PANEL 12 / VULNERABILITY AND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY
CONVENORS: Francesca Sofia Alexandratos
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected]
Vulnerability is a pivotal concept for social philosophy. Mainly developed in moral philosophy (Levinas 1979; Ricoeur 1994), it is used to refer to human beings’ “susceptibility to be injured” and their consequent need for care (Gaille & Laugier 2011). Considering human susceptibility to be injured means acknowledging subjects’ embeddedness in an external world and, more cogently, their passivity to and dependency on it for a good life. It follows that any radicalization or disregard of human vulnerability jeopardizes the possibility for a flourishing life, with the origin of human suffering.
With the concept of vulnerability social philosophy has been enabled to problematize human suffering in its social origins and immanently criticize social contexts that jeopardize the interactional preconditions of human life as “oppressive” (Honneth 1995; Dewey 1925; Renault 2018). However, despite its significance for social philosophy, the concept of vulnerability still presents theoretical and critical problems. Firstly, vulnerability has been primarily investigated as an anthropological condition rather than as an ontological trait of life. There is still a lack of inquiry into the different and entangled forms of vulnerability in inorganic, organic, and human life (Garrau 2018), regardless of the need for social philosophy to broaden and connect social wrongs to nature. Secondly, when addressing oppressive social contexts vulnerability can be an ambivalent phenomenon, as an absolute opposition between oppression and care for vulnerability cannot be drawn. Vulnerability is a status that frequently leads to accepting power relations (Butler 1997), whereas power often reproduces itself by justifying hierarchical relationships of dependency in light of socially produced vulnerabilities (Allen 2010; Sullivan 2011). Problematizing the interrelation between vulnerability and power is thus central to the critique of power.
Finally, some approaches consider vulnerability as a universal human condition, due to the unavoidably a-symmetrical relationship between societies and human beings (Sartre 1993; Butler 1997). Other approaches analyze instead vulnerability as a socially constituted condition affecting subjects differently and intersectionally, according to their position in the political, social, and geographical space (Bourdieu 1993; hooks 2000). Hence, a problematization of the anthropological and social dimensions of vulnerability is needed to discriminate forms and degrees of power.
The panel wants to address these open issues on vulnerability and social philosophy. Contributions are welcomed on:
- Vulnerability and life;
- Vulnerability and critique of power;
- Power and vulnerability;
- Vulnerability as a source of criticism;
- Anthropological and social vulnerability
All inquiries about the panel should be sent to [email protected]
Vulnerability is a pivotal concept for social philosophy. Mainly developed in moral philosophy (Levinas 1979; Ricoeur 1994), it is used to refer to human beings’ “susceptibility to be injured” and their consequent need for care (Gaille & Laugier 2011). Considering human susceptibility to be injured means acknowledging subjects’ embeddedness in an external world and, more cogently, their passivity to and dependency on it for a good life. It follows that any radicalization or disregard of human vulnerability jeopardizes the possibility for a flourishing life, with the origin of human suffering.
With the concept of vulnerability social philosophy has been enabled to problematize human suffering in its social origins and immanently criticize social contexts that jeopardize the interactional preconditions of human life as “oppressive” (Honneth 1995; Dewey 1925; Renault 2018). However, despite its significance for social philosophy, the concept of vulnerability still presents theoretical and critical problems. Firstly, vulnerability has been primarily investigated as an anthropological condition rather than as an ontological trait of life. There is still a lack of inquiry into the different and entangled forms of vulnerability in inorganic, organic, and human life (Garrau 2018), regardless of the need for social philosophy to broaden and connect social wrongs to nature. Secondly, when addressing oppressive social contexts vulnerability can be an ambivalent phenomenon, as an absolute opposition between oppression and care for vulnerability cannot be drawn. Vulnerability is a status that frequently leads to accepting power relations (Butler 1997), whereas power often reproduces itself by justifying hierarchical relationships of dependency in light of socially produced vulnerabilities (Allen 2010; Sullivan 2011). Problematizing the interrelation between vulnerability and power is thus central to the critique of power.
Finally, some approaches consider vulnerability as a universal human condition, due to the unavoidably a-symmetrical relationship between societies and human beings (Sartre 1993; Butler 1997). Other approaches analyze instead vulnerability as a socially constituted condition affecting subjects differently and intersectionally, according to their position in the political, social, and geographical space (Bourdieu 1993; hooks 2000). Hence, a problematization of the anthropological and social dimensions of vulnerability is needed to discriminate forms and degrees of power.
The panel wants to address these open issues on vulnerability and social philosophy. Contributions are welcomed on:
- Vulnerability and life;
- Vulnerability and critique of power;
- Power and vulnerability;
- Vulnerability as a source of criticism;
- Anthropological and social vulnerability