arxiv: 2604.16303 · v1 · submitted 2026-01-23 · 💻 cs.SE

Recognition: 1 theorem link

· Lean Theorem

Ethics of Care for Software Engineering

Alexander Serebrenik , Sebastian Baltes

Authors on Pith no claims yet

Pith reviewed 2026-05-16 11:22 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.SE

keywords ethics of caresoftware engineeringresearch impactindustrial practiceresearch-practice gapcollaborationposition paper

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The pith

Software engineering research misses industrial impact because it cares about practitioners in the abstract rather than for specific individuals in their contexts.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper claims that software engineering researchers intend their work to influence practice but rarely succeed because they focus on caring about broad ideas like industrial impact and practitioners without engaging in caring for particular people facing particular problems. Software engineering depends on collaboration and interpersonal ties, yet the field operates at a remove from those ties when researchers treat practitioners as a general category. Drawing from the ethics of care, the authors argue that adopting this perspective would require researchers and conference organizers to change how they relate to people and problems. A reader would care because the distinction reframes the long-standing impact gap as a relational issue that might be addressed through different habits of engagement rather than better dissemination alone.

Core claim

We believe that a possible explanation of this phenomenon is the opposition of 'caring about' and 'caring for', based on the ethics of care. Indeed, while software engineering is collaborative and hence builds on interpersonal relations, researchers tend to care about 'industrial impact' and 'practitioners' in abstract terms, but rarely care for specific individuals working in specific contexts facing specific challenges. In this position paper, we advocate for the adoption of ethics of care in software engineering and discuss the implications of this adoption for researchers and conference organizers.

What carries the argument

The distinction between caring about abstract concepts and caring for specific individuals, taken from the ethics of care, which the authors use to diagnose why software engineering research rarely reaches practice despite stated intentions.

If this is right

Researchers would shift from studying practitioners in general to engaging specific individuals in their actual work settings.
Conference organizers would design events that support direct, personal connections rather than only presentations to large audiences.
Impact would be evaluated partly through evidence of changed practice for the people involved rather than solely through citations or downloads.
Research questions would more often arise from and remain tied to concrete challenges faced by named practitioners.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

This framing could push software engineering toward more participatory or co-designed studies that treat practitioners as partners rather than subjects.
It raises the question of whether similar caring-about versus caring-for gaps exist in other applied fields such as human-computer interaction or data science.
Conference formats might need to include mechanisms for sustained follow-up with individuals after initial contact rather than one-off interactions.

Load-bearing premise

The distinction between caring about abstract groups and caring for specific individuals is the main cause of the impact gap, and researchers plus conference organizers can move toward caring for individuals without losing the scale or generality of research.

What would settle it

A comparison of adoption rates for research outputs from teams that build direct, ongoing relationships with specific practitioners versus teams that study practitioners only as an abstract category.

read the original abstract

Software engineering researchers repeatedly argue that the impact of their research on industrial practice, while desired and intended, is rarely achieved. We believe that a possible explanation of this phenomenon is the opposition of "caring about" and "caring for", based on the ethics of care. Indeed, while software engineering is collaborative and hence builds on interpersonal relations, researchers tend to care about "industrial impact" and "practitioners" in abstract terms, but rarely care for specific individuals working in specific contexts facing specific challenges. In this position paper, we advocate for the adoption of ethics of care in software engineering and discuss the implications of this adoption for researchers and conference organizers.

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Desk Editor's Note private letter to a colleague

Position paper applies ethics of care to the SE impact gap without empirical support.

read the letter

The main point is that this position paper suggests the ethics-of-care split between caring about abstract practitioners and caring for specific people in concrete situations explains why software engineering research rarely affects industry practice. The authors treat this as one possible explanation rather than a proven cause. What the paper does well is take a standard philosophical distinction and map it cleanly onto a long-standing complaint in the field. It notes that SE work is inherently relational yet often stays at the level of general claims, then sketches what this might mean for how individual researchers choose projects and how conferences set up tracks or reviewing. The tone stays practical and avoids overclaiming. The soft spots are straightforward. The argument stays conceptual with no data, no project examples, and no attempt to weigh this explanation against other common ones like misaligned incentives or poor communication channels. The idea that researchers should shift toward caring for specific individuals also gets little scrutiny on scalability or on whether that move would reduce the generality that makes research publishable. Because the paper frames its claim modestly as a possible lens, these gaps do not break the piece, but they do limit how far it can be taken. This is for SE researchers already interested in the impact problem or in bringing ethics into methodology discussions. Readers wanting measured evidence or new tools will not get much from it. It deserves peer review because the framing is coherent and could prompt useful conversation, though reviewers will likely press for more concrete illustrations or testable implications.

Referee Report

2 major / 2 minor

Summary. The paper claims that the persistent gap between software engineering research and industrial practice arises because researchers tend to 'care about' abstract concepts such as 'industrial impact' and 'practitioners' rather than 'caring for' specific individuals in concrete contexts, drawing on the ethics-of-care distinction. As a position paper, it advocates adopting this ethical lens in SE and discusses implications for researchers and conference organizers.

Significance. If the proposed distinction holds interpretive value, the paper offers a fresh philosophical framing for the well-known theory-practice gap in software engineering, emphasizing relational aspects of the field's collaborative nature and suggesting pathways toward more context-sensitive research that could improve relevance without sacrificing generality.

major comments (2)

[abstract and §2] The central argument (abstract and §2) presents the caring-about versus caring-for opposition as a possible explanation for impact failures, yet provides no concrete SE examples, case studies, or mappings to documented research-practice disconnects; this leaves the explanatory power untested even at the conceptual level.
[implications section] In the implications section for researchers and organizers, the advocacy for shifting toward caring for specific individuals does not address potential trade-offs with the scale and generality required for publishable contributions, which is load-bearing for the feasibility of the proposed adoption.

minor comments (2)

[abstract] The abstract could more explicitly label the work as a position paper to set reader expectations for the absence of empirical validation.
[§2] Notation for the key distinction ('caring about' vs. 'caring for') is introduced without a dedicated definition box or table, which would aid clarity in a conceptual paper.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

2 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the constructive comments on our position paper. We address each major comment below and note the revisions we will make to strengthen the manuscript while preserving its conceptual focus.

read point-by-point responses

Referee: [abstract and §2] The central argument (abstract and §2) presents the caring-about versus caring-for opposition as a possible explanation for impact failures, yet provides no concrete SE examples, case studies, or mappings to documented research-practice disconnects; this leaves the explanatory power untested even at the conceptual level.

Authors: We agree that the manuscript introduces the caring-about versus caring-for distinction at a conceptual level without mapping it to specific SE cases. As a position paper, the goal is to propose the ethics-of-care lens as an interpretive framework rather than to test it empirically. To address the concern about explanatory power, we will add two brief illustrative mappings in a revised §2: one linking the distinction to documented challenges in transferring requirements-engineering research to practice, and another to the limited industrial uptake of certain formal-methods tools. These additions will remain illustrative and will not convert the paper into an empirical study. revision: partial
Referee: [implications section] In the implications section for researchers and organizers, the advocacy for shifting toward caring for specific individuals does not address potential trade-offs with the scale and generality required for publishable contributions, which is load-bearing for the feasibility of the proposed adoption.

Authors: The referee is correct that the implications section does not explicitly discuss the tension between caring for specific individuals and the generality/scale expectations of publishable SE research. We will revise the implications section to include a dedicated paragraph acknowledging this trade-off and outlining practical mitigations, such as designing small-scale caring-for studies that are explicitly framed to yield transferable insights or using conference workshops as venues for context-specific work that can later scale. This addition will directly address feasibility without weakening the advocacy for the ethics-of-care perspective. revision: yes

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity

full rationale

This is a conceptual position paper with no mathematical derivations, equations, fitted parameters, or empirical predictions. The core thesis applies an external philosophical distinction ('caring about' vs. 'caring for') drawn from ethics-of-care literature to the known theory-practice gap in software engineering. No step reduces by construction to a self-definition, self-citation chain, or renamed input; the argument remains interpretive advocacy without internal reduction to its own premises.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 1 axioms · 0 invented entities

The paper draws on the pre-existing philosophical framework of ethics of care without introducing new fitted parameters or invented entities; the core distinction is treated as given.

axioms (1)

domain assumption Ethics of care distinguishes caring about abstract entities from caring for specific individuals in concrete contexts.
This distinction is invoked to explain why abstract concern for 'industrial impact' fails to produce engagement with real practitioners.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5394 in / 1304 out tokens · 33526 ms · 2026-05-16T11:22:28.919991+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

Lean theorems connected to this paper

Citations machine-checked in the Pith Canon. Every link opens the source theorem in the public Lean library.

IndisputableMonolith/Foundation/AbsoluteFloorClosure.lean reality_from_one_distinction unclear

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unclear
Relation between the paper passage and the cited Recognition theorem.

We believe that a possible explanation of this phenomenon is the opposition of 'caring about' and 'caring for', based on the ethics of care.

What do these tags mean?

matches: The paper's claim is directly supported by a theorem in the formal canon.
supports: The theorem supports part of the paper's argument, but the paper may add assumptions or extra steps.
extends: The paper goes beyond the formal theorem; the theorem is a base layer rather than the whole result.
uses: The paper appears to rely on the theorem as machinery.
contradicts: The paper's claim conflicts with a theorem or certificate in the canon.
unclear: Pith found a possible connection, but the passage is too broad, indirect, or ambiguous to say the theorem truly supports the claim.

Reference graph

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