ABSTRACT
This chapter examines 'emergent' ethical theories, which help to extend our ethical thinking and discussion beyond the established approaches to ethics Relational ethics is seen as an approach interested in what happens in the space between people in relationships; what Habermas might call an intersubjective space. Feminist insights into the ethics and politics of care were highlighted, including Habermas's discourse ethics from Kantian deontology and Aristotelian virtue ethics, and Bauman's postmodern ethics of responsibility. An ethics of responsibility holds that moral responsibility is where morality begins. Tronto and Sevenhuijse believe that many feminist care ethicists overlook the role of care in broader social policy. The politics of care forces one to examine the relationship between justice and care. The complex and contentious relationship between justice and care is further complicated in child protection by who we perceive as the client, the child, the parent or the family.
