ABSTRACT
Vulnerability theory is built on the idea of a universal vulnerable theoretical subject, providing a comprehensive critique of existing social and legal institutions and relationships, as well as suggesting the foundational principles for building a comprehensive and inclusive sense of state responsibility. The characterization of a universal vulnerable subject is conceptually and objectively distinct from that underlying the constructed subject of dominant legal/political models, such as the rights-based or social contract paradigms. Beginning with and reasoning from the “ontological body,” vulnerability theory should be classified as a “pre-identity” theory—based on a universal, not fragmented, conception of the individual and incorporating the empirical, material, and perpetual realities of the human condition. As such, vulnerability theory argues for the universal concept of the embodied vulnerable subject to replace the contingent rational man of economics, the reasonable man of law, the contracting man of political theory, as well as the exploited, subordinated, or oppressed man (or woman) of contemporary critical theory. In this way, vulnerability theory brings new issues and questions to the fore and offers an inclusive, systemic critical lens with which to consider the just allocation of privilege and responsibility across society and its institutions.
