
Get every episode summarized
Each time Careful Thinking publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
About this episode
How can we make ethical decisions in a world that includes multiple and diverse forms of life, and what can care ethics contribute to developing a pluriversal ethics? What did the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrate about the nature of human vulnerability? And can violence ever be justified within an ethic of care?
These are some of the questions we explore in this episode, with Maggie FitzGerald. Maggie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. She has a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with a specialisation in political economy from St. Thomas University in Fredericton, New Brunswick, and a Master of Arts in Political Economy from Carleton University in Ottawa, where she also completed her doctorate in the Department of Political Science.
Maggie's research focuses on the ethics of care, global ethics and international political theory, decolonial ethics, normative and critical international relations theory, and feminist political economy. Her work has appeared in journals such as Ethics and Social Welfare, the Journal of International Political Theory, and the International Journal of Care and Caring. Maggie is the author of the book Care and the Pluriverse: Rethinking Global Ethics, which was published by Bristol University Press in 2022. She is also the co-editor with Sophie Bourgault and Fiona Robinson of the collection Decentering Epistemologies and Challenging Privilege: Critical Care Ethics Perspectives, which was published by Rutgers University Press in 2024.
We discuss the following topics in this episode:
Maggie's professional and academic journey (02:41)
Feminist theorists who have influenced Maggie's thinking (05:38)
The 'pluriverse' as concept (07:29)
Introducing Care and the Pluriverse (08:30)
Using case studies from indigenous contexts (09:45)
Decentering global ethics (12:20)
A critique of modernity (16:12)
Towards a critical, political ethics of care (17:53)
COVID-19, vulnerability and the ethics of care (21:41)
Combining Lacan, Žižek and care ethics(24:20)
Decentering the self, decentering care (26:50)
Violence, trauma, care and repair (33:20)
Love and care (41:43)
Maggie's plans for a new book on care and repair (47:20)
Writers and thinkers mentioned in the episode
Journal articles by Maggie discussed in the episode
'COVID-19, the trauma of the "real" and the political import of vulnerability'
'Violence and Care: Fanon and the Ethics of Care on Harm, Trauma, and Repair'
Other publications mentioned in the episode
Margaret Urban Walker, Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics
Martin Robb, 'Knowing, loving, caring: some questions, connections and reflections' (Substack post)
Link
Care Ethics Research Consortium
You can download a transcript of this episode by following this link to the Careful Thinking Substack newsletter.
Get every episode summarized
Each time Careful Thinking publishes, we email you a written briefing from the transcript — the topics, who appeared, and any specific claims, with the ad reads skipped.
Email me new episodesFree for 3 shows. No card needed.
Hosts & guests
No transcript yet
This episode has not been transcribed. Request it and it moves to the front of the queue.
More episodes
More from Careful Thinking

Organising with care - with Emmanouela Mandalaki
Careful Thinking

Disability, dependency, and care - with Eva Feder Kittay
Careful Thinking

Care ethics, education, and democracy - with Adriana Jesenková
Careful Thinking

Fatherhood, faith, and phenomenology - with Zechariah Mickel
Careful Thinking