Feminist analyses of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein have yielded fruitful interpretations that make sense of what might otherwise be considered inessential details in the narrative. Specifically, the anxieties and politics of birth and motherhood have been brought forward as central concerns of the novel. However, given the influence of the liberal, Marxist, and radical strains of feminism in the period that laid the foundations of feminist Frankenstein scholarship (the 1960s-80s), most of this work has focused on the burdens of motherhood, the bonds of womanhood, or the oppressive structure of the family, in some cases accusing Shelley of offering a defense of patriarchy. These influential strains of feminism were themselves influenced by the most dominant theories in philosophical ethics, deontology and utilitarianism, both of which emerged from the same Enlightenment intelligentsia that included Shelley's parents, Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. However, in the 1980s, a line of feminist inquiry began to yield an alternative to influential moral theories: the ethics of care. In contrast to the dominant theories, which tend to laud principle- or calculus-based ethical reasoning that assumes interchangeability of moral subjects, the ethics of care emphasises particular relationships and the fact that people are not interchangeable, having different vulnerabilities, dependencies, and dependents. Most importantly, care ethics accuses traditional ethics of ignoring children altogether, creating the illusion that the paradigmatic moral subject is neither dependent nor obligated in non-voluntary relationships. The ethics of care presents challenges for some strains of feminism, particularly in that it takes as given certain natural differences between all people in terms of abilities and circumstances rather than seek to eliminate such differences, and that it argues in favour of the same self-sacrificing values that many feminists have argued have contributed to women's oppression. Because of this dissent, I have decided to approach Frankenstein from the ethics of care, reading it as a criticism of the masculinist values and assumptions embedded in the emerging moral theories of Shelley's period. I will argue that Victor is emblematic of the detached individualistic ethical reasoner valued by masculinist theories and criticised by care ethicists. The Frankenstein family and the DeLaceys both provide examples of caring relations as contrasts to Victor's behaviour. The Creature, offspring of an incomplete moral theory, is both victim and perpetuator of masculinist individualistic, calculus-based moral reasoning. He is more aware than Victor of the necessity of caring relations, but he follows an ethic of retribution inspired by principle-based theories. He knows he needs a partner, but speaks of her in the language that Victor speaks of him—as property. The glimmer of hope in the novel lies with Walton, who, unlike Victor, is willing to engage in dialogue across difference, and finally to set his high aspirations aside for the well-being of his crew.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Minnesota, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 115-119). Also available on the World Wide Web as a PDF file.

The main purpose of the study is to design the Character Education Course through action research methodology, which is composed of four ethic education methods such as Modeling, Conversation, Exercise and Affirmation advocated by Ethics of Care from three core value ¡§Concern¡¨, ¡§Respect¡¨ and ¡§Responsibility¡¨ deficient in practice research class. One class is carried out in each week and three classes are carried out for a core value curriculum. There are nine classes for three core concepts. Class No.10 is reviewed in the final stage. The concrete goal for this research is stated as follows. 1. Discussion the effect of the Character Education Course based on Ethics of Care on the student¡¦s ethic behavior change. 2. Discussion the effect of the Character Education Course on the interaction between teacher and student. 3. Discussion the effect of the Character Education Course on the feasibility in practice. Several conclusions derived from this research are as follows. 1. Student¡¦s ethic behavior i. It¡¦s helpful to build the harmony atmosphere is class through the Character Education Course in Ethics of Care. Also the relationship between classmates is partly improved. ii. It¡¦s different for each student¡¦s ethic behavior change. But the positive restraint force is formed between the same generation. 2. Interaction between teacher and student i. Teacher is key person to affect student¡¦s behavior. Modeling may be imitated by student naturally. ii. Teacher like to dialogue with student such that student wish to develop character naturally. iii. Give the practice chances to students by modifying taking care of every single thing personally. It is expected to be helpful to the interaction between teacher and student. iv. Teacher must learn to think over positively in student¡¦s viewpoint to confirm the growing trajectory of student. 3. Feasibility in practice i. Students affirm the Character Education Course in Ethics of Care. ii. It¡¦s still necessary to continually track record the change of student¡¦s ethic behavior.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Virginia, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 197-206). Also available online through Digital Dissertations.

Thesis (Ed.D.) -- Teachers College, Columbia University, 1991. / Typescript; issued also on microfilm. Sponsor: Thomas A. Leemon. Dissertation Committee: Mary Mowrey-Raddock. Includes bibliographical references: (leaves 119-141).

Background: There has been wide interest shown in the manner in which ethical dimensions in nursing practice are approached and addressed. As a result a number of ethical decision making models have been developed to tackle these problems. However, in this thesis it has been argued that the ethical dimensions of nursing practice are still not clearly understood and responded in Brunei. Design and method: This thesis describes a qualitative analysis into the Bruneian nurses’ perceptions of ethical dimensions in nursing practice. Drawing on constructivist grounded theory as a method of inquiry, twenty eight practicing and administrative nurses were individually interviewed. The nurses described how ethical dimensions were perceived in their practice, by means of the difficulties they are facing in the real world of nursing practice; how they have responded to these difficulties, and why they make such responses. Findings: The nurses described three ethical dimensions in their practice, namely ‘nurse at work’ which illustrates the ethical dimensions within the work environment; ‘nurse and doctor’ that elucidates the ethical dimensions in the nurse and doctor relationship and ‘nurse and patient’ which further examines ethical aspects in patient care. ‘Taking responsibility’ and ‘shifting responsibility to others’ were identified as approaches that the nurses took in responding to the ethical dimensions with the aim of avoiding the conflict and maintaining ward harmony. These responses provide new insights into how nurses’ response to ethical dimension in the ward settings where it puts strong emphasis on the nurses’ understanding of responsibility placed upon them as a professional nurse. ‘Negotiating ethical responsibility’ emerged as a core category within the data which illustrate that nurses’ responses to the ethical dimensions form a continuous process, involving constant consideration of the two types of responses. The core category described that ethical dimensions in the nurses’ practice were contextualised in the ‘ethical responsibility’ that is placed upon them within the nursing organisation. This thesis has expanded the current theoretical knowledge of ethical dimensions by elaborating on the concerns experienced in nursing practice and the responses individual nurses utilise to negotiate and discharge their ethical responsibilities at work. The study has also extended emphasis to the reasoning and responses that nurses are engaged in, whilst at the same time, negotiating ethical responsibility regarding the context in which they are placed during their working hours. This core category provides a number of possible implications for future research, nursing practice, education and policy, which would facilitate the exploration of ethical understanding for nurses in Brunei, and enable the provision of an ethical environment, so making ethical dimensions more transparent.

No description available.

The concept of compassion has recently held a controversial role in political thought. Critics have tied it with the condescension and latent self-interest of pity, while proponents have asserted it as the ethical posture from which to approach the suffering of others. This thesis looks at the role of compassion in the political sphere, arguing that political compassion involves a decentring of oneself as the primary subject of political action, looking instead to forego one’s own desire and to replace it with the desire of another. It pays particular attention to the thought of Hannah Arendt, who excludes this self-sacrificing compassion from the political sphere, due to the importance of speech to political action, and in turn, the importance of muteness to compassion. To Arendt, political speech intends to performatively bring one’s uniqueness into the world, whereas compassion performatively denies this subjectivity and is fundamentally unpolitical. She asserts that not only do public displays of compassion destroy their very value, but moreover, that a focus of compassion and suffering in the political sphere overshadows the need for cool, sober discourse between equals. I argue that, even in accepting Arendt’s definition of the political, there is space for compassion as a political labour. While Arendt asserts the need for speech and action in the political sphere, she conflates the free will involved in the plurality and uniqueness of the content of speech with the uniform, natural will to speak. Her articulations of the political realm, which require one to make oneself heard among equals, invoke at that same moment an immediate need for the labour of others foregoing their own desire to speak and act, to instead passively listen. Instead of being a realm exclusively to manifest one’s will, the political instead requires a reciprocity of desire, and its abnegation. / Graduate / 0615 / 0422 / 0681 / charlebois@u.northwestern.edu

The chronically ill participants in this study are vulnerable experts in life’s uncertainties, and have become aware over time of multiple medical and social needs and practices. But, unlike the hypo-aware respondents documented in some studies of diabetes mellitus Type 1, these research participants are also conscious of their inability to recognise when their own fluctuating blood glucose levels are rising or falling to extremes, a loss of hyper- or hypo-awareness that puts their lives constantly at risk. Particular sources of better life management, increased self-esteem and means of social (re-)integration are trained medical alert assistance dogs who share the human home, and through keen olfactory sensitivity, are able to give advance warning when their partners’ blood sugar levels enter ‘danger’ zones. Research studies in anthrozoology and anthropology provide extensive literature on historic and contemporary human bonds with domestic and/or wild nonhuman animals. Equally, the sociology of health and illness continues to extend research into care practices performed to assist people with chronic illness. This study draws from these disciplines in order to add to multispecies ethnographic literature by exploring human-canine engagement, contribution and narrative, detailing the impact each member of the dyad has on the other, and by observing the 'doing' of the partnerships' daily routines to ward off hypo-glycaemia and hospitalisation. In addition, the project investigates the place, role and 'otherness' of a medical alert dog in a chronically ill person's understanding of 'the-body-they-do'. The perspective of symbolic interactionism assists in disentangling individual and shared meanings inherent in the interspecies collaboration by examining the mutualistic practices of care performed. The often-flexible moral boundaries that humans construct to differentiate between acceptable use and unacceptable exploitation of nonhuman animals are questioned within ethics-of-care theory, based on the concept of dogs as animate instruments and biomedical resources.

Disertacijoje keliamas šiuo metu vis aktualesniu tampantis rūpesčio etikos normatyvinis klausimas: kaip galima aiškiau apibrėžti normatyvinį šios etikos turinį ir koks galėtų būti jos normatyvinis pagrindas. Disertacijos tikslas – ištirti pagrindines teorines rūpesčio etikos normatyvinio plėtojimo tendencijas ir išryškinti naujas jos vystymo galimybes. Siekiant šių tikslų, analizuojami pirmųjų rūpesčio etikos kūrėjų (Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Eva Feder Kittay etc.) darbai. Nagrinėjant jų idėjas, rekonstruojama etinė rūpesčio/rūpinimosi sąvokos reikšmė, rūpestį/rūpinimąsi konstituojantys veiksniai. Teigiama, kad rūpesčio etikos specifiką formuoja reliacinė etinė prieiga, t. y. šios etikos išeities taškas yra santykiai, santykių konstituojamas moralinis veikimas. Analizuojant vėlesnių rūpesčio etikos plėtotojų (Michael Slote, Raja Halwani) idėjas, kritiškai nagrinėjama tendencija normatyvinei rūpesčio etikos plėtrai pasitelkti tradicinių moralės teorijų – dorybių ir sentimentalizmo etikos – sąvokas. Teigiama, kad bandymai konceptualizuoti normatyvinį rūpesčio etikos žodyną kitų moralės teorijų sąvokomis užgožia reliacinį rūpinimosi pobūdį. Ieškant konceptualinių resursų, kurie padėtų plėtoti normatyvinį reliacinės rūpesčio etikos turinį, nagrinėjamos filosofų Simone Weil, Iris Murdoch, Soran Reader, Emmanuelio Levino idėjos. Ginama tezė, kad rūpesčio etikos specifiką atskleidžia normatyvinis žodynas, leidžiantis konceptualizuoti moralinius rūpinimosi reikalavimus... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / This thesis offers an analysis of a particular issue concerning the normativity of the ethics of care which is presently ever more relevant for this branch of ethics. This is the issue of how one could describe the normative content of the ethics of care and its specificity and what could be a normative foundation for this ethics. The goal of this thesis is to scrutinize main theoretical tendencies of the normative development of the ethics of care and to put forward the new developmental possibilities. In order to achieve this objective several steps are made. First of all, the works of first care ethicists (Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, Sara Ruddick, etc.) are analysed so as to reconstruct the ethical meaning of the notion of care and the constitutive factors of it. It is argued that the specificity of the ethics of care is established by the relational ethical approach: the point of departure in this case is relation and relational moral agency. The analysis of the subsequent discourse of the ethics of care provides a critical view towards the tendency apply traditional moral theories, mostly virtue and sentimentalist ethics, for the normative purposes. It is argued that the attempts to conceptualise normative vocabulary of the ethics of care applying the concepts from other moral theories conceal the relational character of this branch of ethics. In order to find sufficient conceptual recourses for the development of the normative content of the relational ethics of care... [to full text]