Here are some notes on articles and other sources about relational ethics. It's a work in progress.

Applied Ethics Primer

Meynell, L., & Paron, C. (2021). Focus on Relations. In Applied Ethics Primer. Dalhousie University Libraries Digital Editions. https://pressbooks.atlanticoer-relatlantique.ca/aep/chapter/relations/

Relational ethics generally: "The idea is we all are who we are through our relationships and so ethical decision-making needs to value and pay attention to them."

Care ethics

• not all ethical obligations & relationships can be based on individual, autonomous agents (e.g., children)
• caring is an emotional relationship; rather than focusing on impartiality it requires some degree of partiality and focus on the wellbeing of another
• Similar idea in Confucius: "we learn how to be good people through our relationships with our family members, particularly our parents. We learn moral emotions, such as love, through loving our parents and siblings."
  • our moral concern for humanity "emerges through our personal filial relationships."

Focus on the community

• concept of ubuntu: "Although, as South African jurist, Yvonne Mokgoro notes, ubuntu is not easily definable, particularly in a foreign tongue,[8|8] there are, nonetheless, a number of sayings and stories that point to the central idea."
  • "The Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission quotes Ms. Susan van der Merwe, whose husband was murdered in 1978:

The Tswanas have an idiom which I learned from my husband which goes “a person is a person by other people, a person is only a person with other people.” We do have this duty to each other. The survival of our people in this country depends on our co-operation with each other."

• (Yvonne Mokgoro, “Ubuntu and the Law in South Africa,” Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal 1, no. 1 (1998): 18. https://www.ajol.info/index.php/pelj/article/view/43567 ↵)

All my relations

• considers relationships "with the more-than-human world."
  • "This perspective emphasizes not only the reality of our physical, psychological, and spiritual dependence on the many different beings in the world around us but also our capacity to affect these beings."
  • not just focusing on interdependence but also noting that such relationships require respect; other beings don't exist just for humans but "have their own moral status that demands respect" (Margaret Robinson, “Animal Personhood in Mi’kmaq Perspective,” Societies 4 (2014): 672–88. https://www.mdpi.com/2075-4698/4/4/672. ↵)
• Seven generations
  • "When thinking about what we should do, this teaching recommends that we consider the actions and traditions of the previous seven generations and the effect of our actions on the seven generations after us."
  • "We are instructed to deal with the plants, animals, minerals, human beings and all life, as if they were a part of ourselves. Because we are a part of Creation, we cannot differentiate or separate ourselves from the rest of the earth. The way in which we interact with the earth, how we utilize the plants, animals and the mineral gifts, should be carried out with the seventh generation in mind. We cannot simply think of ourselves and our survival; each generation has a responsibility to “ensure the survival for the seventh generation”.[14|14]"

"Relational Ethics" (2016)

Metz, T. and Miller, S.C. (2016). Relational Ethics. In International Encyclopedia of Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee826

Relational ethics generally

• "an individualist account of morality is the view that properties intrinsic to an entity ground the capacity to be wronged or to be the object of a direct duty, where dutiful action is roughly what either promotes or honors these properties" (2). (emphasis mine)
  • "intrinsic property" means "a feature that is internal to an individual and includes no essential connection to any other being."
• "holism": "the bearer of moral status is a group of some kind and that morally appropriate behavior is what develops or respects it." (2)
• "relationalism is the idea that moral status is constituted by some kind of interactive property between one entity and another, which property warrants being realized or prized." (2)
  • "a relational account accords no moral status to an entity merely on the basis of its intrinsic properties. A relational theory implies that a being warrants moral consideration only if, and because, it exhibits some kind of other‐regarding property, one that is typically intensional or causal."

Confucian tradition

• "According to one major strand of Confucian thought, at least as interpreted lately, (nearly) all key moral values are ultimately a function of harmonious relationships (Fan 2010; Bell and Mo 2014; Li 2014)." (3)
• "for a person to relate harmoniously is essentially neither to become the same as others, nor to agree with them. Doing so instead presupposes the existence of a variety of interests and standpoints, where they are unified – but not made uniform – in such a way that is good for all." (3)
• parents/children: filial piety:
  • both "the most intense exemplification of harmony" and
  • a way for people to learn to care for others outside of family (4)

African tradition

• ubuntu: "The familiar idea is that there is a higher, distinctively human part of our nature as well as a lower, animal part, and that we ought to strive to develop the former instead of the latter." (5)
• also a communal relation:
  • "Gessler Muxe Nkondo, a South African public intellectual, says: “If you asked ubuntu advocates and philosophers: What principles inform and organise your life? ... the answers would express commitment to the good of the community in which their identities were formed, and a need to experience their lives as bound up in that of their community” (2007: 91)." (5)
  • two recurrent themes
    • being a part of a whole, being integrated with others, recognizing interconnections
    • caring for others' "quality of life," working towards "the good of all," and"the good of others" (5)
• so one should strive to live a human way of life, which includes a focus on communal relationships

Feminist and care traditions

• relational ethics is central to care ethics, but is not "exclusive to it" in feminist philosophy (6).
• 1980s relational ethics: Gilligan, Noddings, Ruddick
  • "In this context, a relational ethics of care referred to “a feminine view ... in the deep classical sense – rooted in receptivity, relatedness, and responsiveness” (Noddings 2013: 2)." (6)
  • originally started by focusing on femininity, but Noddings later came to agree with critics that gender can be essentialized this way and isn't actually important to care ethics: "Virtually all care theorists make the relation more fundamental than the individual” (Noddings 2013: xiii)." (6)
• Ways that a relational ethics can be relational:
  • subject matter: relationships as the subject
    • "Relationships function as legitimate and primary matters of moral inquiry and moral significance. Moreover, while in many moral theories the individual is the ultimate unit of moral concern, in care ethics relationships themselves are taken to be at least the primary, if not the most fundamental, units of moral concern, as Noddings claims (see above)." (7)
    • Individual moral agent is no longr "the independent, ideally autonomous, and rational agent" but an "interdependent, vulnerable, and emotional agent." A "self-in-relation" (7)
  • Account of right action:
    • "The ideally caring relationship forms a basis for answering the question, “What ought I do?.”" (7)
    • "Thus, right action is action that demonstrates these various features of caring – action that builds and sustains both the relationship with and the agency and well‐being of the cared for." (7)
    • "Morally impermissible action is relationship-withering action ..." (7)
  • Role of emotions in ethics
    • "For care ethicists, the emotions play a prominent role in moral relations, thoroughly influencing moral decision‐making, which, for many other moral philosophies, is primarily a process of moral reasoning." (7)
    • "The emotions – and especially those tied to caring well – instruct our moral decisions, motivate our continuing interest in caring, and guide us in enacting ideal moral relations." (8)
    • this means that partiality is permissible, whereas some other ethical approaches emphasize impartiality
  • Moral perception
    • "Those with a caring mode of moral perception determine the moral salience of a situation by discerning both the intricate particularity of the moral agents and patients involved, as well as the wider context (relational and otherwise) in which they are situated." (8)
  • Source of moral responsibility
    • "the reason in light of which we must respond to others in the first place." (8)
    • traditionally it has been something about human capacities, such as rationality
    • Care ethicists have been reticent to provide such a reason, perhaps in part because it could lead to declaring a "principle of care," and then reducing the richness of caring relationships to a regimented procedure (8)
    • still, one idea:
      • "care ethicists cite our relation with one another as mutually vulnerable and needy, as well as interdependent, as the grounding reasons of moral responsibility (Mackenzie et al. 2014)." (8)

"Feminist relational theory" (2022)

Koggel, C. M., Harbin, A., & Llewellyn, J. J. (2022). Feminist relational theory. Journal of Global Ethics, 18(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449626.2022.2073702

This is an Introduction to a special issue of the journal on relational theory. The issue has also been turned into a book called Relational Theory (2025) but I don't have access to it through UBC library. It has a few extra articles in it than the journal issue.

Relational theory generally

• "In general terms, relational theory can be contrasted with Modern and especially Western liberal accounts of the human being that take the primary unit of analysis to be the individual, who is owed certain rights and freedoms to pursue a rational plan of life without undue interference from the state or others." (1)
• Instead, feminist relational accounts talk about "people as necessarily born into and shaped by and acting in and through relationships" (1).

Feminist relational theory: what it is and how it has developed

• Annette Baier, Moral Prejudices (1995)
  • theories that focus on justice tend to focus on "individuals, on the role of rationality, on relationships of equals, and on chosen relationships" (2)
  • need to also think about "relationships of inequality... and unchosen relationships"
• many philosophers and legal theorists began in the 1990s "to propel a relational turn in conceptions of autonomy, equality, rights, knowledge practices, health care practice, and moral responsibility (Code 1991; Koggel 1998; Nedelsky 1989, 1993; Sherwin 1992, 1998; and Walker 1998)." (3)
• Being Relational: Reflections on Relational Theory and Health Law (Downie & Llewellyn, eds., 2012)
  • "‘The relational conception of the self with which we are concerned recognizes not only that we live in relationships with others but also that relationship and connection with others is essential to the existence of the self. The human self in this view is constituted in and through relationship with others. We define ourselves in relationship to others and through relationship with others. In this view, relationships play a constitutive role because of the “inherently social nature of human beings”’ (Llewellyn and Downie 2012, 4, quoting Nedelsky 1989)." (3)

Features of contemporary feminist relational theory

1. Oppression: "informed by, and contributes too, anti-oppression theory" (4).
   1. "feminist relational theory uses the lens of relationships as a way of providing descriptions and analyses of the structures, institutions, norms, and practices that shape individuals, social groups, and their specific and intersecting experiences of oppression." (4)
2. "Interpersonal relationships and care ethics" (4)
   1. not only interested in interpersonal relationships, but also "networks and structures of relationships, as creating the context for the dynamics of smaller scale interpersonal relationships," (4; emphasis in original).
   2. "The central idea is that individuals are situated in networks of relationships in and through which they are co-constituted within the broader social framework of institutions and norms." (4)
3. "Individualism and capability theories/approaches" (5)
   1. "Feminist relational theorists are committed to taking the unit of ultimate moral concern to be individuals (not communities), but they can be said to take what individuals are able to be and do to be more clearly and accurately revealed when the focus is on relationships as the unit of moral analysis (Koggel 2019, 579)." (5)
4. empirical investigation
   1. "feminist relational theory is committed to an ‘empirically obligated’ approach (Walker 1998, 104). We begin with accounts of phenomena that draw on and contribute to empirical investigations." (6)
5. Emancipatory goals
   1. in addition to theorizing, work "to transform harmful dimensions of structures and networks of relation" (6).
6. Non-ideal theory
   1. "not focused on identifying or determining ideal relationships" (6), but instead pay attention to nature of existing relationships and their harms
7. Implications for epistemology
   1. "With relationships as the focal point, the idea is that those who are excluded or lack power and voice due to factors such as race, gender, sexual orientation, disability, ethnicity, and so on, can bring a diverse range of experiences and perspectives that shed light on conditions, structures, and institutions that entrench inequalities and injustices." (7)
8. Multiple frameworks & approaches
   1. Many theorists draw from other kinds of approaches and theories, including postcolonial, disability, Indigenous, critical race theory (7).

Stanford Encyclopedia of Phil entry on Feminist Ethics

Norlock, Kathryn and Jordan Pascoe, "Feminist Ethics", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2025 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), forthcoming URL = https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2025/entries/feminism-ethics/.

Just a quote that provides some overview info on various sources re: relational ethics beyond care ethics.

"In the 21st century, a broader category of relational ethics, which includes care ethics, has emerged, which takes moral questions to be located in the relations between entities. Relational approaches have developed conceptions of relational autonomy (Mackenzie and Stoljar 2000), relational virtue (Luo 2007), and relational social contract theory (Bhandary 2019). Relational approaches have been criticized for assuming idealized conditions of relationality (Khader 2020) by, for example, claiming that relational autonomy assumes “basic equal powers” of exercising agency (Westlund 2018) that may not hold in a non-ideal world. Some Black feminists have advocated for a framework of the “politics of care,” arguing that “care does more than require a posture of mutual respect, responsibility, and obligation between individuals” and propose instead non-ideal theories of care rooted in liberation struggles which present “new possibilities for living together” (Woodley 2021, 891–2).

Relational approaches have been particularly important in the development of feminist bioethics (Jennings 2016; Sherwin and Stockdale 2017; Stoljar and Mackenzie 2022) (see also the entry on Feminist Bioethics), gender-affirming and trans youth care (Marvin 2019), and animal ethics (Gruen 2015)...."

"Feminism and Feminist Ethics" (2019)

Kathryn Mackay
Introduction to Philosophy: Ethics
2019
https://press.rebus.community/intro-to-phil-ethics/chapter/feminism-and-feminist-ethics/

more soon...