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 members 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 policy concerning 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.

In Decent People, Norman Care explores how we may understand and be reconciled to the fragility of our moral nature. In his highly original vision of what it means to be a decent person, Care claims that our moral-emotional nature pressures us to seek relief from moralized pain - pain that comes from our awareness of our own wrongdoing, the suffering of current or future people, and our experience of indifference to moral imperatives. Care argues that decent people are neither (...) 'pure' nor self-righteous and that they are vulnerable to the need for forgiveness. Decent people may take morality seriously, but they are not guaranteed success at its challenges. (shrink)

BackgroundUndocumented migrants experience multiple institutional and legal barriers when trying to access healthcare services. Due to such limitations, healthcare workers often experience ethical dilemmas when caring for undocumented migrants. This article aims to understand how individual healthcare workers who regularly take care of undocumented migrants deal with these dilemmas in practice. So far, the role of healthcare workers in this context has mainly been theorized through the lens of biopolitics, conceiving of healthcare workers as merely obedient instruments of humanitarian (...) government or gatekeeping.MethodsBased on semi-structured, in-depth interviews and ethnographic observations with healthcare workers in Belgium, we explore how they ascribe meaning, reflect upon and give shape to care practices in relation to undocumented migrants. We use Foucault’s later work on care of the self to interpret the accounts given by the healthcare workers.ResultsHealthcare workers in clinical roles exercise a certain degree of freedom in relation to the existing limitations to healthcare access of undocumented migrants. They developed techniques such as purposefully being inattentive to the undocumented status of the migrants. They also try to master their affective responses and transform their bodily attitude towards undocumented patients. They perform practical mental exercises to remind themselves of their role or position in the wider healthcare system and about their commitment to treat all patients equally. These techniques and exercises are inspired by colleagues who function as role models, inspiring them to relate in an ethical way to limitations in healthcare access. The developed care practices sometimes reproduce, sometimes transform the legal and institutional limitations to care for undocumented migrants.ConclusionsThe findings nuance the biopolitical analysis regarding the role of healthcare workers in healthcare delivery to undocumented migrants that has been dominant so far. Theoretically this article provides a reconceptualization of healthcare ethics as care of the self, an ethical practice that is somewhat independent of the traditional professional ethics.Trial Registration Medical ethics committee UZ Jette, Brussels, Belgium – Registration date: 18/05/2016 – Registration number: B.U.N. 143201628279. (shrink)

In the post-Gilligan debate about the differences, if any, between the ways in which people of different genders see the moral world in which they live, I detect two assumptions. These can be found in Gilligan's early work, and have infected the thought of others. The first, perhaps surprisingly, is Kohlberg's Kantian account of one moral perspective, the one more easily or more naturally operated by men and which has come to be called the justice perspective. This is the perspective (...) whose claims Gilligan initially found suspect, not because she thought it a distorted account of the way in which male subjects operated, but because she disputed its claims to be the only account or the best or dominant one. Throughout the ensuing debate Kohlberg's account has been left in place, and challenged not for correctness but only for uniqueness. (shrink)

Globally, healthcare has become dominated by women nurses. Gender is also known to impact the way people are cared for in various healthcare systems. Considering gender from the perspective of how lived bodies are positioned through the structural relations of institutions and processes, this systematic review aims to explore the meaning of gender in the caring relationship between the nurse and the older person through a synthesis of available empirical data published from 1993 to 2022. CINAHL, PUBMED, EMBASE and (...) Web of Science were searched from the beginning of each database's temporal range, and PRISMA guidelines were used for the screening, reviewing and selection processes of available records. A thematic synthesis of the available data resulted in three analytical themes: (i)vulnerability of the gendered body, (ii)norms and values related to gender and sexualityand (iii)balancing closeness and distance in the nurse‐patient relationship. These themes are intertwined and represent different aspects of gender meaning in the nurse–patient relationship. This research shows that gender, through its influence on the gendered body, its relationship with power dynamics in the caring process, and its intersection with dimensions of identity, has a significant meaning for the experienced vulnerability in the nurse–patient relationship. This has implications for the well‐being and sense of dignity of the older person as well as the nurse. (shrink)

This book examines the human ability to participate in moments of joint feeling. It presents an answer to the question concerning the nature of our faculty to share in what might be called episodes of collective affective intentionality. The proposal develops the claim that our capacity to participate in such episodes is grounded in an ability central to our human condition: our capacity to care with one another about certain things. The author provides a phenomenologically adequate account of collective affective (...) intentionality that takes seriously the idea that feelings are at the core of our emotional relation to the world. He details a form of group emotional orientation that relies on the fact that the participating individuals have come to share a number of concerns. Readers will learn that at the heart of a collective affective intentional episode, one does not merely find a set of shared concerns, but also a particular mode of caring. In the end, the argument presented in this monograph makes plausible the idea that the emotions through which humans participate in moments of affective intentional community express our nature. In addition, it shows that the debate on collective affective intentionality also permits us to better understand the relationship between two conflicting philosophical pictures of ourselves: the idea that we are essentially social beings and the claim that we are creatures for whom our personal existence is an issue. Thus, aiming at an elucidation of the nature of our ability to feel together, the book offers a detailed account of what it is to situationally express our human nature by caring about something in a properly joint manner. (shrink)

Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice, which appeared in 1982, argued that men tend to conceive morality in terms of rights, justice, and autonomy, whereas women more frequently think in terms of caring, responsibility, and interrelation with others. At about the same time, Nel Noddings in Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education sought to articulate and defend in its own right a “feminine” morality centered specifically around the ideal of caring. Since then, there has (...) been a heated debate about the reality of the distinction Gilligan drew and about its potential implications for ethical theory. Discussions of the morality of caring have questioned, in particular, whether any such morality can really provide a total framework for moral thought and action. For in order to deal with our obligations to people we are not acquainted with and address large-scale issues of social morality, any morality of caring seems to require supplementation by typically “masculine” thinking in terms of rights and justice, with the result that caring turns out to be but one part of morality, rather than anything women, or more enlightened men, could find attractive as a total and self-sufficient way of approaching ethical issues. (shrink)

Background Supporting physicians in Intensive Care Units s as they face dying patients at unprecedented levels due to the COVID-19 pandemic is critical. Amidst a dearth of such data and guided by evidence that nurses in ICUs experience personal, professional and existential issues in similar conditions, a systematic scoping review is proposed to evaluate prevailing accounts of physicians facing dying patients in ICUs through the lens of Personhood. Such data would enhance understanding and guide the provision of better support for (...) ICU physicians. Methods An SSR adopts the Systematic Evidenced Based Approach to map prevailing accounts of caring for dying patients in ICUs. To enhance the transparency and reproducibility of this process, concurrent and independent use of tabulated summaries, thematic analysis and directed content analysis is adopted. Results Eight thousand three hundred fifty-eight abstracts were reviewed from four databases, 474 full-text articles were evaluated, 58 articles were included, and the Split Approach revealed six categories/themes centered around the Innate, Individual, Relational and Societal Rings of Personhood, conflicts in providing end of life care and coping mechanisms employed. Conclusion This SSR suggests that caring for dying patients in ICU impacts how physicians view their personhood. To resolve conflicts within individual concepts of personhood, physicians use prioritization, reframing and rely on accessible, personalized support from colleagues to steer coping strategies. An adapted form of the Ring Theory of Personhood is proposed to direct timely personalized, appropriate and holistic support. (shrink)

The relationship between feminist theory and traditionally feminine activities like mothering and caring is complex, especially because of the current diversity of feminist scholarship. There are many different kinds of feminist theory, and each approaches the issue of women's oppression from its own angle. The statement, "feminist ethics is about mothering and caring," can be critically evaluated by outlining specific feminist approaches to ethics and showing what role mothering and caring play in each particular view. In this (...) paper, feminine and feminist perspectives are delineated, and the four classic feminist approaches (liberal, Marxist, radical, and socialist) are summarized. I argue that to some extent all of the examples of feminist ethics are "about" mothering and caring. In some cases this is because the particular view describes mothering and caring as features of the roots of women's oppression, or as a positive force in changing the prevailing social order to do away with oppression. I include a discussion of an additional role mothering might play in the socialist feminist framework. (shrink)

Philosophy is one of the disciplines that can more adequately provide a contribution to the definition of the focus and limits of psychiatry in the definition of human being. Substantial, comprehensive contributions to this field come from Martin Heidegger, one of the most prominent and seminal philosophers of the 20th century. During the 50's the Italian psychiatrist Franco Basaglia comes up with the philosophy of Martin Heidegger and he gains the concept of human being as’Being-in-the- world’, central point (...) in every relationship with the others.’Being-in-the-world’ is not a merely spatial relation with ourselves and the others, but is the fundamental meaning of human existence and of the Care. The Care is not only a medical concept but also an ontological and ethical one: overcrossing the concept of empathy, Heidegger argues that all objectifying representations of a capsule-like psyche, subject, person, ego or consciousness in psychology and psychopathology must be abandoned in favor of a new understanding of human being, starting from its ontological characters:’Being-in-the-world’,’Being-with-the-others’ and’Being-toward-death’. (shrink)

The journey through the history of nursing, and its philosophical and political influences of the moment, contextualizes the interest that arose about the nurse–patient relationship after World War II. The concept has always been defined as a relationship but, from a phenomenological approach based on a historical, philosophical, psychological and sociological cosmology, it is possible to re‐conceptualize it as ‘caring interaction’. Under the vision of aesthetics and sociopoetics, the object of nursing care is the most delicate, vulnerable and unrepeatable (...) raw material: the person, whose feelings and reciprocity, which must be considered. In addition, it involves the adoption of the socio‐critical paradigm, as it considers the importance of actively involving the person, not just patient anymore, or their family in the nursing cares, optimizing the reciprocity inherent to this interactivity. In short, our philosophical and epistemological approach to the concept of nurse–patient relationship proposes a new conceptualization of it as a caring interaction. (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)

The Belgian Act on Euthanasia came into force on 23 September 2002, making Belgium the second country—after the Netherlands—to decriminalize euthanasia under certain due-care conditions. Since then, Belgian nurses have been increasingly involved in euthanasia care. In this paper, we report a qualitative study based on in-depth interviews with 18 nurses from Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium) who have had experience in caring for patients requesting euthanasia since May 2002 (the approval of the Act). We found that the (...) care process for patients requesting euthanasia is a complex and dynamic process, consisting of several stages, starting from the period preceding the euthanasia request and ending with the aftercare stage. When asked after the way in which they experience their involvement in the euthanasia care process, all nurses described it as a grave and difficult process, not only on an organizational and practical level, but also on an emotional level. “Intense” is the dominant feeling experienced by nurses. This is compounded by the presence of other feelings such as great concern and responsibility on the one hand, being content in truly helping the patient to die serenely, and doing everything in one’s power to contribute to this; but also feeling unreal and ambivalent on the other hand, because death is arranged. Nurses feel a discrepancy, because although it is a nice death, which happens in dignity and with respect, it is also an unnatural death. The clinical ethical implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

After her curriculum proposal is presented, Noddings' feminine ethics is submitted to a critique through an interpretation of her three books. Her distortion of Gilligan and Chodorow is explained. Indebtedness to male sources is noted. The over-emphasis upon good and upon first-person experience is criticised and traced to feminist rage, which is interpreted as the result of the oppression of women. Noddings' suppressed 'Kantianism' is explicated to maintain the dialectic between so-called male and female voices. Main strengths of her curriculum (...) proposal are interpreted more broadly than her perspective allows to indicate a promising return to normative, macro-theory of education. (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)

In recent years, experts in geriatric care have increasingly promoted the use of reminiscence museums, collections of period objects that are used to help senior citizens draw on old memories in order to recall and talk about their past. Hands Off Not an Option is a practical guide to making and using such collections, showing how to establish and fill out a museum and illustrating the ways it can be used within senior care facilities and within individual homes. The book (...) will thus be of value both to those practicing in geriatric medical and social care and to individual families working with aged relatives. The book includes 1 DVD. (shrink)

The likelihood of nurse reflection is examined from the theoretical perspectives of Habermas' Theory of Communicative Action and Moral Action and Sumner's Moral Construct of Caring in Nursing as Communicative Action, through a critical social theory lens. The argument is made that until the nurse reaches the developmental level of post-conventional moral maturity and/or Benner's Stage 5: expert, he or she is not capable of being inwardly directed reflective on self. The three developmental levels of moral maturity and Benner's (...) stages are presented with discussion on whether or not there can be self-reflection because of an innate vulnerability that leads to self-protective behaviours. It is only when the confidence from mastery of practice has been achieved can the nurse be comfortable with reflection that enables him or her to become enlightened, emancipated, and empowered. The influences and constraints of the knowledge power between nurse and patient are acknowledged. The power hierarchy of the institution is recognized as constraining. (shrink)

The chapter starts from a specific interpretation of what it means to know the difference between right and wrong, which stems from Gilbert Ryle. To know the difference between right and wrong implies caring about morality. The author links Ryle’s ideas to the notion of being a moral person. Two different ideas found in moral philosophy are delineated, namely, the amoral person, that is, someone who rejects the demands of morality, and the morally incapacitated person, that is, someone (...) who cannot take those demands into account. Psychopaths are not amoral in the philosophers’ sense of the word, but are incapable of, or seriously deficient in, taking the moral point of view. (shrink)

In her essay “The Idea of Perfection,” Iris Murdoch argues that sustained attention directed towards another can result in a person’s moral improvement by getting them to have a more accurate view of the other. In this essay, I argue that the award-winning film My Octopus Teacher illustrates Murdoch’s view and corrects some of its shortcomings. It illustrates Murdoch’s claim by showing how one of the filmmaker’s sustained attention directed at an octopus results not only in an alternation in the (...) filmmaker’s view of the cephalopod but also transforms his life by making him more open to others. Because the central relationship in the film is one between a human being and a cephalopod, the film also corrects the anthropocentric bias in Murdoch’s account by showing that a human being can have a transformative relationship with a creature as alien appearing as an octopus. (shrink)

In Philosophy of Care, Boris Groys undertakes a reading of key philosophical texts in terms of the relationship between self-care and care, as a way of trying to reinvigorate the question of health beyond its current instantiation in biopolitical life and algorithmic life. He passes through Socrates, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kojève, Bataille, Heidegger and others, culminating in Bogdanov’s distinction between egressive and degressive organization and his cosmist-immortalist dreams. The philosophy outlined by Groys is questioned here through the prism of (...) the work of Bernard Stiegler, in particular via the distinction between labour and work, a re-reading of Hegel on the master-slave dialectic, an interpretation of the meaning of defunctionalization, and an account of the necessity of reorienting ourselves in thought so as to make possible a new economy of care, which depends on the possibility of fostering new processes of sublimation. (shrink)

This collection of previously unpublished papers discusses a number of related ethical and philosophical issues in health care. The papers range widely, from problems in dealing with embryos, foetuses and neonates, through our treatment of the dying and newly-dead and the issue of fair resource allocation in health care, to our response to mental illness. Throughout, the aim is to combine detached philosophical analysis with a sense of medical realities and a sensitivity to human values.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Graffiti and Colonial Unknowing:A Comment on Mishuana Goeman's "Caring for Landscapes of Justice in Perilous Settler Environments"Anna Cookin "caring for landscapes of justice in Perilous Settler Environments," Dr. Goeman shows how the NDN Collective's initiatives, Chemehuevi photographer Cara Romero's Tongvaland project, and the works of Gabrieliño Tongva artist Mercedes Dorame "exemplify communities of care" that work toward "the unmapping of settler terrains" ("Caring for Landscapes" 51). (...) Her address highlights how these cartographic art productions are processes of (re)mapping that challenge colonial spatialities. Drawing on Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg scholar Leanne Betasamosake Simpson's poem "i am graffiti," Goeman frames these art works as Indigenous graffiti, insofar as they are everyday acts of resurgence1 that resist erasure and enact rematriation.My comments aim to articulate how Romero's and Dorame's works both reveal and disrupt a colonial unknowing by showing the cracks of settler colonial spatiality. I take Goeman's address to illustrate that the changing of minds and unsettling of settler identity will not occur through argumentation, facts, and figures alone, but rather through aesthetic and cartographic practices that "provide a way of seeing Indigenous futurities and relationalities" ("Caring for Landscapes" 52).Maps as Tools of Settler ColonialismIn order to highlight how these art practices enact a kind of (re)mapping that breaks through the veneer of colonial permanence, we first need to consider the way mapping transforms land into property in the service of Indigenous erasure and land dispossession. In her address, Goeman offers a short history of what is now called Los Angeles through the lens of dispossession that occurs through "international claiming of property and burgeoning US property law" ("Caring for Landscapes" 53). Tovaangar was divided into Spanish (and [End Page 64] then Mexican) land grants that, after 1846, were "registered under the US as property" (Goeman, "Caring for Landscapes" 53; emphasis added). The Land Act of 1851 "established the domestication of the California landscape under US governance" by legitimating existing Mexican land rights and mapping out territory yet "unclaimed" ("Caring for Landscapes" 54). The mapping of this so-called "unclaimed" territory propelled a violent erasure of California Indians by "establishing new and ongoing commerce centers" ("Caring for Landscapes" 53). Land was transferred into property—as a thing owned—without "the consent of those who … lived on the land since time immemorial, following the settler structure of passing land between Christian nations" ("Caring for Landscapes" 53). By showing how property rights legitimate conquest and violence, Goeman illustrates how mapping has been (and continues to be) an "essential settler-colonial tool to domesticate land in Southern California and propel development" ("Caring for Landscapes" 54). While she demonstrates how the mapping of Tovaangar using 493 hand-drawn Diseños maps served to sever Indigenous communities (and their relationships with land, such as the Gabrieliño Tongva with the San Gabriel Mountains), she emphasizes that this is an ongoing process that has not been left in a distant past. Newer maps that may seem more objective and scientific with "better models of scale or a more realist representation" remain, at their core, maps of dispossession ("Caring for Landscapes" 54).The very desire to objectively determine location by assigning latitude and longitude reveals a colonial spatiality, which "territorialize[s] the physical landscape by manufacturing categories and separating land from people" and conceives of space in terms of property logics (Goeman, "[Re]Mapping Indigenous Presence" 296). In addition to Indigenous land dispossession, this colonial spatiality rejects relationality by creating dualist boundaries between human and non-human, in which land is the raw material for human development and the creation of culture. Cherokee philosopher Brian Burkhart speaks of relationality in terms of locality, which he defines as "being-fromthe-land, knowing-from-the-land, and meaning-from-the-land" (Indigenizing Philosophy xvii). The severing of locality can be understood in terms of the transformation of land as relative to inert matter to be acted upon. Mapping serves as a tool of settler colonial erasure insofar as it delocalizes "land as the relational ground of kinship" into "land as a mere object that only has meaning or value in relation to people" ("Indigenizing Philosophy... (shrink)

Learning to work as a relational caring professional in healthcare and social welfare, is foremost a process of transformative learning, of Building, of professional subjectification. In this article we contribute to the design of such a process of formation by presenting a structured map of five domains of formational goals. It is mainly informed by many years of care-ethical research and training of professionals in healthcare and social work. The five formational domains are:Relational Caring Approach,Perception,Knowledge,Interpretation, andPractical Wisdom. The (...) formation process, described as the recurring detour of a continuing practice, requires ‘exposure’, in-depth learning and learning communities. Relational caring—care consequently resulting from and structured by relational thinking, exploring, and steering—requires ‘inquiry’ as a continuous learning process in practice. The process is ultimately aimed at fostering mature, competent, and practically wise professional caregivers who are able to relationally connect with and attune to care receivers, and adequately navigate existential, moral, and political-institutional tensions in relational caring in complex organizations in Late-Modern society. (shrink)

This paper aims to consider the implications of Noddings’ ethics of care theory for child-friendly projects and their underlying philosophical assumptions. It is explained that this theory with its emphasis on the children’s needs and rights and, more importantly, the emphasis on the care relation and care encounter indicates how Noddings’ main concepts and ideas could be taken into consideration in exploring the challenges of implementing child-friendly projects. Therefore, the main concepts of ethics of care theory including need and right, (...) empathy and sympathy, receptive and projective, care about and cared-for, expressed and inferred needs were investigated by considering their adaptation with the origin and the destination of child-friendly projects. Accordingly, a series of questions was set out to illustrate the theoretical challenges that may have been reflected in implementing the child-friendly project. These questions were also categorized in light of three core characteristics of Noddings’ theory of caring: 1) relational ontology; which refers to the relational nature of children life, 2) attention with concern; which refers to the moral sentiment/non-rational life of children and 3) particularism; which refers to the particularity of children’s lives. As individuals/researchers and as members of the child-friendly community we can focus on these questions to understand the challenges of the project and provide a potential for its qualitative evaluation. (shrink)

This article addresses the inherently relational nature of musical agency, drawing upon interdisciplinary research. It argues that music does not exist in isolation but within social and emotional contexts shaped by a network of relationships among musicians. These interactions create a collaborative space that transcends mere technical execution, fostering a collective experience enriched by shared sensitivity and emotional engagement. Consequently, musical practice, whether compositional or performative, entails a moral responsibility, particularly challenging the perspectives of Levinas; Bauman; and Wilde, who traditionally (...) separated art from ethics. As outlined in Nielsen and Cobussen’s work “music contributes to a better understanding of one’s place within the world, and thus, to an ethical sensibility”, emphasizing how musical practice cultivates ethical awareness through its relational nature. Music is thus conceived as a moral endeavor, where care extends not only to the music itself but also to the individuals involved in its creation and performance. Moreover, this moral responsibility extends to future generations, as musical tradition is conceived as a temporal bridge linking the past, the present, and the future. The tradition is composed of individuals actively engaged in the practices that shape the tradition or traditions. Musicians bear an intergenerational responsibility toward those who will inherit and reinterpret current practices—a responsibility not grounded in direct reciprocity, but in what Randall describes as “conceptual ties”. The continuity of musical tradition and its aesthetic value depend on the care and responsibility each generation shows toward both the participants and the evolving cultural products of this process. Thus, the discussion elucidates the ethical dimensions of musical agency and practice, particularly in Western classical music, and highlights how our obligations to future generations are intrinsic to the practice itself, thereby contributing to broader debates on intergenerational care ethics. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that education should involve the development of understanding, critical thinking, imagination, and emotions. However, this book, first published in 1990, argues that our views to these key concepts are confused and inaccurate, and therefore what we do in schools is generally inappropriate to our ideal. This book will be of interest to students of education and philosophy.