Call for Abstracts

Self(less)-Care: Ancient and Contemporary Care Ethics from a Labor Perspective

May 15, 2026

University of Pardubice, Czech Republic (in person)

Keynote speaker: Stella Sandford (Manchester Metropolitan University, UK)

In 1982 Michel Foucault concluded his lectures at the Collège de France by reflecting on our contemporary fascination with the Delphic maxim “Know thyself” (gnôthi seauton). Thus, he invited his audience to “remember that the rule that one should know oneself was regularly combined with the theme of care of the self” (2005, p.491). The widespread proliferation of public discourse on care over the past forty years exhibits a newfound contemporary fascination with care, especially self-care, worth problematizing.

In this conference, we aim to address the relational dimension of self-care, taking the ancient care of the self (epimeleia heautou, cura sui) as a point of departure for engaging contemporary care ethics in critical discussion of self-care from a labor perspective. The consolidation of contemporary care ethics has seen the simultaneous rising popularity of self-care literature that mobilizes care while dismissing relational interdependence – one of the central tenets of care ethics (Gilligan, 1982; Noddings, 1984; Kittay & Meyers, 1987). This dismissal needs explanation. In this respect, the ancient care of the self offers a unique analytical opportunity because it amounts to a version of care ethics that similarly seems to dismiss the relationality and interdependence that go into care, especially if understood from a labor perspective. Whereas ancient “freemen” committed to the theorization and practice of the care of the self, it was enslaved and women’s domestic labor that allowed for the care for the soul (epimeleia tês psuchês in Plato’s terms), which distinguished “freemen” from a bunch of “careless” others: enslaved people, women, foreigners (barbarians), children, and animals. This conference asks if similar logics of othering run within contemporary self-care.

Tellingly, Plutarch relates that Anaxandridas, the Spartan king, faced with the question as to why the Helots (forced laborers) tended to the fields, rather than the Spartans themselves, answered that “we acquired these lands not to take care [epimeloumenoi] of them, but of ourselves [autôn]” (Apophthegmata. 10.3). This helps illuminate the usually unacknowledged labor that upholds self-care, and raises questions concerning the scope of ancient and contemporary notions of self-care: namely, are these notions commensurable? While the ancient care of the self rested on exploitative relations, contemporary self-care rather seems to help the exploited further endure exploitation. Also, if self-care indeed depends on the concealed care labor of others, can we really conceive of a care that ends at the limits of the self? Should we not extend our versions of self-care to account for this labor? And would this extended version of self-care entail cultivating a selfless self (Varela, 1991), which acknowledges the always already implicated care labor of others?

This conference aims to address such questions and envision a care of the self that is not mobilized in the service of “othering” those whose forced/unpaid care labor prevents them from engaging in self-care. Maybe then we can manage to decenter the self in self-care and foster a self(less)-care that centers selflessness instead.

Possible topics include:

·       Ancient and/or contemporary self-care from a labor perspective

·       “Carelessness” as an ancient and/or contemporary mark of othering

·       Ancient and/or contemporary care of the self beyond the self

·       Ancient care ethics beyond the Greco-Roman world

·       Care as a challenge to ancient and/or contemporary notions of selfhood

·       Selfless self as an alternative response to ancient and/or contemporary self-care

Please send your anonymized abstract (300-500 words) in PDF format to selflesscare@upce.cz by the 15th of December 2025, together with a title, 5 keywords, and a list of no more than six references (not to be included in the word count). In the body of the email please add a short biography of yourself. Papers should not exceed 30 minutes, followed by 15 minutes of discussion. A notification of acceptance should be available by the end of December 2025. We are unable to provide funding, but we encourage you to consult with your home institutions.

The organizers

Jorge Arjona (University of Pardubice, Czech Republic)

Laura Candiotto (University of Pardubice, Czech Republic)

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https://ff.upce.cz/ff/vedecky-tym-laury-candiotto

Ancient philosophy has often been a source of inspiration for ethics. The discussion of virtue ethics, which occupies an important place in ethics today, testifies to the significance that ancient philosophers can bring to contemporary debates. For Plato, ethics takes the form of care for the soul.

This theme, anchored in the Delphic inscription “know thyself,” is the leitmotif of the entire Platonic corpus.

Our main hypothesis is that Plato’s care of the soul can offer important insights into contemporary ethics—especially the ethics of care—thanks to the significant role of love and friendship in dialogical inquiry and moral education. Care ethics places the interdependent relationships between individuals or groups of individuals at the center of the moral sphere.

The project is divided into three parts: the first focuses on the relational aspect of Plato’s care of the soul; the second establishes a dialogue between ancient sources and contemporary debate, particularly with regard to the ethics of care as feminist ethics, embodied and gendered care, asymmetrical caregiving relationships, epistemic care, and solidarity; the third aims to explore the extent to which the new Platonic ethics of care can be applied in efforts to extend the sphere of care to the areas of animal ethics and environmental ethics.