Synopses & Reviews
While everyone recognizes the need for care, not everyone recognizes the multiple realities signified by our use of the term. This volume presents an extended reflection on human dependency and the need for "care" from the perspective of diverse academic and professional disciplines. Our contributors presuppose that "care" is not just a particular kind of academic discourse - whether in the area of feminist ethics or social work - but is rather a developing profession with its own particular challenges. By exploring the different ways in which care is deployed in philosophical and practical contexts, this volume should help readers understand the practical challenges posed by the professionalization of care and the kind of policy approaches that will best promote the delivery of good "care".
Review
"With an unusually strong introduction, Iffland and Gonzalez have organized a series of papers that affirm the perduring centrality of care in human life—both for its survival and its flourishing. They distinguish between two forms of care—'caring about' and 'caring for' others. Within that framework, they examine the complexities of caregiving today, as undertaken reflexively in the setting of family and friends and increasingly under the auspices of external caregivers, both professional and non-professional." - William F. May, Emeritus Professor of Ethics, Southern Methodist University, USA; Former member of the Clinton Task Force on Health Care Reform and the President's Council on Bioethics
"Bringing together philosophical and sociological perspectives, this timely volume sets out to examine the very nature of care, both what it means to care for, care about and to receive care. Craig Iffland and Ana Marta Gonzalez's collection of essays strive to expose the moral underbelly and make transparent the invisible emotional heart in the giving and receiving of care. It does so successfully, pinning down the purpose of care and questioning how this translates in actual care environments whether that be in the domestic sphere or intensive care units in public or privately funded hospitals." - Catherine Theodosius, Senior Lecturer, School of Health Sciences, Brighton University, UK
"Care Professions and Globalization provides a robust examination of the nature, meaning, and ethics of care, lay and professional, across a range of settings and situations - medical, domestic, end-of-life. It meets a critical need." - Joseph E. Davis, Research Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Virginia, USA
Synopsis
This volume presents an extended reflection on human dependency and the need to 'care' and be 'cared for'. Philosophers, theologians, social theorists, economists, and professional caregivers to discuss the challenges of professional caregiving, analyzing how societies can promote relationships in which individuals can give and receive 'care'.
About the Author
Ana Marta González is Associate Professor of Moral Philosophy at University of Navarra, Spain, where she earned her PhD in 1997 with Extraordinary Prize. In 2002-3 she was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to work on the relationship of morality, nature, and culture in Kant's practical Philosophy at the Philosophy Department of Harvard University. She is currently the Academic Leader of the Culture and Lifestyles branch of the Social Trends Institute, and Director of the Emotional Culture and Identity Project (CEMID) of the Institute for Culture and Society of the University of Navarra (ICS), where she serves also as Scientific Coordinator.
Craig Iffland is a Researcher at the Social Trends Institute.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
A Note on the Social Trends Institute
Notes on Contributors
Introduction: The Challenges of 'Care'; Ana Marta González and Craig Iffland
Theoretical Perspectives
1. The Completion of Care - With Implications for a Duty to Receive Care Graciously; Eva Feder Kittay
2. Carefree in Barcelona; David H. Smith
3. 'Moved by the Suffering of Others': Using Aristotelian Theory to Think about Care; Kim Redgrave
4. Social Contract Theory and Moral Agency: Understanding the Roots of an Uncaring Society; Melissa Moschella
5. Emotional Work and Care as Relationship: some Particularities and Consequences; Alejandro García
Practical Perspectives
6. Socio-Economic Impact of the Work of the Home; M. Sophia Aguirre
7. Working in the ICU: A Study on the Normalization of Tension in Health Care Provision; Ambrogia Cereda
8. Professionalizing Care - a Necessary Irony? Some Implications of the 'Ethics of Care' for the Caring Professions and Informal Caring; Richard Hugman
9. Domestic Work: Judgments and Biases Regarding Mundane Tasks; María Pía Chirinos
10. The Moral Sense of Nursing Care; Mercedes Pérez
11. A Professional Perspective on End of Life Care; Carlos Centeno