Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy ed. by Catriona Mackenzie (review)

As many of the contributors to Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy note, vulnerability has increasingly become a focus of philosophers. One may think, for example, of Robert Goodin, care ethicists such as Eva Kittay, or more recent works by Alasdair MacIntyre, Judith Butler, or Adriana Cavarero. While this volume does not offer sustained engagements with Butler, Cavarero, or the so-called Continental thinkers from which they draw, it does offer a wide range of thoughtful essays that contribute in myriad ways both to theorizing vulnerability and to understanding the ethical and political consequences of taking vulnerability seriously.¹

Before discussing the essays separately, I would like to note a few strengths of the volume as a whole. The first is the introduction by editors Catriona Mackenzie, Wendy Rogers, and Susan Dodds. Here, they offer a helpful, brief overview of recent scholarly work on vulnerability, and then raise a series of questions: How should vulnerability be understood? Is vulnerability the source of moral obligations and, if so, why? And if vulnerability calls for a response, who is responsible for responding? Along the way, they offer a taxonomy to help give clarity and precision to discussions of vulnerability.² On their view, it is helpful to be specific both about the source and the state of vulnerabilities. They offer three sources in their taxonomy. Vulnerability may be inherent, or “intrinsic to the human condition,” or situational, that is, specific to a social, environmental, or historical context (7). In some cases, a situational vulnerability may be or become pathogenic in that it unnecessarily “undermines autonomy or exacerbates the sense of powerlessness” of the vulnerable party (9). Their taxonomy also offers a distinction between the state of vulnerabilities. There are both dispositional, or potential, vulnerabilities, and occurrent, or actual, vulnerabilities. But this taxonomy is more than just a theoretical clarification offered in the introduction; it is also taken up or responded to in essays throughout the volume.

Indeed, this is an instance of the second strength, one that makes Vulnerability a pleasure to read: the essays in the volume engage with one another. The collection has its beginnings in a 2009 conference, the International Conference on Vulnerability, Autonomy and Justice, and it is clear throughout that the authors have sought to be responsive to the concerns of the other contributors. For example, while the authors do not all use the taxonomy proposed by the editors, they do compare their own concepts to those offered in the introduction when developing different understandings of vulnerability. As a result, the collection reads as a genuine dialogue.

A final strength of the volume as a whole is that each chapter includes its own abstract. I found this helpful even while reading the entire volume, but I suspect it would be especially helpful for those only interested in specific issues or topics.

Vulnerability is divided into two parts. The first is entitled “Reflections on Vulnerability.” The lead essay, by Catriona Mackenzie, argues that an ethics of vulnerability should be supplemented by an understanding of autonomy as relational and by a capabilities approach to justice. Engaging with Martha Fineman’s “vulnerability analysis,” Mackenzie argues that a focus on universal vulnerabilities obscures the contextual specificity of many vulnerabilities. To respond appropriately to vulnerability, then, we need greater theoretical precision. She moves on to demonstrate convincingly that those who oppose vulnerability to autonomy assume a specific, namely libertarian, conception of autonomy. If we start with an understanding of autonomy as relational, however, we can see that we are vulnerable precisely because our autonomy is achieved through interactions with others. This means that we cannot seek to rid ourselves of vulnerabilities. But, importantly, it also means that we need to value autonomy both to resist the powerlessness experienced as a result of certain vulnerabilities and to resist paternalistic responses to vulnerabilities. Finally, Mackenzie proposes that a capabilities approach offers the best theory of justice...