Program/Event
Undergraduate Research Showcase Spring 2025
Abstract
In An Ethic of Caring, Nell Noddings establishes a humanistic ethical ideal—ethics should be based upon our natural sentiment of caring, not abstract moral law. She differentiates ethical caring from natural caring; ethical caring requires stirring past sentiments and a call to care for others that natural caring may not provoke. Noddings places the ethical ideal above the moral principle because the latter is too general; the ethical ideal applies to specific situations with the universal aim of “maintenance of the caring relation” (Noddings 702). Limits to our ethical responsibilities are relational: there must be “existence of or potential for relation, and the dynamic potential for growth in relation” (703), with mutuality and reciprocity. Judging right and wrong is not the goal; morality does not operate via truths and justifications, but aims at “heightening moral perception and sensitivity” (705). Noddings’ ethic of care is somewhat Platonic—moral problems are lived, not solved intellectually. It preserves groups and individuals, but doesn’t promote institutions, as institutions and nations cannot be ethical. I propose to apply Noddings’ ethics of care as a framework for design. Design is a humanistic process that, because of our responsibility as designers, requires an ethical structure. I chose Noddings’ ethic for the ways designers “adopt sensitive, diplomatic, and sometimes therapeutic functions that invite us to rethink practices of care and civility” (Mariana Pestana, Empathy Revisited, 33) and for how intrinsically relational design is. Designers relate to clients, audiences, one another, and society, shaping relations through design. Design is often about maintenance of visual systems, structures, and relations (“maintaining the wealth of pre-existing relationships” [Silvio Lorusso, What Design Can’t Do, 105])—making Noddings’ ethic a moral backdrop. I will argue for design as a relational process, our ethical responsibility, and how care ethics can bridge the two.
Recommended Citation
Bruner, Ellie
(2025)
"An Integration Of Care Ethics Into Design Thinking,"
The Cardinal Edge: Vol. 3:
Iss.
2, Article 12.
Available at:
https://ir.library.louisville.edu/tce/vol3/iss2/12