[The person and the ethics of care.]

In our western world, it has long been thought that humans are exceptions within nature. They have defined themselves as human beings as opposed to animals and things, on account of characteristics that they regarded as essential. However it now seems necessary to question this perception of humanity and the human condition.Indeed, longer life expectancy together with its related pathologies and medical progress lead us to think differently. Today we realise that those qualities which were thought to belong specifically to human beings, such as awareness, reason, memory and free will, can disappear. Should we conclude then that those whose capacities have decreased or disappeared have become less human or have even lost all human qualities?Such questioning leads to new ways of describing humans whereby they would be defined not in substantial but rather in interpersonal terms.Surely being a person means first and foremost that we live through and for others. And the ethics of care that define men as vulnerable beings, that is to say dependent and needing their fellow human beings' solicitude, would surely offer the possibility of creating a new ?revisited' concept of the person?