Ethical Engineering: Definitions, Theories and Techniques - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 33

2.3.2 Outcomes-Oriented Theories and Approaches

2.3.2.1 Ethics of Care

The ethics of care is a context-based approach to preserving relationships. There are
fi ve central ideas:

1. Moral attention, which is attention to the situation in all its complexity.
2. Sympathetic understanding, which involves sympathising and even identifying
with other people in the situation, trying to work out what they would want
you to do and how they would like their wishes and interests to be carried out.
It requires a particular sensitivity to the wishes and interests of others.
3. Relationship awareness, where you recognise the other person is in a relationship
to you. As well as awareness of the specifi c relationship, including role relation-
ships, there is awareness of the network of relationships that connect people and
care about preserving and nurturing these relationships.
4. Accommodation to the needs of everyone, including yourself, particularly when
the course of action is not clear.
5. Response, where you respond to need and show caring.

The ethics of care originated with Gilligan ( 1982 ). Her applications of Kohlberg's
( 1981 ) theory on how people reason and develop morally to female subjects of all
ages led her to theorise that an ethics of care was more appropriate for women.
Lyons ( 1983 ) identifi ed two different types of self-understanding:

1. The separate/objective self: people who fi t this model describe themselves in
terms of personal characteristics and consider moral dilemmas to be a confl ict
between their principles and someone else's needs, desires or demands. Therefore,
though they may also value interaction and relationships (as a means of
individual satisfaction), interactions are likely to be in terms of ground rules and
procedures, often called the voice of justice.
2. The connected self: people who fi t this model describe themselves in terms of
connections to other people, such as friend of, and identify moral dilemmas as
involving the breakdown of relationships. Relationships are seen as central to
self-identity and the issue is to protect the ties of connection and affection. This
leads to the voice of care which is concerned with moral dilemmas about pre-
serving these ties of care when they are threatened.

It is useful to consider which of these categories you fi t into or whether you have
elements of both of them.

2.3.2.2 Normative Ethics

(Practical) normative ethics is generally based on the basic principles of benefi cence
(and non-malefi cence), justice and autonomy. This is the type of ethics that has most
frequently been discussed in the context of assistive technology, most frequently for