The authors have developed the ethical imagination inviting a sense of “otherness” towards the vulnerable self, rebounding care for the other as a way to understand our everyday neurotic (normal) tendency of small vices as the propensity and possibility for responsibility towards the other. The authors, inviting the reader into troublesome feelings such as laziness and anger, bring a Levinasian horizon into focus, so that even in the midst of laziness, there remains the small goodness to set the self free to care for the other, meeting the demands, challenges, hesitation, shuddering, tension and shocks of such alterity, of living “otherwise”.

This book addresses how law and public policy cause or exacerbate vulnerability in individuals and groups. Bringing together scholars, judges and practitioners, it identifies how individuals and groups can become vulnerabilised through the operation of law, and examines how the State can acknowledge and remedy that impact. The book offers not only a theoretical, ethical and normative conception of vulnerability in law, but also an evaluation of the diverse practices of responding to vulnerability in law through accountability mechanisms and public campaigns. The analysis of vulnerability contained in this volume is enhanced by the common use of Ireland as a case study. Despite the robust rights protections available at national, regional and international level, Ireland remains a State where at risk people have experienced vulnerability across a range of thematic areas, such as criminal law, migration and asylum, historical abuse, LGBTI rights and austerity. Drawing on comparative analyses and a consideration of the role of international law in domestic settings, this book offers a comparison of diverse national and transnational attempts to ensure State accountability and responsiveness to legally created vulnerabilities. The book demonstrates lessons learned from theory and practice regarding how vulnerability can be experienced by individuals and groups, structured by law and addressed through legal and political action. This book will be of considerable interest to socio-legal and "law and society" scholars, as well as others working in international human rights, jurisprudence, philosophy, legal theory, political theory, feminist theory, and ethics.

As concerns about violence, war, terrorism, sexuality, and embodiment have garnered attention in philosophy, the concept of vulnerability has become a shared reference point in these discussions. As a fundamental part of the human condition, vulnerability has significant ethical import: how one responds to vulnerability matters, whom one conceives as vulnerable and which criteria are used to make such demarcations matters, how one deals with one’s own vulnerability matters, and how one understands the meaning of vulnerability matters. Yet, the meaning of vulnerability is commonly taken for granted and it is assumed that vulnerability is almost exclusively negative, equated with weakness, dependency, powerlessness, deficiency, and passivity. This reductively negative view leads to problematic implications, imperiling ethical responsiveness to vulnerability, and so prevents the concept from possessing the normative value many theorists wish it to have. When vulnerability is regarded as weakness and, concomitantly, invulnerability is prized, attentiveness to one’s own vulnerability and ethical response to vulnerable others remain out of reach goals. Thus, this book critiques the ideal of invulnerability, analyzes the problems that arise from a negative view of vulnerability, and articulates in its stead a non-dualistic concept of vulnerability that can remedy these problems.

This book re-assesses the societal and pastoral roles of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in order to consider the function that they have in engaging, or responding, to the Vulnerability Agenda. HEIs are increasingly focused on the inclusion of socially deprived individuals on programmes; but also disability assessments; mental health concerns; learning support plans and readiness for employment. Particularly in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, universities are being profoundly affected and transformed as steps are taken to modify existing approaches to teaching and learning. Universities have always had an implicit ‘duty of care’ for their stakeholders, but COVID-19 has brought into sharp focus the need for a more explicit demonstration that University leaders have the social awareness to recognize the importance of protecting and safeguarding the vulnerable in society. Arguing that HEIs have a significant role to play as a central ‘anchor’ agency in the safeguarding of vulnerable individuals, this book fills in gaps in theoretical, empirical and policy/practice understandings. It explores the changing civic and societal (pastoral) role that HEIs have developed in response to the increasingly important policy area surrounding vulnerability.

We are used to thinking that most people have the capacity to make their own decisions; that they should be free to decide how to live their lives; and that it is a good thing to be self-sufficient. However, in an examination of the legal position of vulnerable adults, understood as those who have capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 but are deemed impaired through vulnerability in their exercise of decision making powers, Jonathan Herring challenges that assumption. Drawing on feminist and disability perspectives he argues that we are all in fact, 'vulnerable' and we need to replace the competent, able-bodied, independent person as the norm which the law is based on and instead fashion which recognises our interdependence and mutuality. At the heart of the law is a distinction between those who have capacity and those who do not. Those who have capacity are given the full rights of the law; they are entitled to enter contracts, dispose of their property, are able to marry. Those who are deemed to lack capacity are unable to make these decisions. Their decisions are made on their behalf based on an assessment of what is in their best interests. This approach is underpinned by the principle of autonomy, and is problematic for those who are deemed 'vulnerable'. The Court of Protection and the Court of Appeal have developed a jurisdiction to deal with cases involving vulnerable adults which has been used in a wide range of cases from those involving people with early stage dementia to cases of forced marriage. This development of law has proved controversial and the courts have struggled to draw its limits and explain the justification for it. Jonathan Herring welcomes the courts willingness to protect vulnerable adults through the inherent jurisdiction, but argues that we need to go much further. It is not just particular groups such as 'the elderly' or 'the disabled' who are vulnerable, but rather vulnerability is part of the human condition. This means that caring relationships are of central significance to our society and should be at the heart of the legal system.

This volume is devoted to exploring a subject which, on the surface, might appear to be just a trending topic. In fact, it is much more than a trend. It relates to an ancient, permanent issue which directly connects with people’s life and basic needs: the recognition and protection of individuals’ dignity, in particular the inherent worthiness of the most vulnerable human beings. The content of this book is described well enough by its title: ‘Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights’. Certainly, we do not claim that only the human dignity of vulnerable people should be recognized and protected. We rather argue that, since vulnerability is part of the human condition, human vulnerability is not at odds with human dignity. To put it simply, human dignity is compatible with vulnerability. A concept of human dignity which discards or denies the dignity of the vulnerable and weak is at odds with the real human condition. Even those individuals who might seem more skilled and talented are fragile, vulnerable and limited. We need to realize that human condition is not limitless. It is crucial to re-discover a sense of moderation regarding ourselves, a sense of reality concerning our own nature. Some lines of thought take the opposite view. It is sometimes argued that humankind is – or is called to be – powerful, and that the time will come when there will be no vulnerability, no fragility, no limits at all. Human beings will become like God (or what believers might think God to be). This perspective rejects human vulnerability as in intrinsic evil. Those who are frail or weak, who are not autonomous or not able to care for themselves, do not possess dignity. In this volume it is claimed that vulnerability is an inherent part of human condition, and because human dignity belongs to all individuals, laws are called to recognize and protect the rights of all of them, particularly of those who might appear to be more vulnerable and fragile.

Taking a cross-cultural perspective, this book explores how privatization and globalization impact contemporary feminist and social justice approaches to public responsibility. Feminist legal theorists have long problematized divisions between the private and the political, an issue with growing importance in a time when the welfare state is under threat in many parts of the world and private markets and corporations transcend national boundaries. Because vulnerability analysis emphasizes our interdependency within social institutions and the need for public responsibility for our shared vulnerability, it can highlight how neoliberal policies commodify human necessities, channeling unprofitable social relationships, such as caretaking, away from public responsibility and into the individual private family. This book uses comparative analyses to examine how these dynamics manifest across different legal cultures. By highlighting similarities and differences in legal responses to vulnerability, this book provides important insights and arguments against the privatization of social need and for a more responsive state.