This seminar is hosted by the Oxford Institute of Population Ageing and The Oxford Martin School, and funded by the John Fell Fund.

Speaker: Professor Fabienne Brugère, University of Paris VIII, France

Emotions as Constituents for an Ethics of Care
One cannot reflect on the ethics of care without subscribing to an anthropology of vulnerability of both the cared for and the carer. Vulnerability presupposes the idea that feelings are the motive for the action that underscores ethics. However, can caring be considered as love’s labour (to borrow the title of Eva Feder Kittay’s book)? Love, caring and the construction of emotions produce relations that have to do with the inequality of vulnerability. This inequality means irregularity and instability. Are emotions useful for an ethics of care, especially in very asymmetrical relations with those on the margins of the society (the poor, migrants, women without rights)? We will explore the theme of desentimentalized emotions as an intelligent orientation to care, particularly in relation to social exclusion.