ABSTRACT
Commentators have often observed that the human subject, as conceived by law in general, is a ‘liberal subject’, assumed to be rational, autonomous and independent. As Jonathan Herring has put it in the context of a comprehensive discussion of vulnerability in law: The law is built around the ideal of legal personhood: a man who is autonomous, self-sufficient, in control, capacitous, and independent. The chapter suggests – tentatively – that the particular and universal senses of vulnerability can be used in combination and that they might even turn out to be complementary. Without vulnerability, there would be no need for healthcare, or law, or ethics. Each of these systems owes its existence to the fact that human beings are open, fragile and fallible. The idea of vulnerability has had a chequered history in healthcare law and ethics literature. Observations about human vulnerability can only generate normative conclusions, however, in combination with evaluative premises about the importance of human beings’ interests.
