Feminist Ethics, Care Ethics, and Care

Interested in presenting? Anonymized abstracts of 300-750 words due by May 15 2025, to [email protected] . We accept abstracts from anyone who is either a grad student in Spring 2025, or will be a grad student in Autumn 2025. (Folks who receive their PhD this semester are thus welcome to apply.)

OSU MAP hosts a graduate student conference on feminist ethics, care ethics, and care. The most famous approach to feminist ethics is care ethics. While it is difficult to define this diverse tradition, characteristic features include a prioritization of relationships and contexts, a rejection of abstractions, and an emphasis on the importance of emotions in moral education and decision-making. We welcome, also, submissions engaged with the nature of care— for example its metaphysics, its role in moral motivation, its importance in moral growth and education—as well as feminist ethics more broadly.

Such questions that might be explored are: What does it mean to care? What is the best way to characterize a care ethical view? What does a feminist ethic look like, and how does it respond to current ethical issues? Is caring a virtue, a practice, or something else altogether? What role does/should care play in education and moral development? More generally, how can feminist approaches identify problems with popular ethical theories, and tackle applied ethical issues?