Uploaded February 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Lecture at the conference "Constructive Emotions: Cultivating Kindness",, Dec 6, 2025
Enactive ethics focuses on the constitutive character of
caring relations, where these relationships are not limited
to human beings, but they extend to all living beings and
the cosmos. It is typically supposed that such caring
relations can involve only individuals. But could loving care
be extended to ecosystems? And, assuming that the
extension is possible, is it also beneficial? Although the
extension might be praiseworthy because it allows care to
go beyond the limits of individual care, it risks missing a
crucial dimension of caring, i.e., intimately acknowledging
and valuing the uniqueness of the cared for and so being
able to properly reply to their needs.
In this presentation, I focus on this problem of the
individual for an ethics of enacted caring relations. I argue
that such an extension of care is indeed necessary, but that
the risks can be avoided by grounding such care in
experiences of conviviality, and the felt dimension of acts of
kindness (understood as ‘caring with’). I show how the
positive emotions that are at the core of acts of kindness—
affection, warmth, gratitude, interest, joy, and hope—can
support an enactive ethics of conviviality and interspecies
care that has the potential to assume broader scopes
precisely through its situatedness. This is because selftranscendent
positive emotions, and an open heart in
general, broaden thought-action repertoires—acts of
kindness in particular support generosity, solidarity, and
relationships of mutual trust.
Lecture at the conference "Constructive Emotions: Cultivating Kindness",, Dec 6, 2025
Enactive ethics focuses on the constitutive character of
caring relations, where these relationships are not limited
to human beings, but they extend to all living beings and
the cosmos. It is typically supposed that such caring
relations can involve only individuals. But could loving care
be extended to ecosystems? And, assuming that the
extension is possible, is it also beneficial? Although the
extension might be praiseworthy because it allows care to
go beyond the limits of individual care, it risks missing a
crucial dimension of caring, i.e., intimately acknowledging
and valuing the uniqueness of the cared for and so being
able to properly reply to their needs.
In this presentation, I focus on this problem of the
individual for an ethics of enacted caring relations. I argue
that such an extension of care is indeed necessary, but that
the risks can be avoided by grounding such care in
experiences of conviviality, and the felt dimension of acts of
kindness (understood as ‘caring with’). I show how the
positive emotions that are at the core of acts of kindness—
affection, warmth, gratitude, interest, joy, and hope—can
support an enactive ethics of conviviality and interspecies
care that has the potential to assume broader scopes
precisely through its situatedness. This is because selftranscendent
positive emotions, and an open heart in
general, broaden thought-action repertoires—acts of
kindness in particular support generosity, solidarity, and
relationships of mutual trust.
