Thinking through Vulnerability

Abstract

The topic of vulnerability has been the subject of intense scholarly interest and work, especially in feminist theory. It circulates in academic and nonacademic contexts, spans many disciplines, including both applied fields and highly theoretical ones, and in philosophy in particular has been taken up in multiple subfields and approaches to the discipline. The concept's widespread appeal might stem from the sense that vulnerability is intensifying, or at least from a heightened awareness of it.1 In any case, vulnerability's salience lies in how it names something significant about the world and suggests different ways that something ought to be addressed. That is, vulnerability's appeal lies in its normative pertinence or efficacy, in how the concept seems to hold the possibility of both diagnosing ethical failures and forging different, more adequate ethical responses to the injustices we witness and/or face.