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5 - Care and vulnerability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2024

Todd May
Affiliation:
Warren Wilson College, North Carolina
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Summary

In the previous chapters we’ve been discussing care as having two fundamental characteristics: importance to the person who cares and a sense of loss (grief, regret, frustration, anger, and so on) if the object of care is threatened in some way. Back in the first chapter, however, I raised the question of whether caring could happen without the second characteristic. Could someone care about something without experiencing a sense of loss if that something is harmed or dies or disappears? Or, alternatively, is it impossible, really, to care about something without the possibility of a sense of loss as part of the package? In short, does care require vulnerability?

There are philosophies among whose goals, it seems, is to protect us against vulnerability – Buddhism and Stoicism in particular (both of which seem to be wildly popular these days as ways of coping with our fraught world). If caring and vulnerability are a package deal, this would seem to imply that Buddhists and Stoics are incapable of caring. That seems an odd thing to say. While for most of us caring and vulnerability go together, is it necessarily true? Are Buddhists and Stoics in fact barred from the experience of caring? The issue is more complicated to sort out than it might seem. In order to do that sorting, we’ll first need to get a basic grasp on these two philosophies.

BUDDHISM

The question “What is Buddhism?” is not so much a query seeking a simple answer as an opening onto a tangle of complexities. Basic issues, such as whether Buddhism is a philosophy or a religion, are subject of long debate and disagreement. I once wrote a column for a newspaper (2014b) that was mildly critical of Buddhism, and received a number of angry comments from self-professed Buddhists claiming that I had completely misunderstood what it was all about. (I know, I also found their anger ironic.) One person told me that by referring to the Four Noble Truths – more on that in a minute – I was being too logical and missing the point of Buddhism, which was really just a feeling. Now, in a way, I can get the sense of “that Buddhist feeling”, but I can't help thinking there's more to Buddhism than that.

Type
Chapter
Information
Care
Reflections on Who We Are
, pp. 109 - 124
Publisher: Agenda Publishing
Print publication year: 2023

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  • Care and vulnerability
  • Todd May, Warren Wilson College, North Carolina
  • Book: Care
  • Online publication: 23 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781788216425.006
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  • Care and vulnerability
  • Todd May, Warren Wilson College, North Carolina
  • Book: Care
  • Online publication: 23 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781788216425.006
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Care and vulnerability
  • Todd May, Warren Wilson College, North Carolina
  • Book: Care
  • Online publication: 23 January 2024
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781788216425.006
Available formats
×