Vulnerability, Care and the Constitutional State

Abstract

The so called “vulnerability turn” mainly involved ethics. This line of thought encountered feminist analyses, especially those developing an “ethics of care”. In the following pages I outline the main stages of contemporary philosophical reflection on vulnerability, focusing on the relationships between vulnerability theory and some versions of the ethics of care. I then try to show how the theses about vulnerability (and care), today held predominantly by North American scholars, can be employed in Europe in light of the evolution of the “constitutional state”.