Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.31192/np.18.3.10
Understanding Vulnerability – Towards a Systematic and Concise Discourse
Martina Vuk
orcid.org/0000-0001-6829-3864
; Yale University, Centre for Faith and Culture, CT, USA
Abstract
The modern conception of morality, as well as, the concept of human person is twofold. On the one hand it is regulated by attributes that emphasizes personal autonomy regardless of human vulnerability; on the other hand, there is a growing interest towards understanding the notion of vulnerability as a contextual and conceptual issue. Vulnerability is tried to be understood as a state that returns a person to his humanity, that is, to himself. At the same time, in a broader context, it is used as a term to explain situations, conditions or concepts that do not even belong to the domain of vulnerability, and are etymologically different from the concept of vulnerability, such as sin, human suffering or disability. Despite all the efforts of the contemporary culture to eliminate it, vulnerability not merely counterbalances the notion of autonomy, but as an inevitable existential category enters our lives without our consent. Because everyone has »experienced« it, vulnerability is considered as a selfevident phenomenon until we are asked to define it. For this reason, it is not always clear what the experience of vulnerability involves or what we mean by the notion vulnerability.
Keywords
autonomy; disability; suffering; theological anthropology; vulnerability
Hrčak ID:
246455
URI
Publication date:
23.11.2020.
Visits: 1.788 *