Well said, on the whole. But a lot depends on how one defines "caring." A simple bacterium, for example, will happily climb up a glucose gradient in search of more glucose, in a manner utterly unlike any complex inorganic molecule. Why? Because, in an elementary sense, it cares. That is, it has a vested interest in maintaining its own internal homeostasis, for which purpose it feeds on the energy (glucose) available all around it. Whereas inorganic molecules don't give a shit whether they remain as they are or split apart and change into something else, as the result of a chemical reaction.

Similarly, one might possibly argue that the Earth

"cares" about maintaining its atmospheric and hydrological homeostasis in the face of steadily increasing solar radiation--even though, like the bacterium and like all other living things, it is doomed, eventually, to collapse. This is Lovelock's Gaia theory, supported by a huge body of evidence.