Objective:

to analyze the meaning care has for people who care for their elderly relatives from the standpoint of Baruch Spinoza's affective ethics with regard to freedom from the bondage of passions in such interpersonal relationships.

Content synthesis:

although a family's care for its elderly members is inherent to the natural and cultural essence of human beings, other meanings may be assigned to such an experience. This study throws light on feelings which emanate from this constant daily activity and the praxis related to aspects of freedom and bondage, in terms of the interplay of affects discussed by Baruch Spinoza. This care is shaped by the encounter between the elderly person and the relative or relatives who care for him or her: it may become servile when it is influenced by social conducts or free when it seeks self-knowledge.

Conclusions:

when the care provided to elderly members of the family is shaped by external influences, the caregivers in the family tend to an affect of passion which causes inappropriate ideas and diminishes their power to act, making them feel discouraged, servile, and prisoners of the moral codes imposed by society. When the affect is one of joyful action, it produces appropriate ideas, favors the power to act through creative work, and awakens gratitude through the reciprocal acknowledgment of the value of the care which is provided. The wish to provide care frees the caregiver by allowing for a rational pattern in the attitudes, which awakens the power to act which lies in essence of humans. Grasping this dilemma makes it possible to formulate attitudes that drive affects of actions and restrain affects of anger, regulating and liberating them.

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