Week 10 Lecture 9 morals and ethics PDF

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Week 10 Lecture 9

Introduction to Human Geography Morals and Ethics Reading Notes  ‘Geography and Ethics: Moral Geographies? Ethical Commitment to Research and Teaching’ by Gill Valentine in ‘Progress in Human Geography 29, 4 (2005), p483-487) Ethics and Social and Political Commitment: - rich history of social activism in human geography, motivated by ethical commitment to making a difference and achieving social change - William Bunge one of the most prominent geographers in achieving social action  carried out expeditions in American cities, that allowed Anglo-American geography in the 1970s and early 1980s to take a radical turn as put the experiences of marginalised groups on the map - Cloke 2002, discipline straid over the past decade  because of tension between the ease with which talk about geographies of ethic and the realities of living out these geographies in our lives  questions whether geographers become too motivated by intellectual and not political things, ignore the connections between ideas and practises (theory become more sophisticated but lost the critical political edge)  belief that geographers need to show more social and political commitment - argue that because of this lack of commitment and focus on intellectual ideas, also failing to impact on public policy – Martin 2001  blames postmodern and cultural turns for promoting theoretical reflections on practical research - Massey 2002, only way to be politically and socially relevant is to produce answers for government and inform policy, however still need to be more engaged beyond the academy and construct popular geographical imaginations  ignore how the creations of geographers (eg. Articles) affect and will be affected when put into real world and all its connections, just focus on creating academic outputs that improve reputation - Cloke 2002, professional pressures on academics who emphasise funding and academic publications over other forms of output is the reason for these patterns  also a lack of funding for longitudinal research, which create long term relationships and commitments with particular groups and issues  solution is for geographers to develop stronger connections between their academic and nonacademic lives (a more ‘compassionate geography’ - Kearns 2001)  for geography to rediscover political purpose, need to recover some of the lost moral certainties of the past, to prevent the discipline drifting again – Smith 2000 - Cloke 2002, believes new moral geographies can be enhanced by reference to aspects of spirituality, as even in a secular society, action is usually motivated by spiritual faith  other geographers support this, as they are beginning to take the notion of ‘evil’ (eg. Cruelty) seriously – Tuan 1999 need to support imaginations of power that recognise evil in various forms - Cloke 2002, ordinary evil = the lack of thought about the invisible and distant effects our actions may have on others just because our actions are fitting in with the prevailing norms of socio-economic life (eg. Homelessness) + malevolent evil = the intention to cause harm to others - one site where academics can make a difference and promote such social and political commitment to change is within the university itself, to the students  this allows for a contribution to then be made beyond the academy, through the students

Learning to Care: - usually ethics are taught as part of the course to prepare students to negotiate relationships, to develop integrity regarding consent and to be able to maintain the well-being of their informants  Hay and Foley 1998, need to recognise the importance of developing authentic individual responses to potentially unique circumstances - Kearns 1998, at the moment just teach ethics in terms of codes and procedures, with this there is a danger of research being seen as a serious of encounters and the researcher not approaching the importance of the response and relationship - Shea 2000, ethics committees cast informants as victims and deny them the opportunity to evaluate themselves what is the best for them and what is in their interests  risk-adverse ethics undermine the possibility of cross-cultural and cross-class encounter, and prevent researchers from taking ethical responsibility on a day-to-day basis - Kearns 1998, ethics should not be about procedures and outputs but also about the whole process of negotiating social relations both in the field and in wider society

- Crick, member of the UK Government’s citizenship advisory groups has identified geography as having a role in teaching the skills to think through problems for themselves and value argument  because in the more complex world, need to be able to handle opposing views and arguments - Kearns 1998, believes ethics should be put into the geography curriculum, rather than just a teaching of design and method  Vujakovic and Bullard 2001, should stretch into students everyday working practises and working relationships with each other  as a result, become more aware of the moral dimensions of their actions  eg. Might include practical steps to overcome ethical issues that come up in group work

A Question of ‘`Value’: - there has been a general drift of the discipline towards disengaged theory within the field of research and ethical/methodological practise within teaching  need to rethink how geographers can ‘live ethically and politically’ – Cloke 2002 - all depends on how academics reward individual and collective performance, if continue to weight towards the production of academic journals and books rather than social, political and teaching outcomes  unlikely to witness the moral development of the discipline - need social and political commitments to be recognised and valued by the profession or will never see any difference

 ‘Ethics in geography: giving moral form to the geographical imagination’ by James D Proctor (1997) Introduction: - Geographers have a role in moral philosophy. This emphasis is not entirely new. It began in the 1970s. Ethics deals with values and the right and wrong.

Background on ethics: - In science, ethics involves reflection upon moral questions that arise from research, publication and other professional activities. (Ethics of the research, is it justifiable?). - In philosophy, ethics involves systematic intellectual reflection on morality. Morality involves the realm of significant normative concerns e.g. good or bad. - Descriptive ethics: Aims to characterise existing moral schemes- used in cultural anthropology. - Normative ethics: Constructs a suitable moral basis for informing human conduct. - Meta-ethics: An examination of the characteristics of ethical reasoning ot systems of ethics e.g. the relationship between facts (descriptive) and values (normative) . - The terms good, bad, right and wrong are a primary concern for Western ethics. - Examinations of publications in ethics during the 1996- Showed that scholars of virtually all disciplines are contributing to ethics in the context of contemporary applied concerns e.g. suicide or international migration. - Professional ethics- This is a major filed where many publications are emerging. Major fields of interest include medicine, law and business. - Ethical concerns of geographers: Identity, exclusion, gender, post-modernism etc.

Ethics in geography: - Focuses on descriptive ethics.= more than normative ethics and meta-ethics. - Interested in: ethics of geographical research, GIS and social justice. - Geographers should study both professional and substantive concerns to allow them to be properly reflective in the moral statements they make about the world without losing the reflexivity to the point that they cannot speak about the moral value of the world. - Geographers need to retain the distinctions of the threefold rubric of descriptive, normative and metaethics bout also be sensitive to the links between the professional and substantive concerns. This ethical angle can be applied to the geographical study of space, place and nature. - Much of the work by geographers is mostly life science-based and physical – it rarely concerns questions of human ethics. - Rising interest in environmental ethics. Some geographers answer questions on this in terms of culturally based ideas of nature. Others have discussed the spatial scale dependency of optimal formulations of environmental ethics and others have critically reviewed the values underlying environmental movements.

Ethics and geography’s epistemological process: - Ethics of the act of the research and consideration of the role of the researcher. - What are the implications of the research?

Conclusions:

- Geographers have not done much work concerning ethics, geographers still have the opportunities to ask some of the many moral questions which circulate through the discipline. - Ethics in geography come under two themes: - The place of ethical reflection in geographical theory and practice. - The potential role geography could play in the arena of ethics. - What is the place of geography in ethics? - Are these questions of ethics beyond geography’s intellectual grasp?

 ‘Deliver us from evil? Prospects for living ethically and acting politically in Human Geography’ by Paul Cloke in ‘Progress in Human Geography’ 26,5 (2002) pp. 587–604 - Difficulties of writing about human geographies of ethics and justice compared to the difficulties of living out those geographies in our everyday life practices. For example, we all see homelessness everywhere and as geographers we can research and look into the causes, but what do we actually do to combat it? - First, as Nick Blomley (1994) and Noel Castree (1999) among others have recorded, there is a rich history of social activism in the human geography academy demonstrating life-changing commitment in some cases, and certainly a commitment which far outweighs many. - Felix Driver (1991) warns that the interest in morality should be less of a return to timeless concerns and more of a reflection of the need to respond to the significant political and intellectual shifts of the times. - Geographies of morality refer to: ‘the different moral assumptions and supporting arguments that particular peoples in particular places make about “good” and ‘‘bad”/”right” and “wrong”/”just” and “unjust”/”worthy” and “unworthy” and reflect the varying scales of assumptions made about the inclusion and exclusion of people from particular social groups and the codes by which they live. - Geographies in everyday moralities suggest that issues of space, place, environment, landscape and so on are often built into the very heart of moral arguments and assumptions. - Surveys of the geographies of, and in, everyday moralities promised the very nuanced and critical readings that many human geographers found lacking in the subject. In one of my own areas of interest, for example – geographies of rurality – there has been an emergent recognition of how rurality is implicated with morality. - It is far more difficult to discover in contemporary human geography as a whole a sense for the other which is emotional, connected and committed. This is due at least in part to the academic environment itself. Inevitably the self-serving nature of contemporary research conditions in human geography is conspiring against the development of a sustained sense for the other. Too often, research will inescapably be connected with the professional need to attract research funding, and publication will be about fulfilling the requirements and expectations of an academic career. - ‘Some of the lost moral certainties of earlier ages need to be recovered, not as fixed and repressive codes, but as carefully crafted anchors to prevent continuing drift in a sea of relativism or ‘‘nihilism’’ ’ (Smith, 2000: 214). - For many human geographers, the recovery of lost moral certainties will be anathema to the deconstructive relativism which holds a dominant position in the so-called ‘cultural turn’ (Cook et al., 2000). to hold fundamental belief in other spiritually inspired moral codes which reverse the natural order of power - prioritizing the weak over the strong, the neighbour over the self, love over hatred, and so on – suggests a capacity for the prompting of very different, and socially very positive, effects, not least a rediscovery of the necessity for charity in philosophies of citizenship. - Melissa Orlie’s (1997) book Living ethically, acting politically draws on Foucauldian theory, Arendtian politics and empirical studies of the early seventeenth century Quaker movement to present something of a manifesto for ethical-political action in the circumstances of contemporary power. - Human geography needs to sponsor imaginations of power that recognize ‘evil’ in various forms That ethical and political thinking and action can unleash and enlist those aspects of our spiritual selves that exceed governing forms of individual conscience and public reason. - We can envision a human geography in which living ethically and acting politically can be essentially intertwined with a sense for the other in a sensitive, committed and active approach to the subject. Such a human geography would entail a continuing engagement in collective political action against ordered evil. Equally, it necessitates processes and practices which add up to a taking responsibility for what we have been made to be and for who we are becoming...