The paradox of vulnerability

Abstract

The essay proposes a critical analysis of the idea of vulnerability in bioethics, revolving around the tension inherent in the idea itself: between being a condition that unites, and becoming, due to the different severity of its manifestation, a factor of inequality and stigmatisation. The first part examines the shift from a focus on the vulnerable, already present in the early days of bioethics in the United States, and the emergence of the idea/principle of vulnerability in the 1998 Barcelona Declaration and subsequent UNESCO documents. The following parts are devoted to discussing the possibility of a theory of vulnerability in bioethics, drawing attention to the hypothesis of a distinction between types of vulnerability and the complexity of the relationship with the concepts of dependence and care.