{"title":"Baruch Spinoza and the Ethics of Care: Towards A Monistic Understanding of Spiritual Care at the End of Life.","authors":"Daniel Giménez Lorente, José Siles González","doi":"10.1111/nup.70072","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Dualism has shaped current healthcare based on the dichotomies of body-mind, science-spirituality and life-death, consolidating a biomedical paradigm that treats the patient as an object, marginalising the spiritual dimension. This article explores Baruch Spinoza's philosophy as an alternative to the ethics of nursing care, integrating the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions within the same ontological continuum. Through a philosophical-conceptual approach inspired by hermeneutic interpretation, key concepts from the work Ethics are presented, inviting the reader to reflect on them in the nursing context of spiritual care at the end of life. In Spinoza, life and death are expressions of the same necessary order of Nature, and freedom arises from understanding that necessity. From this perspective, caring for the dying becomes an affective, collective and rational act, based on knowledge of the natural order. Spinozian philosophy allows us to conceive of care as an ontological-existential mode that is relational, structural, and immanent. Nurses participate in the process of human interdependence and expand the power to act. Understanding the rational transformation of emotions provides tools for accompanying suffering. A Spinozian ethic of care restores a holistic and affirmative view of life to nursing, unifying spirituality and reason.</p>","PeriodicalId":49724,"journal":{"name":"Nursing Philosophy","volume":"27 2","pages":"e70072"},"PeriodicalIF":2.0000,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Nursing Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1111/nup.70072","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"NURSING","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
Dualism has shaped current healthcare based on the dichotomies of body-mind, science-spirituality and life-death, consolidating a biomedical paradigm that treats the patient as an object, marginalising the spiritual dimension. This article explores Baruch Spinoza's philosophy as an alternative to the ethics of nursing care, integrating the physical, emotional, and spiritual dimensions within the same ontological continuum. Through a philosophical-conceptual approach inspired by hermeneutic interpretation, key concepts from the work Ethics are presented, inviting the reader to reflect on them in the nursing context of spiritual care at the end of life. In Spinoza, life and death are expressions of the same necessary order of Nature, and freedom arises from understanding that necessity. From this perspective, caring for the dying becomes an affective, collective and rational act, based on knowledge of the natural order. Spinozian philosophy allows us to conceive of care as an ontological-existential mode that is relational, structural, and immanent. Nurses participate in the process of human interdependence and expand the power to act. Understanding the rational transformation of emotions provides tools for accompanying suffering. A Spinozian ethic of care restores a holistic and affirmative view of life to nursing, unifying spirituality and reason.
期刊介绍：
Nursing Philosophy provides a forum for discussion of philosophical issues in nursing. These focus on questions relating to the nature of nursing and to the phenomena of key relevance to it. For example, any understanding of what nursing is presupposes some conception of just what nurses are trying to do when they nurse. But what are the ends of nursing? Are they to promote health, prevent disease, promote well-being, enhance autonomy, relieve suffering, or some combination of these? How are these ends are to be met? What kind of knowledge is needed in order to nurse? Practical, theoretical, aesthetic, moral, political, ''intuitive'' or some other?
Papers that explore other aspects of philosophical enquiry and analysis of relevance to nursing (and any other healthcare or social care activity) are also welcome and might include, but not be limited to, critical discussions of the work of nurse theorists who have advanced philosophical claims (e.g., Benner, Benner and Wrubel, Carper, Schrok, Watson, Parse and so on) as well as critical engagement with philosophers (e.g., Heidegger, Husserl, Kuhn, Polanyi, Taylor, MacIntyre and so on) whose work informs health care in general and nursing in particular.
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