Abstract

Caring can be viewed as a set of specific activities and relations in the context of health care, social solidarity and interpersonal relations. On the other hand, caring can also be considered as a general attitude and structure of all our activities. Martin Heidegger developed an ontological analysis of “Sorge” as the foundational structure of our being in the world. The paper explains Heidegger’s concept of “Sorge” and confronts it with the criticism of Emmanuel Levinas who formulates an alternative view on caring as responsibility for the vulnerability of the other. Vulnerability is a key notion to understand caring as an ethical and non paternalistic relation to all beings. The paper applies the notions of caring and vulnerability to the sphere of economics. It distinguishes between caring as philanthropy and caring as relational economy. Today, civil economy is represented in different types of cooperative entrepreneurship, but its potential is not restricted to specific juridical forms of cooperation. All types of entrepreneurship based on trust and cooperation imply a logic of caring that precedes and corrects the logic of profit maximization.