The grounds and scope of caring obligations: some implications for education

Dr Pip Bennett

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Meeting ID: 920 5110 3300

This talk is based on my forthcoming chapter ‘The Ground and Scope of Caring Obligations’ (in Steyl, S. and Engster, D. (eds.) Care Ethics and Moral Theory, Routledge). I will assume that to speak of ‘caring obligations’ has sufficient purchase in care ethical theorising to warrant development of the concept, despite recognising that there is ambivalence about the concept in contemporary scholarship. The ground of caring obligations is found in the relational self to which care ethics is committed. Selves understood relationally are always vulnerable to each other, right down to the possibility of threats to selfhood. This is continuous with less existential vulnerability, the day to day vulnerabilities found in the experience of quotidian needs. The scope of caring obligations is argued to be proportional to how vulnerable people are to each other’s actions and decisions. This leads to my drawing the account together to propose the PCO, the principle of caring obligation. Implications for education are considered.

Pip is a Lecturer in Education Studies at University College London, where he is also Programme Leader for the BA Education, Society and Culture. He joined UCL having previously taught and led in schools for over a decade. His research interests are philosophy of education, care ethics, and pedagogy in philosophy of education. Outside higher education he remains a keen athlete, competing internationally for the GB aquathlon team (swimming and running).

For further information, or interest in joining PESF, please contact: qasir.shah.14@ucl.ac.uk

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