Taking Care of the Other’s Image: When the Other is beyond a Border. Communicating through the ‘boundaries’ of a globalized world

Rafael Jiménez Cataño

University of the Holy Cross, Rome

E-mail: jimenez@pusc.it

Abstract: It is possible for the philosophy of care to develop the anthropological meaning of face protection in front of menaces in the form of image care. Nevertheless, an image can be more or less faithful to its referent, and the referent can be the objective reality of the person, or the self-knowledge the person has, or the image other people have of the person, or even the artificial image someone wants to offer to people. Due to this ambiguity and not-automaticity, virtues are needed. This is the field of classical virtues like truthfulness, modesty, sincerity and the relative vices; and interpersonal virtues like affability, liberality, gratitude, loyalty, disinterestedness and the relative vices. These virtues configure the person. Interpersonal virtues and vices are relevant because they unfold the relationality that constitutes the person. From human vulnerability one can conclude the human vocation to care on the basis of relationality. In a certain sense people in contact are always beyond a border, which means otherness in itself. For the comprehension of border condition otherness is more decisive than distance. The virtues related to border condition find a reference point in care, which under the name of epiméleia, has a very long history and illuminating richness.