The virtue of care - with Steven Steyl

Careful Thinking

Is care a virtue? And what is the relationship between care ethics and virtue ethics? Is there a need to 'queer' care ethics? And what does an ethic of care have to say about the needs of marginalised groups like migrants and those with invisible disabilities?

These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Steven Steyl. Steven studied law, philosophy and politics at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, where he also completed an M.A. in politics and international relations. He then studied for a PhD, at the University of Notre Dame Australia, where his thesis was entitled ‘Towards an Aristotelian Theory of Care: A Comparison of Neo-Aristotelian Virtue Ethics with Feminist Ethics of Care, and the Fundaments of a Virtue Ethical Theory of Care.’ Steven has been a visiting researcher at Oxford, at the University of Minnesota and at Arizona State University, and he currently teaches at UNDA’s Sydney campus where he will shortly be taking up a new post coordinating the national bioethics curriculum. Steven is also in the process of completing postgraduate legal training with the New Zealand Law Society and from July he'll have a licence to practice law. He has published a number of journal articles in the field of care ethics, exploring the nature of caring actions, the relationship between care ethics and virtue ethics, and queer care ethics. With Daniel Engster, Steven is co-editing a forthcoming collection on care and moral theory.

We discuss the following topics in this episode:

The origins of Steven's interest in care theory (02:55)

Care and the virtues (05:43)

Care ethics and analytic philosophy (19:46)

Caring actions (23:14)

Queering care ethics (30:18)

Conversion therapy and the ethics of care (37:42)

Care theory and invisible disabilities (41:27)

Care ethics and migration (45:57)

Steven's plans for the future - philosophy or the law? (48:17)

Links to some of Steven's publications

'The Virtue of Care' (2019)

'Caring Actions' (2019)

'A Care Ethical Theory of Right Action' (2020)

'Theologically Motivated Conversion Therapy and Care Epistemology' in Care Ethics, Religion and Spiritual Traditions

Other publications discussed in the episode

Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman, Metaphysical Animals: How Four Women Brought Philosophy Back to Life

Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development

Lynne Huffer, Are the Lips a Grave? A Queer Feminist on the Ethics of Sex

Some of the writers and thinkers mentioned in the episode

Aristotle

Rosalind Hursthouse

Michael Slote

Virginia Held

Eva Kittay

Nell Noddings

Joan Tronto

Howard Curzer

Philippa Foot

Alasdair McIntyre

Elizabeth Anscombe

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Maurice Hamington

Hil Malatino

For a transcript of this episode, follow this link to the Careful Thinking Substack.