title: Love and caring. Ethics of face and hand--an invitation to return to the heart and soul of nursing and our deep humanity.
abstract: This manuscript offers a new view of old and timeless values: the essential ethic of love, informed by contemporary European philosophies, and caring theory, as well as ancient poetry and wisdom traditions. It integrates some of the philosophical views of Levinas and Logstrup with Watson's Transpersonal Caring Theory. The metaphysics, metaphors, and meanings associated with "ethics of face," the "infinity of the human soul," and "holding another's life in our hands" are tied to a deeply ethical foundation for the timeless practice of love and caring, as a means to sustain, not only our shared humanity, but the profession of nursing itself.
mesh_terms: D004645:Empathy; D004993:Ethics, Nursing; D005086:Existentialism / Q000523:psychology; D005149:Facial Expression; D006225:Hand; D006808:Humanism; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D008678:Metaphysics; D016294:Models, Nursing; D024802:Nurse's Role / Q000523:psychology; D009723:Nurse-Patient Relations / Q000941:ethics*; D009742:Nursing Theory; D010687:Philosophy, Nursing; D011037:Poetry as Topic; D012945:Social Values; D013561:Symbolism; D014110:Touch