On the 10th anniversary of the passing of Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo, a note on Ethics of Care and Planetary Solidarity.

Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo (MLP) proposes a new ethical attitude related to the capacity to care. It is an ethics that will have repercussions in all aspects of human life. In this context, a new form of solidarity becomes relevant. MLP uses the expression planetary solidarity as a value that extends to the complexity of reality instead of being restricted to the social world of human relations, a complete and comprehensive solidarity with profound implications in each part of the system(s).

Solidarity as the cement that connects everything: between the energy exchanges that occur in the atom or in the efforts that lead to the most spiritual human creations, there is something invisible that MLP calls solidarity.

From this perspective, the very question of the governability of states is also at stake, which requires a global perception of the fundamental problems of society to be grasped in their multiplicities and interdependencies.

Solidarity is a whole word in which the culture of care is grafted, guarantor of individual and collective existence and pillar of the future of humanity.

Text inspired by: “O pensamento de Maria de Lourdes Pintasilgo – contributions to a transdisciplinary education centrada no cuidado”, A Ética do Cuidado, pg.69, trabalho realizado por Dora Maria Freitas Cabete sob orientação científica de Maria do Loreto Paiva Couceiro para Fundação Cuidar o Futuro com o apoio da Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia, May 2013.