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Beyond Inadvertent Ventriloquism: Caring Virtues for Anti‐paternalist Development Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Serene J. Khader
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Abstract

I argue that the epistemological virtues of concrete thinking, self‐transparency, and narrative understanding developed by care ethicists can help international development practitioners combat their own temptations to engage in “unconscious unjustified paternalism” (UUP). I develop the concept of UUP—a type of paternalism in which one party unjustifiably substitutes her judgment for another's because of difficulty distinguishing her desires for the other from the other's good. I show that the temptation to UUP is endemic to development and that care ethics contains virtues for combating it. Key to my claim is a view of caregiving as a practice of negotiating conflict.

Type
Responsibility and Identity in Global Justice
Information
Hypatia , Volume 26 , Issue 4: Special Issue: 2nd FEAST Special Issue , Fall 2011 , pp. 742 - 761
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by Hypatia, Inc.

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