tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.comments2018-08-16T14:13:02.226+01:00Horizons of CareChrisGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17260596364280169227noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-48789083353566356262013-10-10T22:41:59.753+01:002013-10-10T22:41:59.753+01:00I still think the discussion of CoM in your new pa...I still think the discussion of CoM in your new paper - and the paper itself - identifies 'children' and 'descendants' rather too readily, though - and that eliding care and love is equally problematic (can love be required of one in the same way that care can be?). <br /><br />My approach remains centred on how the question of mediation is central to trying to articulate the nature of our care for future generations, in such a way that this care doesn't remain a 'mere ought', in Hegel's language - or alternatively (to stick with Hegelese), where is the 'actuality' of care? I think Douglas MacLean's argument that care for others is ultimately bound up with self-care (though not in a way that reduces the one to the other) is the key to this. This is a case which needs to be made, though - which should therefore be the burden of my next post here (when I finally get around to it...). ChrisGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17260596364280169227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-40913411077391137592013-10-05T19:21:32.167+01:002013-10-05T19:21:32.167+01:00p.s. Another version of my thinking on this has no...p.s. Another version of my thinking on this has now also been published, here:<br />http://www.greenhousethinktank.org/files/greenhouse/admin/How_ought_we_to_think_of_our_relationship_to_future_generations_________________________.docRuperthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04334135270533978426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-84207280114836686822013-10-05T19:20:11.339+01:002013-10-05T19:20:11.339+01:00I'd also add that I think the movie CHILDREN O...I'd also add that I think the movie CHILDREN OF MEN is interested in the questions under discussion here. And I think it comes down more on my side than on your's. ;-) I think the film seeks marvellously to suggest that our need _collectively_ to have descendants is much less 'mediated' than you are suggesting.Ruperthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04334135270533978426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-68483370290386016862012-07-16T17:26:43.454+01:002012-07-16T17:26:43.454+01:00Cheers Rupert, will check it out. "Doing inte...Cheers Rupert, will check it out. "Doing intergenerational ethics" adequately centres, I think, on how one links the two 'questions'. Would love to hear you<br /><br />I think we just need to be careful about the metaphors we employ in seeking to loosen the grip of certain habits of mind on our ways of thinking about the nature of our relationship to future generations. Care, as a concept, is a metaphor as well as as an analytical concept - the way Goodin and Jonas use it is, I think, goes too far in the direction of literalness and one-dimensionality. I am trying - in recent essays as well as the book - to use phenomenological ideas about care as well as feminist ones to develop a richer conception of care. <br /><br />Some indications of how this might work are given <a href="http://horizonsofcare.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/future-lives-in-everything-care-conatus.html" rel="nofollow">here</a> and <a href="http://horizonsofcare.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/future-lives-in-everything-care-conatus_15.html" rel="nofollow">here</a>.ChrisGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17260596364280169227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-21598443013481963482012-07-16T17:01:49.990+01:002012-07-16T17:01:49.990+01:00Thanks Chris!
Btw, a version of this paper has now...Thanks Chris!<br />Btw, a version of this paper has now appeared in print: in CHANGING THE CLIMATE (arena, 2011). <br />I guess my response would be that what it is for someone to be one's child need not be as tied to a certain version of 'the literal' as it sounds like you think. Of course I don't think that future generations are literally our biological children (though in some cases they will be biologically our great grandchildren, etc.!). But that doesn't to me imply that they can't be our children. Much as, for instance, techno-optimists talk about 'our children among the stars'.<br />So: I have thought quite a lot about the normative and the motivational question. I used to think that probably they have to be separated (Which is what Analytic philosophers typically tell me). But I no longer agree...Ruperthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04334135270533978426noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-11936091435476003612012-03-25T15:14:01.803+01:002012-03-25T15:14:01.803+01:00The post is bewitching. It arises a sense of respo...The post is bewitching. It arises a sense of responsible worry. For these issues have been discussed on a daily basis in trivial comments of politicians, who pretend that they care about future generations, they have lost their importance. Now, brining it back to academic discussions with critical philosophical underpinnings can make us to re-evaluate the taken-for-granted. For sure, our deeds, right or wrong, whether done knowingly or not, will provide (impose on) the posterity concrete or discursive tools by which they will carve their existence, for newcomers won't step in a vacuum. To practice justice to some extent, at least we can let the posterity to occupy some space in our minds and discussions. <br />It seems to me that however among what we send down to next generations civlizational legacies seem to be "tangible" ones , yet our cultural achievements are of even greater significance for they subtly form the posterity's frame of mind. (I admit that it is an outdated orthodox usage of the term civilization)<br />Just to give an example, at the moment I am trying my best to write a PhD proposal, focusing on how Iranians are dealing with globalization. Considering Iran's old history, by employing a macro-historical view, I can see how rather constant patterns of response can be detected in the historical biography of a nation. Iranians' (as a nation) responses to globalisation and their efforts to get involved in global causes can be explained by the historical trajectory of the nation which has experienced many globalziations through its history. So, one can probably claim that there exists a sort of tradition inherited from previous generations. In today Iran, though, this legacy is being actively remolded by the present possibilities and future perspectives. So, clearly one's past, even if it is a nation, can have great impacts on future generations.Hadihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09385848398102239388noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-21992764083557408842012-03-22T09:33:35.242+00:002012-03-22T09:33:35.242+00:00Thanks Anne.
I guess questions of responsibility...Thanks Anne. <br /><br />I guess questions of responsibility in general split into two halves, which traditionally philosophers (in particular) have wanted to separate out: on the one hand, there is whether people can be <i>motivated</i> to care for distant others, and on the other, whether care has normative significance (i.e. can we draw conclusions about what we <i>should</i> do from experiences of caring?). Habermas has consistently argued (e.g. in "A genealogical analysis of the cognitive content of morality" in <i>The inclusion of the other</i>, 1998) that you can't get to a normatively compelling theory, one that "“accounts for the normative priority of duties” from an essentially empirical account of why <i>some</i> people care about certain others/things.<br /><br />In the book, I'm interested in showing how a care-based approach can do both, and bring the two halves of the question back together. We need, first, an account of future-oriented obligations which is normatively compelling - which can be levelled as a moral and political demand. I think this is made possible by a properly-developed concept of care (as I argue in <a href="http://cardiff.academia.edu/ChristopherGroves/Papers/1123093/The_Political_Imaginary_of_Care_Generic_versus_Singular_Futures" rel="nofollow">this paper</a>). Secondly, we need to build into such an account an adequate understanding of what kinds of emotional and imaginative resources might motivate fulfilling responsibilities to future people.<br /><br />It's in this latter area that the work of Noddings is, I agree, particularly relevant - but I think something which has been relatively under-appreciated in this literature is how care (and attachment) relate to experiences of uncertainty. I want to build a link between the normative and motivational applications of care by showing that, in both cases, it is as a response to uncertainty that care helps us solve both moral and motivational difficulties.<br /><br />So while I think Rupert Read is on the right track (as have been others who have drawn broad inspiration from care metaphors, like Annette Baier, Daniel Callahan and Avner de Shalit, I think to date the motivational and normative aspects have remained separated. Thinking about care in terms of parental care provides important resources for reimagining social and political relationships (I think Sara Ruddick's work is a great example of how to do this), but it is, I think, the wrong place to start for addressing the normative question.ChrisGhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17260596364280169227noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8975149952208214699.post-62305845419727136392012-03-22T03:12:24.620+00:002012-03-22T03:12:24.620+00:00Within the educational literature the concept of t...Within the educational literature the concept of the ethic of care is well illustrated by the work of Nel Noddings, also there is a counter set of arguments against therapeutic education, particularly in the work of Dennis Hayes. In the context of a present generational responsibility and care for future unknown generations I think this might be explored most through out relationship to children (sons/daughters and grandchildren) this is where many find their focus moves from the present and past to the future and the concept of legacy here might also be one to think about. Happy to continue this conversation,Anne Jasmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12481398903164199463noreply@blogger.com