Vulnerability and Human Rights: Which Compatibility?

Abstract

By embracing the ontological view of vulnerability and stressing its social basis, the paper aims to clarify the role of vulnerability within human rights paradigm. Vulnerability is conceived of by the author as a heuristic notion, which works as a pillar for a general approach to some crucial challenges to human dignity. Both this heuristic notion and these challenges are regarded in the paper as hallmarks for the human rights paradigm. In order to ground this view, the coherence between “vulnerability turn” and the rationale of human rights relies on a four-steps argument dealing with: (i) the denial of a necessary mismatch between the notion of vulnerability and the principle of autonomy; (ii) the appreciation of relation in human rights conceptualization; (iii) the complementarity between vulnerability, as a heuristic notion, and the principle of equality; (iv) the understanding of vulnerability as a “vehicle of empathy” not necessarily involving paternalist trends and therefore not in conflict with the empowerment purposes of human rights. The relevance of “vulnerability turn” in human rights paradigm is defended in the paper within a view of human rights as basic rights, i.e. as means to prevent or fight against those threats that seriously affect basic human needs.