The Role of Vulnerability in Kantian Ethics

Bibliographic Data

ID23212433
AuthorsPaul Formosa (0000-0002-7490-0242, corresponding author)
Year2013
Pages88-109
Publication date2013-12-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueVulnerability (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199316649.003.0004
OpenAlexW2466734328
ISBN9780199316649
LanguageEN
Citations received11

This essay argues that the fact that humans are vulnerable, needy and dependent beings plays an important role in Kantian ethics. The basis of this argument is to show that the core normative focus of Kantian ethics is on the dignity that human beings have in virtue of their capacity for rational agency. This implies that the empirical conditions under which human beings can acquire, sustain, exercise, and develop their rational capacities are of core moral importance in Kantian ethics. Human vulnerabilities, including the vulnerability of human bodies, are therefore important in Kantian ethics, since rational capacities in human agents (and the bodies those rational capacities depend upon) are highly vulnerable in all persons and especially vulnerable in some sub-groups of persons.

Agency (philosophy) · Argument (complex analysis) · Dignity · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Kantian ethics · Normative · Normative ethics · Political science · Sociology · Vulnerability (computing) · Computer Science · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Medicine · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Political Philosophy and Ethics