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A care-ethical reappraisal of sacrifice and self-sacrifice

Caring is a moral practice, a practice in which moral goods are realized. This is one of the critical insights of the ethics of care. The idea that goods are also sacrificed in caregiving, however, is less accepted or downright rejected. Starting off with real life stories, stoeries from literature and films, this book shows that caregiving entails sacrifices even to the extent of sacrificing the self. On Wednesday 15th of January 2014, Inge van Nistelrooij defends her PhD thesis Sacrifice. A care ethical reappraisal of sacrifice ands self-sacrifice.


In her study, she argues that concepts surrounding care and sacrifice need to be revised. Proposals are made how the subject's identity, the intersubjective relation, the socio-political community, and the role of meaning can be re-conceptualized in such a way that sacrifice and self-sacrifice become understandable, or even plausible, in practices of care.


Using an interdisciplinary appraoch that drwas upon the etchis of care, theology, phenomonology, political theory and hermeneutics, this book leads to a reappraisal of (self) sacrifice as vital to understanding caring. It concludes that an ethic of care that is loyal to its own critical insights - human relationality, affectivity, contextuality - and to its emphasis on practices and politics, is compatible to any abstract rejection of sacrifice and self- sacrifice in caring.


Inge van Nistelrooij (1967) is a care ethicist with broad experience in training, advising and publishing in the ethics of care. She is currently assistant professor in the ethics of care at the University of Humanistic Studies in Utrecht.

Caring is a moral practice, a practice in which moral goods are realized. This is one of the critical insights of the ethics of care. The idea that goods are also sacrificed in caregiving, however, is less accepted or downright rejected. Starting off with real life stories, stoeries from literature and films, this book shows that caregiving entails sacrifices even to the extent of sacrificing the self. On Wednesday 15th of January 2014, Inge van Nistelrooij defends her PhD thesis Sacrifice. A care ethical reappraisal of sacrifice ands self-sacrifice.