Le soin est-il une relation morale ? Une genèse morale du soin

When someone is looked after, two kinds of relationship may be distinguished but also linked together: a technical relationship (curing) and a moral one (caring). Technique produces otherness; moral approach recognizes, and acknowledges too, the otherness of the same (dignity) while establishing the “sameness” of the other (respect). As a technical performance, medical treatment (curing) restores; as a moral performance, caring re-establishes subjectivity within the performance of speeching. Caring and curing are both relationships to a person and these relationships use language. Conversely language accounts facts and events that happen during caring and curing, all facts and events that contribute to establishing a person as a person. So, curing is a technical performance during which caring establishes a peculiar moral relationship with the help of language, a symbolical medium.