a disruptive ontology of caring time: overcoming moral harm in care through an emancipatory ethics of time

Care ethics emphasizes the incessant nature of the work of care. the other-oriented focus of care work and the asymmetric relation between the one-caring and the cared-for entails a normative commitment to a cyclical conception of living time on the part of the one-caring. moreover, in care, we must think of the time of the self as intertwined with the time of the other, thus constituting a mutual temporality. however, from the perspective of a feminist phenomenology of time, potential moral harms can be identified in the temporal structure of care, which may cause caring time to degenerate into uncaring time for the one-caring. to avoid such a predicament, it is imperative to develop an emancipatory ethics of time at the heart of the relational ontology of care. i argue that when various modalities of living time in care sediment into a coherentist ontology of time, only then is there a degradation into uncaring time. to positively reconstruct a radical notion of caring time, we must build a disruptive ontology within our conception of caring time, which highlights the significance of rupture, dissonance, disruption, and distortion within the everydayness of care. the argument in the paper serves a normative purpose since it draws our attention to what we owe morally to the one-caring in terms of their time. my analysis weaves together care ethics, feminist phenomenology and feminist writing from india through a philosophical engagement with amar jiban by rassundari devi.

a disruptive ontology of caring time: overcoming moral harm in care through an emancipatory ethics of time

care ethics emphasizes the incessant nature of the work of care. the other-oriented focus of care work and the asymmetric relation between the one-caring and the cared-for entails a normative commitment to a cyclical conception of living time on the part of the one-caring. moreover, in care, we must think of the time of the self as intertwined with the time of the other, thus constituting a mutual temporality. however, from the perspective of a feminist phenomenology of time, potential moral harms can be identified in the temporal structure of care, which may cause caring time to degenerate into uncaring time for the one-caring. to avoid such a predicament, it is imperative to develop an emancipatory ethics of time at the heart of the relational ontology of care. i argue that when various modalities of living time in care sediment into a coherentist ontology of time, only then is there a degradation into uncaring time. to positively reconstruct a radical notion of caring time, we must build a disruptive ontology within our conception of caring time, which highlights the significance of rupture, dissonance, disruption, and distortion within the everydayness of care. the argument in the paper serves a normative purpose since it draws our attention to what we owe morally to the one-caring in terms of their time. my analysis weaves together care ethics, feminist phenomenology and feminist writing from india through a philosophical engagement with amar jiban by rassundari devi.