Care Ethics and the Feminist Personalism of Edith Stein

There is a question that can and needs to be raised anew, namely whether Stein’s thought on woman is worth studying – not merely for its historical interest but for what Stein can contribute to today’s ongoing debates on feminist theory and philosophy. One of Stein’s attentive feminist interpreters asked this question more than 20 years ago and provided sound reasons for a positive answer. In this chapter, I want to raise this question again and I aim to add some fresh arguments in support of a positive answer. I will do so with a special focus on Stein’s phenomenological and ethical contribution to contemporary feminist thought. In particular, I will apply Sara Heinämaa’s recent take on the classical phenomenological approach to sexual difference, in order to offer a new interpretative framework for Stein’s thought on woman. Moreover, I aim to argue in support of the claim that Stein anticipated much of the contemporary feminist ethics, particularly the ethics of care.

Philosophies

The central role of care in human history is beyond questioning [...]

Carleton University, 2020

What exactly keeps women ‘in’ inequitable care relationships, and how do we get ‘out’? This dissertation offers a timely response to a pressing societal problem – that of how to understand and organize care. Feminist scholarship and debates focus on the redistribution of care, considering how to shift care responsibilities from women to men or from individuals to the state. My research expands this work by critically reflecting on (shifting) relationships between women and the care economy with a focus on the moral dimensions of care work and on the narrative, intrasubjective work that women do. The research mobilizes sociological theories of care work, gender and moral worth, and uses feminist life history and arts-based, auto-ethnographic methods to contribute to a conceptual reimagining of “care.” Taking an interpretive, narrative, feminist approach, I draw on 20 in-depth life history interviews with 12 participants, as well as on my own autoethnographic experiences as a live-in care worker at L’Arche. I analyze how women narrate renegotiating care responsibilities or expectations across our lives and in different paid and unpaid care contexts in Ontario, Canada. Making links to class, gender and conditions in the caring economy, the project contextualizes women’s narratives of orienting to projects of care, negotiating moral dilemmas at the limits of care, and stepping back from or renegotiating care responsibilities. The study enriches feminist theories of care by developing a theorized account of the “relational care economy” that makes intrasubjective conditions, and the contradictions that people negotiate, central. I also contribute to a conceptual reimagining of “care” both by raising questions about whether “care as an ethic” should apply at the level of individual women’s lives, as well as by calling for a conception of care that makes limits central. Aiming to foster solidarity amongst carers in different roles, I ask tough questions about what we expect of ourselves and others, how we can stop setting women up for such intimate losses, and how our lives can be otherwise.

Health Care Analysis, 2004

A man with Alzheimer's who wanders around, a caregiver who disconnects the alarm, a daughter acting on het own, and a doctor who is not consulted set the stage for a feminist reflection on capacity/competence assessment. Feminist theory attempts to account for gender inequality in the political and in the epistemological realm. One of its tasks is to unravel the settings in which actual practices, i.c. capacity/competence assessment take place and offer an alternative. In this article the focus will be on a feminist ethics of care in which relationality, care, vulnerability, and responsibility are privileged concepts and attitudes. The emphasis on these notions leads to a specific view of autonomy that has consequences for both carereceivers (patients, clients) and caregivers (professional and not professional). These concepts constitute a default setting that shapes the context for capacity/competence assessment. Whereas this notion is meant to distinguish between those who need to be taken care of and those who do not, reflection on what it means to say 'those who need to be taken care of' is also required. The feminist analysis presented here emphasizes the necessity of the contextualization of assessment of competence. It sketches the multifold and complex grid that comprehends capacity assessment.

2012

Sitting in my newly co-ed home ec class, with two boys who decided a 1:8 gender ratio just might be the right move for their love lives, I toil over my first and last knitting project-a rather misshapen kitty cat. In the course of conversation, I announce loudly to my fellow knitters my liberal feminist intentions: "I am not going to get married and I am not going to have children; when the time comes, I'm just going to live with some man and follow my career." Keeping this early declaration in mind, it shouldn't be surprising that, eight years later when I am first introduced to Carol Gilligan and the ethic of care, my response is suspicious. By claiming that women utilize an ethic of care while men use justice, Gilligan seems to suggest that women are better suited for caregiving roles within the home than for professional life. Thus, I see her as calling into question my liberal feminist aspiration-to craft a self-chosen life that foregrounds self-development and career.

Societies

Seeking to support qualitative researchers in the artful development of feminist care scholarship, our goal here is to ‘look back’ on how we have conceptualized the problems of care and developed research that illuminates the social organization of care in distinct ways. As part of a ‘feminist care scholar retrospective’, we present five condensed ‘reverse research proposals’, which are retrospective accounts of past research or scholarly activity. From there, we discuss how each project begins with a particular problematic for investigation and a particular conception of care (e.g., as practices, as work, as a concept) to illuminate facets of the social organization of care shaping paid and unpaid care work and its interpretations. These approaches reveal multiple and overlapping ways that care is embodied, understood and organized, as well as ways care can be transformed.

FILOZOFIA, 2025

Feminist theories of care ethics point out that vulnerability and dependence are an inherent part of caring relationships, while also noting that these aspects and the sense of inequality that stems from them invariably enable the abuse of power. At the same time, Tronto (2013) argues that the best form of care is non-hegemonic democratic care. How can care be provided in a non-hegemonic and democratic way in situations where actors are characterized by their mutual inequality and their mutual dependence and vulnerability? The author argues that equality is not sufficient for sustainable nonhegemonic care and that inequality is not necessarily connected with the abuse of power in caring relations. The responsiveness, both at the individual and institutional levels, she considers as a necessary condition for democratic care based on inclusiveness.

South African Family Practice, 2009

In a world where the physician-patient relationship is dominated by "male" values of autonomy and rights, space must be given to the no less important "feminine" values of care and connectivity. Both are necessary and complementary.

Escola Anna Nery

Objective: To analyze the empathy of Edith Stein and the sympathy of Max Scheler for an ethical care of the other. Method: A reflexive, philosophical study anchored in the philosopher Edith Stein's thoughts about empathy for the care of the human person, and likewise of the philosopher Max Scheler on sympathy. It intends to converge the thoughts of the thinkers with the intention of presenting the importance of the care with the person. Results: Stein's empathy leads the human being to perceive the experiences of others and the need for the ethical care of the other; Scheler, in relation to sympathy, brings love as the basis for the ethical care, essential in this relationship with the other. Conclusion: Life and care are become necessary for human relationships, and thus, according to Stein and Scheler's philosophies, each person is invited to perceive the other as a human being.