El cuidado como amistad desde la Ética a Nicómaco

In this article, I seek to contribute to the development of the ethics of care from the perspective of Aristotelian virtue ethics. My analysis focuses on Books VIII and IX of the Nicomachean Ethics. I argue that friendship offers a better framework for understanding care than understood as a feeling of love, friendship, or affection (Curzer 2007, p. 221). The main thesis of the article is that a good care relationship can be understood as a type of virtuous friendship within the Aristotelian framework. In a good caring relationship, as in virtuous friendship, the other is valued as an end in themselves—something I consider an essential feature of friendship, implied in Aristotle's definition of philia as explicit and mutual benevolence. I hold that the main differences are, first, that while in virtuous friendship the moral good that unites friends is virtue, in care the moral good that unites them is the growth of one of the parties or the mitigation of her unwelcomed vulnerabilities. The second difference lies in the moral access to the other: in virtuous friendship, this access occurs through shared virtuous activity, whereas in care it is achieved through empathy. However, these differences do not seem sufficient to avoid considering a good caring relationship as a type of virtuous friendship.