‐connected disorders. The Reagan administration has sharpened the debate recently by attempting to impose a means test on veterans over sixty‐five who are seeking such care. But the controversy focuses on the wrong issue. Society has a moral obligation to provide adequate health care to all citizens but (...) has no special obligation to care for nonservice‐connected health problems of veterans. (shrink)

Caring for the stranger -- Why compassion in politics? -- Historical perspectives on social welfare and global development -- Historical perspectives on human rights -- Compassion in religious and secular thought -- Justice and moral responsibility -- Altruism, empathy, and the making of "Us" and "Them" -- The moral politics of Liberals and Conservatives -- Politics against compassion in the United States -- Compassion in public policy and law -- Creating a more compassionate and just society.