Ethics of Care in a War Time: Why It Matters for Ukrainians?

• In Event: Russia-Ukraine War: Ethical Dimensions

Abstract

The concept of care is quite controversial in modern ethical theory. Mainly, ethics of care is contrasted with deontological/Kantian and consequentialist/utilitarian ethics and has been criticized as slave morality, theoretically ambiguous and empirically flawed. The Russian full-scale war against Ukraine empirically proves the significance of ethics of care and brings some light to its theoretical definition. To a large extent, Ukrainians survived against most analytical and military forecasts thanks to ethics of care. The strengthening of the ethics of care during the war is facilitated by: 1) the lack of an explicit normative framework of the ethics of care, which enables a more comprehensive ethical range of actions; 2) the desire to save one's world from destruction; 3) embodiment of the values of humanism and justice in the register of individual actions; 4) the need for real hope in one's strength to overcome the pre-war illusions of peace; 5) aggravation of vulnerability (of people, animal world, nature, culture, art, etc.); 6) traumatic effect of war (physical, mental); 7) need in self-care. The war reveals that care is an action aimed at protecting one's world - by worrying about someone or something, we preserve our world. Care is a survival ethic.

Author

• Olga Gomilko, National Academy of Sciences (Ukraine)