Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.2003940
Catherine Fleri Soler
{"title":"The Routledge Handbook of Social Work Ethics and Values","authors":"Catherine Fleri Soler","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.2003940","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.2003940","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"442 - 444"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48469656","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.2003835
Jorma Heier
ABSTRACT The political institutionalisation of common wellbeing and the promise that all members of the polity count equally gives political rule its legitimisation. Access to resources at the disposal of public authorities and the ethico-political standing to call upon them is not distributed equally across all groups in a polity. The political struggles of the Wet’suwet’en against the pipeline occupation of Indigenous land, and the initiatives of Black Americans/Turtle Islanders for ReADdress for Slavery attest to this. 1 These struggles demonstrate that there are forms of past harmdoing that have an effect on, and are inscribed in, present structures and arrangements of the political. This article looks at the past and present epistemic ignorances and power inequalities to co-shape the authoritative political version of wellbeing that lead to ethico-political abandonment and a refusal to renegotiate the structures and institutions in North America/Turtle Island now that Wet’suwet’en and Black Americans (ought to) have an equal ethico-political standing. I demonstrate that the past injustices of colonialism and slavery co-shape the polity’s present and its haveable futures. Acts of democratising the past in the present bestow upon the harmed an inclusion in current political attentiveness and wellbeing that they did not experience from past contemporaries.
{"title":"Democratizing the Past for the Equal Present and Future Wellbeing of all Members of a Polity","authors":"Jorma Heier","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.2003835","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.2003835","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The political institutionalisation of common wellbeing and the promise that all members of the polity count equally gives political rule its legitimisation. Access to resources at the disposal of public authorities and the ethico-political standing to call upon them is not distributed equally across all groups in a polity. The political struggles of the Wet’suwet’en against the pipeline occupation of Indigenous land, and the initiatives of Black Americans/Turtle Islanders for ReADdress for Slavery attest to this. 1 These struggles demonstrate that there are forms of past harmdoing that have an effect on, and are inscribed in, present structures and arrangements of the political. This article looks at the past and present epistemic ignorances and power inequalities to co-shape the authoritative political version of wellbeing that lead to ethico-political abandonment and a refusal to renegotiate the structures and institutions in North America/Turtle Island now that Wet’suwet’en and Black Americans (ought to) have an equal ethico-political standing. I demonstrate that the past injustices of colonialism and slavery co-shape the polity’s present and its haveable futures. Acts of democratising the past in the present bestow upon the harmed an inclusion in current political attentiveness and wellbeing that they did not experience from past contemporaries.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"363 - 378"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45233753","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.2004644
G. Calder, T. Brannelly, Ian Calliou
Ethical relations to the past – whether to ancestors, the dead, historical injustices, events with contested interpretations – are complex and often elusive. The representations of history are, as Edward Said put it, not ‘ontologically given’ but rather ‘historically constituted’ (Said 1989, 225). Rather than preserved as a ‘thing’ by this or that established account, ‘the past’ is something with which we are in an ongoing state of negotiation. At points, this process seems especially highly charged. Our call for contributions to this special issue followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in June 2020, and a global response calling for an end to racism and colonialisation, an acknowledgement of the presence of past injustices in the here and now. The need for such acknowledgement has been at the heart of other recent high-profile cases and movements, from historic child abuse by high-profile celebrities to #MeToo, and from the moral skirmishes in the UK and US around the removal of statues of those involved in the slave trade, to the October 2021 ruling that the Canadian government must compensate Indigenous children taken from their homes and placed for the sake of ‘assimilation’ in residential homes where many went on to be abused. Distinct ethical questions arise when we are dealing with the past, and with transition. Can people of the past be wronged in the present? With events long in the past, how does responsibility carry over to current agencies not directly involved – to present governments, businesses or institutions? Does ethics sometimes require a revision of how past events and people are commemorated? To what extent is it legitimate to judge beliefs and actions taken as ‘normal’ in previous eras and contexts by standards arising in our own time? In post-colonial contexts, what is the rightful role of ‘allyship’ in resolving past conflict, trauma and oppression – and giving due prominence to the agency and authority of those who have offered resistance? Meanwhile other factors are crucial to how these ethical questions are negotiated. Whose knowledge counts, in getting to grips with historical events? What role can, or should, survivors’ testimony play? What (if anything) constitutes an authoritative account? Our commitment in this special issue has been to address how the harms of the past live in current welfare policy and practices. Terms such as ‘post-coloniality’ and ‘historical abuse’may suggest that somehow the harms at stake exist only in the past, rather than being carried among those currently living. A willingness by governments to take steps to redress those harms may seem to be partial, and non-inclusive of the insights of those affected. Our intention is to foreground both the need for care and criticality in our understanding of ethical relations to the past, and the need to hear the plurality of voices and insights among those affected then and now. Shona Hunter’s paper addresses the question of decolonising
{"title":"Ethical Relations to the Past: Individual, Institutional, International","authors":"G. Calder, T. Brannelly, Ian Calliou","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.2004644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.2004644","url":null,"abstract":"Ethical relations to the past – whether to ancestors, the dead, historical injustices, events with contested interpretations – are complex and often elusive. The representations of history are, as Edward Said put it, not ‘ontologically given’ but rather ‘historically constituted’ (Said 1989, 225). Rather than preserved as a ‘thing’ by this or that established account, ‘the past’ is something with which we are in an ongoing state of negotiation. At points, this process seems especially highly charged. Our call for contributions to this special issue followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in June 2020, and a global response calling for an end to racism and colonialisation, an acknowledgement of the presence of past injustices in the here and now. The need for such acknowledgement has been at the heart of other recent high-profile cases and movements, from historic child abuse by high-profile celebrities to #MeToo, and from the moral skirmishes in the UK and US around the removal of statues of those involved in the slave trade, to the October 2021 ruling that the Canadian government must compensate Indigenous children taken from their homes and placed for the sake of ‘assimilation’ in residential homes where many went on to be abused. Distinct ethical questions arise when we are dealing with the past, and with transition. Can people of the past be wronged in the present? With events long in the past, how does responsibility carry over to current agencies not directly involved – to present governments, businesses or institutions? Does ethics sometimes require a revision of how past events and people are commemorated? To what extent is it legitimate to judge beliefs and actions taken as ‘normal’ in previous eras and contexts by standards arising in our own time? In post-colonial contexts, what is the rightful role of ‘allyship’ in resolving past conflict, trauma and oppression – and giving due prominence to the agency and authority of those who have offered resistance? Meanwhile other factors are crucial to how these ethical questions are negotiated. Whose knowledge counts, in getting to grips with historical events? What role can, or should, survivors’ testimony play? What (if anything) constitutes an authoritative account? Our commitment in this special issue has been to address how the harms of the past live in current welfare policy and practices. Terms such as ‘post-coloniality’ and ‘historical abuse’may suggest that somehow the harms at stake exist only in the past, rather than being carried among those currently living. A willingness by governments to take steps to redress those harms may seem to be partial, and non-inclusive of the insights of those affected. Our intention is to foreground both the need for care and criticality in our understanding of ethical relations to the past, and the need to hear the plurality of voices and insights among those affected then and now. Shona Hunter’s paper addresses the question of decolonising ","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"341 - 343"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42596449","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.2005580
Ronald Indian-Mandamin, J. Bone
ABSTRACT The Anishinaabe people understand Ago’idiwin (treaty) is about relationships. The spirit and intent of treaty were about two nations culminating in a shared sense of humanity and dignity. One must understand the pipe ceremony and its seven sacred cardinal directions as demonstrated by whoever conducts the ceremony. These also represent seven sacred principles of Anishinaabe laws, nationhood and sovereignty. Aanikoobijiginan is the same word for great grandparents, and great grandchildren. To me this describes a process of tying the seven generations together through Sasquatch Earth Laws, sacred story. A story both new and old because it is connected to our origin stories.
{"title":"Manitou Abi Dibaajimowin: Where the Spirit Sits Story","authors":"Ronald Indian-Mandamin, J. Bone","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.2005580","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.2005580","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Anishinaabe people understand Ago’idiwin (treaty) is about relationships. The spirit and intent of treaty were about two nations culminating in a shared sense of humanity and dignity. One must understand the pipe ceremony and its seven sacred cardinal directions as demonstrated by whoever conducts the ceremony. These also represent seven sacred principles of Anishinaabe laws, nationhood and sovereignty. Aanikoobijiginan is the same word for great grandparents, and great grandchildren. To me this describes a process of tying the seven generations together through Sasquatch Earth Laws, sacred story. A story both new and old because it is connected to our origin stories.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"428 - 432"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41682888","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-10-02DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.1990370
S. Hunter
ABSTRACT This paper contributes to debates on potential connections between care ethics and decoloniality from within Global North West European whiteness. It adopts a feminist psychosocial position which understands everyday lived realities as shifting dynamic entanglements, produced relationally though complicated spatially and temporally expansive material, discursive and affective practices. First, it situates the liberal welfare state as part of a global project of North Western European colonisation which violently establishes a fantasy of whiteness as the human ideal rooted in individual sovereignty and rights to possession (Moreton-Robinson, 2015). Next it unpacks how the historical institutionalisation of care via state welfare sustains ‘white ignorance’; (Mills, 2007) in the face of the contemporary reality of ongoing systematised racial violence of coloniality. Finally, it offers the idea of ‘relational choreography’ (Hunter, 2015a; 2015b) as a way into resisting binary liberal individualist self-understanding underpinning this possessive logic of whiteness.
{"title":"Decolonizing White Care: Relational Reckoning with the Violence of Coloniality in Welfare","authors":"S. Hunter","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.1990370","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.1990370","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT\u0000 This paper contributes to debates on potential connections between care ethics and decoloniality from within Global North West European whiteness. It adopts a feminist psychosocial position which understands everyday lived realities as shifting dynamic entanglements, produced relationally though complicated spatially and temporally expansive material, discursive and affective practices. First, it situates the liberal welfare state as part of a global project of North Western European colonisation which violently establishes a fantasy of whiteness as the human ideal rooted in individual sovereignty and rights to possession (Moreton-Robinson, 2015). Next it unpacks how the historical institutionalisation of care via state welfare sustains ‘white ignorance’; (Mills, 2007) in the face of the contemporary reality of ongoing systematised racial violence of coloniality. Finally, it offers the idea of ‘relational choreography’ (Hunter, 2015a; 2015b) as a way into resisting binary liberal individualist self-understanding underpinning this possessive logic of whiteness.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"344 - 362"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47254134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-15DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.1977836
Mia Väisänen, Maija Mänttäri-van der Kuip
ABSTRACT Change in the policy and ideology governing social and health care has been much debated in the Western welfare states, including in Finland, where the public sector has witnessed a shift towards a market and managerial ideology in a climate of austerity. These changes affect organisations as well as individual workers. Social workers implement social policies in their daily work, and are thus positioned in between policies and clients. This may expose them to feelings of unease in the implementation of certain policies. In this study, we apply the policy alienation framework of Tummers and colleagues (2009. “Policy Alienation of Public Professionals: Application in a new Public Management Context.” Public Management Review 11 (5): 685–706) in analysing the responses of social workers to a major social and health care reform prepared in Finland in 2015–2019. By applying problem-driven content analysis to interview data, we study how social workers responded to the proposals for reform, and how the two dimensions of policy alienation, i.e. experiences of meaninglessness and powerlessness, were manifested. The findings suggest that policy alienation is widespread among social workers and that experiences of powerlessness and meaninglessness are common. The social workers experienced powerlessness in relation to specific policies and practices. They also viewed the reform as meaningless, as it lacked socially relevant goals.
{"title":"Policy Alienation in Frontline Social Work – A Study of Social Workers’ Responses to a Major Anticipated Social and Health Care Reform in Finland","authors":"Mia Väisänen, Maija Mänttäri-van der Kuip","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.1977836","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.1977836","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Change in the policy and ideology governing social and health care has been much debated in the Western welfare states, including in Finland, where the public sector has witnessed a shift towards a market and managerial ideology in a climate of austerity. These changes affect organisations as well as individual workers. Social workers implement social policies in their daily work, and are thus positioned in between policies and clients. This may expose them to feelings of unease in the implementation of certain policies. In this study, we apply the policy alienation framework of Tummers and colleagues (2009. “Policy Alienation of Public Professionals: Application in a new Public Management Context.” Public Management Review 11 (5): 685–706) in analysing the responses of social workers to a major social and health care reform prepared in Finland in 2015–2019. By applying problem-driven content analysis to interview data, we study how social workers responded to the proposals for reform, and how the two dimensions of policy alienation, i.e. experiences of meaninglessness and powerlessness, were manifested. The findings suggest that policy alienation is widespread among social workers and that experiences of powerlessness and meaninglessness are common. The social workers experienced powerlessness in relation to specific policies and practices. They also viewed the reform as meaningless, as it lacked socially relevant goals.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"16 1","pages":"19 - 35"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49247919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-05DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.1971734
Tumi Mpofu, Martina Dahlmanns, Siphelele Chirwa
ABSTRACT This article critically examines charity work on the African continent within the predominant western/Eurocentric paradigm, based on the notion of an inferior and helpless ‘African Other' in need of rescuing. We trace the history of western philanthropy back to its colonial roots exposing its main function as upholding white supremacy by reinforcing patterns of colonial subjugation and dependence. These notions are to this day reflected in charitable projects on the continent which are understood as ends in and of themselves without the need to embed those actions in any serious challenge to existing power dynamics so the status quo may be preserved. Looking at a small niche project in Cape Town, South Africa during the emerging Corona Crisis in 2020, we explore the possibility of an alternative, African-centred philanthropy, which requires an awareness for the voices that continue to be silenced. Using insights from our project, we question the functions and the impact of postcolonial charity on both the ‘recipients’ and ‘givers’ of such charity and propose ways forward for research and action-based alternatives.
{"title":"Toward a Social Justice African Philanthropy","authors":"Tumi Mpofu, Martina Dahlmanns, Siphelele Chirwa","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.1971734","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.1971734","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article critically examines charity work on the African continent within the predominant western/Eurocentric paradigm, based on the notion of an inferior and helpless ‘African Other' in need of rescuing. We trace the history of western philanthropy back to its colonial roots exposing its main function as upholding white supremacy by reinforcing patterns of colonial subjugation and dependence. These notions are to this day reflected in charitable projects on the continent which are understood as ends in and of themselves without the need to embed those actions in any serious challenge to existing power dynamics so the status quo may be preserved. Looking at a small niche project in Cape Town, South Africa during the emerging Corona Crisis in 2020, we explore the possibility of an alternative, African-centred philanthropy, which requires an awareness for the voices that continue to be silenced. Using insights from our project, we question the functions and the impact of postcolonial charity on both the ‘recipients’ and ‘givers’ of such charity and propose ways forward for research and action-based alternatives.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"433 - 441"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41443477","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-01DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.1970789
Tom Bunyard
ABSTRACT This essay proposes that the interpretations of Hegelian philosophy advanced by Gillian Rose and Robert Pippin may be relevant to the theorisation of genocide. This argument is presented via a discussion of Claudia Card’s contention that genocide can be understood as a form of ‘social death’. According to Card, genocide damages or eradicates what she calls ‘social vitality’: inter-generational social relations that animate, articulate and characterise social groups, and which give meaning and context to individual lives. The essay points out limitations in Card’s claims and proposes that Pippin and Rose could help to respond to those problems. It argues that Pippin’s reading can develop Card’s ideas regarding the collective ‘life’ of groups, and that Rose’s interpretation can remedy difficulties posed by Card’s conception of evil. The essay suggests that, when taken together, this combination of ideas may point towards a means of thinking about Hegel that serves to foreground the pertinence of past disasters to any critical assessment of the present.
{"title":"Spirit and Social Death: Hegel, Historical Life and Genocide","authors":"Tom Bunyard","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.1970789","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.1970789","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This essay proposes that the interpretations of Hegelian philosophy advanced by Gillian Rose and Robert Pippin may be relevant to the theorisation of genocide. This argument is presented via a discussion of Claudia Card’s contention that genocide can be understood as a form of ‘social death’. According to Card, genocide damages or eradicates what she calls ‘social vitality’: inter-generational social relations that animate, articulate and characterise social groups, and which give meaning and context to individual lives. The essay points out limitations in Card’s claims and proposes that Pippin and Rose could help to respond to those problems. It argues that Pippin’s reading can develop Card’s ideas regarding the collective ‘life’ of groups, and that Rose’s interpretation can remedy difficulties posed by Card’s conception of evil. The essay suggests that, when taken together, this combination of ideas may point towards a means of thinking about Hegel that serves to foreground the pertinence of past disasters to any critical assessment of the present.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"410 - 427"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44405021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-19DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.1966486
Heidrun Wulfekühler, Angela Moré
ABSTRACT Ethical relations to the past demand a conscious confrontation of the past. In this sense we will examine the close connection between past events and moral concepts and their influence on current moral discourses. We presume a weak moral objectivism, since strong moral objectivism fails to take account of relevant particulars of a given context, now or in the past, and since it might carry a tendency to dogmatism and rigidity. A stringent moral relativism, on the other hand, can lead to the trivialisation and denial of the violation of universal ethical values. From a philosophical standpoint, it will be argued that moral judgments about past actions are appropriate and necessary, followed by reflections on the significance of universalist and relativist positions in social science discourses and from psychoanalytic social psychology.
{"title":"Are Moral Judgments About the Past a Necessity or Unethical? Reflections on the Meaning of Universalistic and Relativistic Ethical Positions","authors":"Heidrun Wulfekühler, Angela Moré","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.1966486","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.1966486","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Ethical relations to the past demand a conscious confrontation of the past. In this sense we will examine the close connection between past events and moral concepts and their influence on current moral discourses. We presume a weak moral objectivism, since strong moral objectivism fails to take account of relevant particulars of a given context, now or in the past, and since it might carry a tendency to dogmatism and rigidity. A stringent moral relativism, on the other hand, can lead to the trivialisation and denial of the violation of universal ethical values. From a philosophical standpoint, it will be argued that moral judgments about past actions are appropriate and necessary, followed by reflections on the significance of universalist and relativist positions in social science discourses and from psychoanalytic social psychology.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"395 - 409"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46829718","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-03DOI: 10.1080/17496535.2021.1961004
Karl Landström
ABSTRACT In this essay, I argue that the destruction or hiding of archives can cause long-lasting epistemic harms and constitute complex ethical challenges. The case of Kenya’s ‘migrated archives’ is argued to be an example of how actions in the past can have long-lasting epistemic consequences and can cause contemporary epistemic injustices and harms related to one’s knowledge of the past. The perpetrators of such harms and injustices are argued to have a backward-looking epistemic responsibility and to be liable to make epistemic amends. The practice of acknowledgement is suggested as one possible way to make effective epistemic amends. I argue that making effective epistemic amends would constitute a step towards addressing epistemic harms and injustices related to our knowledge of the past. However, it is important to remember that this would only constitute one out of many necessary steps in addressing epistemic injustice and that further individual, institutional and ideological changes are necessary.
{"title":"Archives, Epistemic Injustice and Knowing the Past","authors":"Karl Landström","doi":"10.1080/17496535.2021.1961004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17496535.2021.1961004","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT In this essay, I argue that the destruction or hiding of archives can cause long-lasting epistemic harms and constitute complex ethical challenges. The case of Kenya’s ‘migrated archives’ is argued to be an example of how actions in the past can have long-lasting epistemic consequences and can cause contemporary epistemic injustices and harms related to one’s knowledge of the past. The perpetrators of such harms and injustices are argued to have a backward-looking epistemic responsibility and to be liable to make epistemic amends. The practice of acknowledgement is suggested as one possible way to make effective epistemic amends. I argue that making effective epistemic amends would constitute a step towards addressing epistemic harms and injustices related to our knowledge of the past. However, it is important to remember that this would only constitute one out of many necessary steps in addressing epistemic injustice and that further individual, institutional and ideological changes are necessary.","PeriodicalId":46151,"journal":{"name":"Ethics and Social Welfare","volume":"15 1","pages":"379 - 394"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47423352","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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