The First Form of Vulnerability

Abstract

The first form of vulnerability, which is rooted in the fundamental dependency of human beings, can be defined in terms of ‘the goods or things one values and whose care one partially entrusts to someone else, who has some discretion over him or her’ (Baier 1986: 235). To say that one person is particularly vulnerable to another is to say that ‘his /her interests are strongly affected by the other’s actions and choices’ (Goodin 1985: 143). People’s dependence on others, and thereby their vulnerability, differs with their different capabilities to achieve and sustain the balance between independence and dependence and owing to various ways in which they become dependent upon one another. Our dependency, understood as the need to be cared for and being not alone in the world, as illustrated, for example, by infants’ emotional and bodily vulnerability, is at the core of human experience. It constructs bases for the survival, recognition and interconnected-ness of social life, as well as for our individuality. ‘We are, in our feelings and for the sake of our survival, mutually dependent and naturally social creatures’ (Solomon 1990: 102). Because being in the world is being with others, dependency can be conceptualized to some degree as given and inescapable. Yet, since many dependencies are ‘largely created or exacerbated by existing social arrangements’, we can try to mitigate, if not eliminate, them (Goodin 1985: 192).