Nel Noddings
Nel Noddings was an American feminist, educator, and philosopher best known for her work in philosophy of education, educational theory, and ethics of care.
Biography
Noddings received a bachelor's degree in mathematics and physical science from Montclair State University in New Jersey, a master's degree in mathematics from Rutgers University, and a PhD in education from the Stanford University Graduate School of Education.Nel Noddings worked in many areas of the education system. She spent seventeen years as an elementary and high school mathematics teacher and school administrator, before earning her PhD and beginning work as an academic in the fields of philosophy of education, theory of education and ethics, specifically moral education and ethics of care. She became a member of the Stanford faculty in 1977, and was the Jacks Professor of Child Education from 1992 until 1998. While at Stanford University she received awards for teaching excellence in 1981, 1982 and 1997, and was the associate dean or acting dean of the School of Education for four years. After leaving Stanford University, she held positions at Columbia University and Colgate University. She served as president of the Philosophy of Education Society and the John Dewey Society. In 2002–2003 she held the John W. Porter Chair in Urban Education at Eastern Michigan University. She was Lee L. Jacks Professor of Education, emerita, at Stanford University from 1998.
Nel Noddings has 10 children, 39 grandchildren, and over 20 great-grandchildren, many of whom are highly educated and educators themselves. In 2012 she lost her husband of over 60 years to cancer.
Noddings's fruitful career was matched by an equally fruitful domestic life. According to infed.org, Noddings described herself as "'incurably domestic' not only because she and her husband raised ten children, but because she also appreciated 'order in the kitchen, a fresh tablecloth, flowers on the table and food waiting for guests'. She added, 'I like having pets and kids around'. Feminists, she commented, sometimes find it hard to admit such things matter to them."
She had described her early educational experiences and her close relationships as key in her development of her philosophical position. Early relationships with caring teachers inspired her passion for her later work.
Personality
Colleague Michael Katz described Noddings as "one of the most efficient people" he knows, a "consummate teacher–scholar," who lives according to the "do it now" philosophy and "never lets her status as a famous scholar and lecturer and author interfere with treating everyone with the same kindness, thoughtfulness, and consideration that she would expect people to show her, regardless of her status or position."Work
Contributions to philosophy
Noddings's first sole-authored book Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education followed close on the 1982 publication of Carol Gilligan's ground-breaking work in the ethics of care In a Different Voice. While her work on ethics continued, with the publication of Women and Evil, and later works on moral education, most of her later publications have been on the philosophy of education and educational theory. Her most significant works in these areas have been Educating for Intelligent Belief or Unbelief and Philosophy of Education.Besides contributing to philosophy, Noddings also worked in the field of social psychology. Noddings was on the editorial board of Greater Good Magazine, published by the Greater Good Science Center of the University of California, Berkeley. Noddings's contributions include the interpretation of scientific research into the roots of compassion, altruism, and peaceful human relationships.
Nel Noddings's relational ethics
Nel Noddings's approach to ethics of care has been described as relational ethics because it prioritizes concern for relationships. Like Carol Gilligan, Noddings accepts that justice based approaches, which are supposed to be more masculine, are genuine alternatives to ethics of care. However, unlike Gilligan, Noddings's believes that caring, 'rooted in receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness' is a more basic and preferable approach to ethics.''Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education''
The key to understanding Noddings's ethics of care is to understand her notion of caring and ethical caring in particular.Noddings believes that it would be a mistake to try to provide a systematic examination of the requirements for caring; nevertheless, she does suggest three requirements for caring. She argues that the carer must exhibit engrossment and motivational displacement, and the person who is cared for must respond in some way to the caring. Noddings's term engrossment refers to thinking about someone in order to gain a greater understanding of him or her. Engrossment is necessary for caring because an individual's personal and physical situation must be understood before the one-caring can determine the appropriateness of any action. 'Engrossment' need not entail, as the term seems to suggest, a deep fixation on the other. It requires only the attention needed to come to understand the position of the other. Engrossment could not on its own constitute caring; someone could have a deep understanding of another person, yet act against that person's interests. Motivational displacement prevents this from occurring. Motivational displacement occurs when the one-caring's behaviour is largely determined by the needs of the person for whom she is caring. On its own, motivational displacement would also be insufficient for ethical caring. For example, someone who acted primarily from a desire to accomplish something for another person, but failed to think carefully enough about that other person's needs, would fail to care. Finally, Noddings believes that caring requires some form of recognition from the cared-for that the one-caring is, in fact, caring. When there is a recognition of and response to the caring by the person cared for, Noddings describes the caring as "completed in the other".
Nel Noddings draws an important distinction between natural caring and ethical caring. Noddings distinguishes between acting because "I want" and acting because "I must". When I care for someone because "I want" to care, say I hug a friend who needs hugging in an act of love, Noddings claims that I am engaged in natural caring. When I care for someone because "I must" care, say I hug an acquaintance who needs hugging in spite of my desire to escape that person's pain, according to Noddings, I am engaged in ethical caring. Ethical caring occurs when a person acts caringly out of a belief that caring is the appropriate way of relating to people. When someone acts in a caring way because that person naturally cares for another, the caring is not ethical caring. Noddings claims that ethical caring is based on, and so dependent on, natural caring. It is through experiencing others caring for them and naturally caring for others that people build what is called an "ethical ideal", an image of the kind of person they want to be.
Noddings describes wrong actions in terms of "a diminishment of the ethical ideal" and "evil". A person's ethical ideal is diminished when she either chooses or is forced to act in a way that rejects her internal call to care. In effect, her image of the best person it is possible for her to be is altered in a way that lowers her ideal. According to Noddings, people and organizations can deliberately or carelessly contribute to the diminishment of others' ethical ideals. They may do this by teaching people not to care, or by placing them in conditions that prevent them from being able to care. A person is evil if, in spite of her ability to do otherwise, she either fails to personally care for someone, or prevents others from caring. Noddings writes, " one intentionally rejects the impulse to care and deliberately turns her back on the ethical, she is evil, and this evil cannot be redeemed".
This is referred to as "obligation". "There are moments for all of us when we care quite naturally. We just do care; no ethical effort is required. 'Want' and 'ought' are indistinguishable in such cases." I have the ability to "abstain from action if I believe that anything I might do would tend to work against the best interests of the cared-for." According to Noddings we are obligated to pursue the "musts".
Criticisms of Noddings's relational ethics
Nel Noddings's ethics of care has been criticised by both feminists and those who favour more traditional, and allegedly masculine, approaches to ethics. In brief, feminists object that the one caring is, in effect, carrying out the traditional female role in life of giving while receiving little in return. Those who accept more traditional approaches to ethics argue that the partiality shown to those closest to us in Noddings's theory is inappropriate.Noddings tends to use unequal relationships as a model for understanding caring. Philosopher and feminist Sarah Lucia Hoagland argues that the relationships in question, such as parenting and teaching, are ideally relationships where caring is a transitory thing designed to foster the independence of the cared-for, and so end the unequal caring relationship. Unequal relationships, she writes, are ethically problematic, and so a poor model for an ethical theory. Hoagland argues that on Noddings's account of ethical caring, the one-caring is placed in the role of the giver and the cared-for in the role of the taker. The one-caring is dominant, choosing what is good for the cared-for, but gives without receiving caring in return. The cared-for is put in the position of being a dependent, with insufficient control over the nature of the caring. Hoagland believes that such unequal relationships cannot be morally good.