Bioethics as care work

German philosopher Martin Heidegger argued that humans are defined by care. The term he used, “Sorge,” picks out a wide range of caring relations, including sorrow, worry, the making of arrangements, and even fending for another. Since coming to The Hastings Center, I've been struck by the genuine care definitive of its scholars’ relationship to their work. Care about newborns, the elderly, and nonhuman animals. Care about doctors, nurses, and health care institutions. Care expressed in the panoply of ways biomedical knowledge and practices inform our havings, doings, and beings in the world. Perhaps in its better moments, bioethics just is care work. But care work is hard and messy.