CARE, RESPONSIBILITY, AND COEXISTENCE

Abstract

In this article I contribute to the recent retooling of the philosophical understanding of ethics prompted by the ethics of care. In particular, I shall draw from the way in which the rich tradition of ordinary language philosophy (Wittgenstein, Austin, and Cavell) understood and put to work the key notions of vulnerability and expressivity, and show its convergence with the ethics of care on the centrality of responsibility and coexistence for the fashioning of a moral life which is at the same time truly autonomous and richly aware of our connectedness with, and dependence on, others. The immediate outcomes of an ethics so reformed are a renewed trust in the capacity to connect with others through our common ordinary need for attention, and the affirmation of the moral primacy of expressivity and affection over intellectuality and rationalizations.