The Ethics of Care: the State of the Art

Care and caring are essential to the core of life. As an everyday

activity it guarantees the continuity of a humane society. In an era of

cold-blooded neo-liberalism, relationality, attentiveness, compassion,

solidarity and care are even more relevant traits to sustain a life

worth living - not only for the precarious ones among us but for all of

us. To this end the Ethics of Care as a political ethical theory is the

most prominent champion of the relevance of care and caring on all

different levels of the research-policy-practice continuum and across

all domains of our lived realities.

Drawing on feminism as a critique on neo-Kantian ethics, the Ethics of

Care developed into an acknowledged sub-field since the early 1980s.

This edited volume by renowned scholars from across the globe presents

this trajectory with a critical engagement on a range of key issues, its

gradual development, and its subsequent scholarly and societal

contribution. These insights pertain to issues related to the more

intimate forms of care - from person to person - as well as issues of

care at an institutional level and questions of global impact. More

specifically, an up-to-date refinement of the concepts ‘vulnerability’

and ‘relationality’ are some examples of these insights. Similarly,

lessons of caring practices ranging from social welfare to palliative

care are shared.

This volume offers a critical overview of the current debates and the

future challenges of an Ethics of Care as a landmark branch of

contemporary ethics.