What Is Meant By The Ethics Of Care?
Ethics of care is to offer assistance to Social Service Workers and help promote excellence in their duties and responsibilities. Professional standards as well as ethical standards have been set and approved and will work in conjunction with their professional judgment and any applicable legislation. It is true that every profession carries variations in approaches and the members should know how to response to the demands of a particular situation. The objective of this paper is to look into the different perspectives and criticisms as well as how it is related to the concept like dignity.
Ethics of care has received penetrating criticism despite being presented over the past fifteen years. We come across three venison of ethics of care by Gilligan, Tronto and Gastmans and one finds close affinities between nursing and care (Edwards). Each version is subjected to criticism as where the ethics of care is distinct, it is not plausible and where it is stated as plausible, it loses it distinctiveness. Despite all that criticism, Ethics of Care has always been appealing to scholars. The vagueness behind has led to different versions. Gilligan states that ethics of justice and ethics of care are two different approaches. While the relevant moral principles abstract out in ethics of care one focuses on the problem. According to Tronto, one needs to rely on the theory of justice to make out the more urgent needs. Her idea of responsibility based ethics is founded on pre-existing moral relationship between people. She proposes four elements of care as well as four phases of caring. Gastmans describes ethics of care as a moral perspective from which the ethical theorizing originates. According to his view, all approaches to moral problems stem from care.The social worker will work in the best interest of the client and this should be his primary professional obligation and should respect the fundamental worth of the person. He is expected to carry out the professional duties with complete integrity and objectivity and maintain competence in his work and services towards the client. He needs to protect the confidentiality of his client and any professionally acquired information. Any such information is to be disclosed only when the client has consented or is required by the law. He will not provide any social work or service that harms the profession or the trust of the client or the public. He shall support workplace conditions that are consistent with this Code of Ethics and the Standards of Practice.
The social worker is expected to promote excellence in his services and profession and work for the benefit of society and the community. Social service workers, working with Children and Youth often face dilemmas relating to consent and confidentiality with their clients how may be children or the youth. Such predicaments often rise when they are working in hospitals, hospitals, child welfare, and community health settings, etc. The aim is to make sound practice decisions in their professional obligations.
The current issue of Health Care Analysis is based on philosophical and empirical analysis of the justice in health care and the role of care in nursing and medicine as well as the narrative ethics. When we look at Carol Gilligan’s work in the late seventies, the ethics of care has been chiefly descriptive and there has been less importance given to the action based on the ethical theory. The ethics of care does not seem to be particularly relevant when it comes to the key issues of like to solve dilemmas about justice and justify certain moral actions. We find that many points in the ethics of care have not been relevant particularly. Many argue that the theory forms the basis of supererogatory actions and which may be praiseworthy but not obligatory (Nortvedt). Still, the supporters of the theory believe that the theoretical research within the field of care ethics is essential to give a substantial normative direction in developing the perspective of ethics of care.
We often find use of concept like dignity in the ethics of care. The language tool has always been used with a certain agenda. The concept of dignity has been used in different settings and the use of concept in ethics suggests a continuity of its permanence of use. We see that the concept of dignity has been employed to systematize the society and whatever adverse conditions or situations people might, one should never snatch away their dignity from them. An integrated view on dignity regarding Ethics of care, we find different elements that carry their own importance when forming a balanced view on dignity. What is needed here is a real exchange of perspectives along with the help of ethics of care to articulate the needs of the social practice.
Ideas like dignity are useful tools to organize the world. However, it depends on how we make use of these tools to express and achieve what we want and can lead to some side-effects (Leget and Carlo). One will have to examine the practices from which these concepts originate. Ethics of care is one tradition that seems to be supportive to rethink about dignity and work towards an amalgamation of its different roles in the ethics of care. We find that of care has developed into a medley of insights over the past couple of decades. The ethics of care is constructed on the primary notion that moral understandings are bordered by social practices and these social practices are an introductory to relational dignity.
Conclusion
We find that to care for others is a universal human activity that promotes the wellbeing of other human beings and the world around them. The ethics of care is a good applicant for providing the foundation for further reflection and is sensitive to the individuality of situations. The way people try to follow the good life in multifaceted world of personal relations is essential for the ethics. The ethics of care is responsive to the way our moral life gets shaped and does not advocate the maximal autonomy of self-supporting individuals. It is also very sensitive to how people get marginalized; excluded or disrespected people are made to feel. To be politically aware of the ethics of care, asymmetry in relations of power plays an important role. The ethics of care is pertinent for a field much wider than healthcare and includes everything we do to uphold our ‘world’ and repair its imperfections. The dignity focuses on life issues and if we focus on intrinsic dignity alone, it may contribute to cleaning the consciousness of people and abstaining from moral action when it is urgent.
Works CitedEdwards, Steven D. "Three Versions of an Ethics of Care. “Nursing philosophy: an international
Nortvedt, Per. "Ethics of Care and Responsibility: Normative Fragments." Health care analysis:
HCA: journal of health philosophy and policy 19.1 (2011): 1-2. Print.Leget, Carlo. "Analyzing Dignity: A Perspective from the Ethics of Care." Medicine, health care, and philosophy 16.4 (2013): 945-52. Print.
