Careful Thinking

What roles do the body and the imagination play in care? What is the relationship between care ethics and political activism? And how might a commitment to care be personally and socially transformative?These are some of the questions we explore in this episode with Maurice Hamington, one of the world's leading authorities on care ethics and care theory. Maurice is Professor of Philosophy, and Affiliate Faculty in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, at Portland State University in Oregon in the

What are some of the connections - and tensions - between feminism, religious faith and healthcare ethics? In what ways does a feminist ethic of care offer an alternative to the dominant tradition in Western philosophy? And what can care ethics contribute to some of the difficult debates in contemporary healthcare, for example around new reproductive technologies and assisted dying? These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Ruth Groenhout, a Distinguished Professor of Health

What is ‘care ethics’ and what are some of the current themes and debates in the ethics of care? How are care, art, play – and democracy - connected? And what can the work of phenomenological thinkers, such as Edith Stein, contribute to an understanding of care?These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Petr Urban, a senior researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague and project coordinator of the Center for Environmental and Technology

How can we care for others while respecting their individuality? What is meant by a cosmopolitan ethos and how might it motivate care? And can institutions really 'care'? These are some of the questions we explore in this episode with Nigel Rapport, Emeritus Professor of Social Anthropology at St Andrews University in Scotland, founding director of the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies, and the author of Cosmopolitan Love and Individuality: Ethical Engagement beyond Culture (Rowman and Littlefield).We

How can a personalist perspective contribute to a better understanding of the experience of people living with dementia? What does it mean to offer hospitality to those in need of care? And why is it important to respect the conscience, and the right to conscientious objection, of healthcare practitioners? These are some of the questions we explore in this episode with Xavier Symons, a postdoctoral fellow at the Human Flourishing Program in the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard

What is 'relational care' and how can it improve the day-to-day experience of carers and those they care for? What are its implications for relationships between staff and service users in care settings? And how does the concept of relational care enable us to re-imagine the role of place and space in the experience of care? These are some of the questions we explore in this episode with Mary Larkin and Manik Deepak-Gopinath who recently completed a research project on the value and practice of

Careful Thinking explores ideas about care, featuring conversations with researchers, writers and practitioners at the cutting edge of current thinking about care. It was launched in November 2023 and can be found wherever you get your podcasts.