From Concepción Arenal's ethica misericordis to Adela Cortina's ethica cordis: origin and present of Social Work ethics in Spain

Abstract

Recently, Concepción Arenal has been identified as Spain’s first social worker, and her ethic of compassion has also been highlighted (Idareta, 2020a, 2020b). This paper aims to explain the similarities and differences between her ethica misericordis and Adela Cortina’s ethica cordis. The first section briefly describes Concepción Arenal’s contribution. The second describes that of Adela Cortina. In the third section, we assess the differences and similarities between the two. We employ a historical-systematic methodology to do so. The novelty of this article is that it is the first thesework to compare these two sets of ethical proposalshave. We conclude that Adela Cortina’s ethica cordis updates and broadens the scope of Concepción Arenal’s ethica misericordis and, therefore, that the virtue of sanity is one of the elements that should be integrated in Social Work ethics in Spain.