Spiritual Care:The Spiritual Side of a Culture of Care

Looking more carefully at the very notion of spirituality, Italian philosopher Luigina Mortari interrogates the nature of spirituality regarding an ethic of care in “Spiritual Care: The Spiritual Side Of A Culture Of Care.” This sweeping analysis takes us on a journey that includes Ancient Greek philosophy, Continental Philosophy, ontology, epistemology, empirical research, and poet-philosopher Maria Zambrano’s work, among others. Mortari argues that there is an ontological call to care as an essential technique for living. Accordingly, Mortari finds the examined life a necessity: “To con- ceive the technique of living means having the knowledge and wis- dom of care; in other words, knowing what good care is, and how to put it into practice.” Mortari leverages a Platonic notion of the soul to frame a spiritual pursuit of care as a quest for the good and not just an ethical determination of what is right. She states, “the practice of care teaches me that it is not only necessary to search for a concrete, immanent idea of good embodied in the daily life (about this, it is possible to speak of a materialistic spirituality as the generative matrix of care ethics), but also to cultivate a manner of thinking that is congruent with both the human limits of thinking and the essence of care.” Seldom do care theorists present care ethics in the broad- brush strokes that Mortari’s epic narrative offers. This chapter may not be a typical philosophical analysis of care, but it suggests several provocative insights into the relationship between care and spirituality.