Revolutionary Care

Maurice Hamington is Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Faculty in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Portland State University. As a care ethicist, he is interested in both the theory and application of care. Among other positions, Hamington is a Steering Committee Member for the International Care Ethics Research Consortium (CERC), Utrecht, the Netherlands. He is also a member of the Advisory Board for Care Aesthetics: Research Exploration (CARE), a multi-year research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the United Kingdom. As the author, or editor, of 16 books and over 25 articles in refereed journals, Hamington has given invited presentations on care ethics across the globe. See mhamington.com for more information on his scholarship.

"Revolutionary Care invites people of the world to unite for a more caring society. Hamington’s radical as well as nuanced rereading of care ethics breathes new life into feminist philosophy ontologically, epistemologically, and politically as a transformative grand theory for every being."Yayo Okano, Professor, Graduate School of Global Studies, Doshisha University, Japan"Care ethics’ initial feminist motivation was to draw upon common experiences and practices of care and show their potential for a world of peace, responsibility, equality, and epistemic justice. This book elaborates the philosophical arguments for care, while also offering powerful practical programs of moral behavior that caring persons could identify with: feminism, socialism, (post)humanism, and veganism. Hamington’s book thereby takes the revolutionary potential of care to the next level."Prof. Dr. Inge van Nistelrooij, Associate Professor, University of Humanistic Studies, the Netherlands"In this groundbreaking new book, Maurice Hamington, already recognized as an original and important thinker on the ethics of care, goes beyond the acknowledged values of care and reflects on the radicality of care - radical in the sense that it takes us back to the roots or the core of ethics and politics, to what matters. Care is often not seen as a radical concept in terms of political activism, probably because of the association of care with women's work. However, Revolutionary Care sheds new light on the very power of care, showing how a genuine commitment to care requires resistance to dominant neoliberal values, and an actual nonviolent revolution."Sandra Laugier, Professor of Philosophy, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne"This work argues for care’s transformative potential given its relational ontology and epistemology of general and concrete knowing, which connect the human and posthuman through reflexive dependencies. It reflects beyond the cliched dualisms of care’s absence versus abundance to focus on the phenomenology of embodied caring practices through their vicissitudes. Hamington pioneers care’s ability to heal conflicts through insights drawn from everyday sensitive and attentive actions, often unsteady and requiring immense patience with their complex fallibilisms. This stands in contrast to the cut and dry abstract intellectualism of ideal theories and rational deliberations. It is a must read as its nuanced articulations of the normativity of caring practices have a global relevance."Kanchana Mahadevan, Professor of Philosophy, University of Mumbai“The book unquestionably assembles a range of new perspectives on existing ideas of care, making it an inimitable attempt at a novel ground for discussion. Revolutionary Care is undoubtedly meant for the palette of academicians, but even non-academicians can derive a better understanding of a possible future that revolves around and revolutionizes care.”Pragya Devand and Binod Mishra, International Journal of Care and Caring

• Introduction: Is Care A Radical Idea?, Section 1: Thinking About Better Care, Chapter 1: Good Care, Chapter 2: Care and Normativity, Chapter 3: A Categorical Commitment to Care, Chapter 4: A Care Ethos, Section 2: Invitations and Provocations: Imagining Transformative Possibilities, Chapter 5: Feminism and Resisting Toxic Masculinity, Chapter 6: Socialism and Creating A Care Economy, Chapter 7: Humanism and Balancing the Primacy of Care with Religious Authority, Chapter 8: Veganism and Post-Human Care, Conclusion: Disponibilité, Moral Progress, and Revolution