Making Sense of the Unexpected: Sketches for an Ethics of Life, Empathy, and Fiction

After considering the importance of medical and health humanities and the role of philosophy within this field of investigation, the author firstly proposes that we interrogate the relation between the possibility of ethical projects and the reality of needs, constraints, disparities but also of the surprises of a life to the naturalness of which we cannot escape. What influence can that have for clinical practice? Secondly, the author proposes to identify, on the one hand, what links original forms of dependence to ways of comprehension that lead to care and to mutual recognition; and, on the other hand, the importance that such hosting relationship has in order that the signs of a life become culturally interpretable signals. How can we thus understand the role of culture in the processes of hospitality? Finally, bearing in mind the prevalence of affectivity in the community of life, the author briefly recalls the ethical role of fiction and the arts and how, along with the humanities, their empathetic dynamics can help us think and contribute to ameliorate our health and well-being.