Medicine And Society New Perspectives In Continental Philosophy

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Medicine and Society, New Perspectives in Continental Philosophy

Author : Darian Meacham
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 9401798702
Total Pages : 320 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (17 download)

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Book Synopsis Medicine and Society, New Perspectives in Continental Philosophy by : Darian Meacham

Download or read book Medicine and Society, New Perspectives in Continental Philosophy written by Darian Meacham and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-05-22 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume addresses some of the most prominent questions in contemporary bioethics and philosophy of medicine: ‘liberal’ eugenics, enhancement, the normal and the pathological, the classification of mental illness, the relation between genetics, disease and the political sphere, the experience of illness and disability, and the sense of the subject of bioethical inquiry itself. All of these issues are addressed from a “continental” perspective, drawing on a rich tradition of inquiry into these questions in the fields of phenomenology, philosophical hermeneutics, French epistemology, critical theory and post-structuralism. At the same time, the contributions engage with the Anglo-American debate, resulting in a fruitful and constructive conversation that not only shows the depth and breadth of continental perspectives in bioethics and medicine, but also opens new avenues of discussion and exploration. For decades European philosophers have offered important insights into the relation between the practices of medicine, the concept of illness, and society more broadly understood. These interventions have generally striven to be both historically nuanced and accessible to non-experts. From Georges Canguilhem’s seminal The Normal and the Pathological, Michel Foucault’s lectures on madness, sexuality, and biopolitics, Hans Jonas’s deeply thoughtful essays on the right to die, life extension, and ethics in a technological age, Hans-Georg Gadamer’s lectures on The Enigma of Health, and more recently Jürgen Habermas’s carefully nuanced interventions on the question of liberal eugenics, these thinkers have sought to engage the wider public as much as their fellow philosophers on questions of paramount importance to current bioethical and social-political debate. The essays contained here continue this tradition of engagement and accessibility. In the best practices of European philosophy, the contributions in this volume aim to engage with and stimulate a broad spectrum of readers, not just experts. In doing so the volume offers a showcase of the richness and rigor of continental perspectives on medicine and society.

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine

Author : Miriam Solomon
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 131751985X
Total Pages : 578 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (175 download)

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Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine by : Miriam Solomon

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine written by Miriam Solomon and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-10-04 with total page 578 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Medicine is a comprehensive guide to topics in the fields of epistemology and metaphysics of medicine. It examines traditional topics such as the concept of disease, causality in medicine, the epistemology of the randomized controlled trial, the biopsychosocial model, explanation, clinical judgment and phenomenology of medicine and emerging topics, such as philosophy of epidemiology, measuring harms, the concept of disability, nursing perspectives, race and gender, the metaphysics of Chinese medicine, and narrative medicine. Each of the 48 chapters is written especially for this volume and with a student audience in mind. For pedagogy and clarity, each chapter contains an extended example illustrating the ideas discussed. This text is intended for use as a reference for students in courses in philosophy of medicine and philosophy of science, and pairs well with The Routledge Companion to Bioethics for use in medical humanities and social science courses.

Routledge Handbook of Genomics, Health and Society

Author : Sahra Gibbon
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1315451670
Total Pages : 474 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (154 download)

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Book Synopsis Routledge Handbook of Genomics, Health and Society by : Sahra Gibbon

Download or read book Routledge Handbook of Genomics, Health and Society written by Sahra Gibbon and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-04-17 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook provides an essential resource at the interface of Genomics, Health and Society, and forms a crucial research tool for both new students and established scholars across biomedicine and social sciences. Building from and extending the first Routledge Handbook of Genetics and Society, the book offers a comprehensive introduction to pivotal themes within the field, an overview of the current state of the art knowledge on genomics, science and society, and an outline of emerging areas of research. Key themes addressed include the way genomic based DNA technologies have become incorporated into diverse arenas of clinical practice and research whilst also extending beyond the clinic; the role of genomics in contemporary ‘bioeconomies’; how challenges in the governance of medical genomics can both reconfigure and stabilise regulatory processes and jurisdictional boundaries; how questions of diversity and justice are situated across different national and transnational terrains of genomic research; and how genomics informs – and is shaped by – developments in fields such as epigenetics, synthetic biology, stem cell, microbial and animal model research. Chapters 13 and 28 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.

The New Politics of Materialism

Author : Sarah Ellenzweig
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 135197615X
Total Pages : 341 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (519 download)

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Book Synopsis The New Politics of Materialism by : Sarah Ellenzweig

Download or read book The New Politics of Materialism written by Sarah Ellenzweig and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-07-14 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collection, which includes an international roster of contributors from philosophy, history, literature, and science, is the first to ask what is "new" about the new materialism and place it in interdisciplinary perspective.

Weak Knowledge

Author : Moritz Epple
Publisher : Campus Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3593440296
Total Pages : 503 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (934 download)

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Book Synopsis Weak Knowledge by : Moritz Epple

Download or read book Weak Knowledge written by Moritz Epple and published by Campus Verlag. This book was released on 2019-12-18 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Im Gegensatz zu landläufigen Vorstellungen sind wissenschaftliche Wissensbestände häufig prekäre Ressourcen. Sie können in bestimmten Situationen aus epistemischen Gründen schwach sein, weil Begründungen oder empirische Evidenz problematisch sind. In anderen Situationen fehlt die kulturelle und soziale Anerkennung oder das fragliche Wissen bleibt schwach, weil es nicht gelingt, es praktisch nutzbar zu machen. Der Band versammelt Beiträge aus allen historischen Epochen und aus einem breiten Spektrum von Wissensgebieten - von der Medizin bis zur Klimatologie.

Digital Wellness, Health and Fitness Influencers

Author : Stefan Lawrence
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000772144
Total Pages : 226 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (7 download)

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Book Synopsis Digital Wellness, Health and Fitness Influencers by : Stefan Lawrence

Download or read book Digital Wellness, Health and Fitness Influencers written by Stefan Lawrence and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2022-10-07 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines the phenomenon of ‘digital guru media’ (DGM), the self-styled online influencers, life coaches, experts and entrepreneurs who post on the themes of wellness, health and fitness. It opens up new perspectives on digital leisure and internet celebrity culture, and asks important questions about the social, cultural and psychological implications of our contemporary relationship with digital media. Drawing on cutting-edge social theory, the book explores a wide range of contexts in which DGM intersects with digital leisure, from the health-related learning of young people to the ‘clean eating’ movement, to the online lives of fitness professionals. It asks if digital and social media are problematic per se and explores the problems a turn to the Internet could be revealing about the lack of real-world or analogue support, as well as potential solutions, for our wellness, health and fitness needs and wants. Bringing together innovative, multi-disciplinary perspectives, this book is fascinating reading for anybody with an interest in leisure studies, media studies, cultural studies, sociology, or health and society.

Phenomenological Bioethics

Author : Fredrik Svenaeus
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351808737
Total Pages : 301 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (518 download)

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Book Synopsis Phenomenological Bioethics by : Fredrik Svenaeus

Download or read book Phenomenological Bioethics written by Fredrik Svenaeus and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-08-09 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Emerging medical technologies are changing our views on human nature and what it means to be alive, healthy, and leading a good life. Reproductive technologies, genetic diagnosis, organ transplantation, and psychopharmacological drugs all raise existential questions that need to be tackled by way of philosophical analysis. Yet questions regarding the meaning of life have been strangely absent from medical ethics so far. This book brings phenomenology, the main player in the continental tradition of philosophy, to bioethics, and it does so in a comprehensive and clear manner. Starting out by analysing illness as an embodied, contextualized, and narrated experience, the book addresses the role of empathy, dialogue, and interpretation in the encounter between health-care professional and patient. Medical science and emerging technologies are then brought to scrutiny as endeavours that bring enormous possibilities in relieving human suffering but also great risks in transforming our fundamental life views. How are we to understand and deal with attempts to change the predicaments of coming to life and the possibilities of becoming better than well or even, eventually, surviving death? This is the first book to bring the phenomenological tradition, including philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Edith Stein, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Paul Ricoeur, Hans Jonas, and Charles Taylor, to answer such burning questions.

Illness

Author : Havi Carel
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351771663
Total Pages : 201 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (517 download)

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Book Synopsis Illness by : Havi Carel

Download or read book Illness written by Havi Carel and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-08-06 with total page 201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is illness? Is it a physiological dysfunction, a social label, or a way of experiencing the world? How do the physical, social, and emotional worlds of a person change when they become ill? Can there be well-being within illness? In this remarkable and thought-provoking book, Havi Carel explores these questions by weaving together the personal story of her own illness with insights and reflections drawn from her work as a philosopher. Carel’s fresh approach to illness raises some uncomfortable questions about how we all – whether healthcare professionals or not – view the ill, challenging us to become more thoughtful. Illness unravels the tension between the universality of illness and its intensely private, often lonely, nature. It offers a new way of looking at a matter that affects every one of us. Revised and updated throughout, the third edition of this groundbreaking volume includes a new chapter on organ transplantation. Illness: The Cry of the Flesh will prove essential reading to those studying philosophy, medical ethics, and medical anthropology, as well as those in the healthcare and medical professions. It will also be of interest to individuals who live with illness, and their friends and families.

Recursivity and Contingency

Author : Yuk Hui
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1786600544
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (866 download)

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Book Synopsis Recursivity and Contingency by : Yuk Hui

Download or read book Recursivity and Contingency written by Yuk Hui and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2019-01-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book employs recursivity and contingency as two principle concepts to investigate into the relation between nature and technology, machine and organism, system and freedom. It reconstructs a trajectory of thought from an Organic condition of thinking elaborated by Kant, passing by the philosophy of nature (Schelling and Hegel), to the 20th century Organicism (Bertalanffy, Needham, Whitehead, Wiener among others) and Organology (Bergson, Canguilhem, Simodnon, Stiegler), and questions the new condition of philosophizing in the time of algorithmic contingency, ecological and algorithmic catastrophes, which Heidegger calls the end of philosophy. The book centres on the following speculative question: if in the philosophical tradition, the concept of contingency is always related to the laws of nature, then in what way can we understand contingency in related to technical systems? The book situates the concept of recursivity as a break from the Cartesian mechanism and the drive of system construction; it elaborates on the necessity of contingency in such epistemological rupture where nature ends and system emerges. In this development, we see how German idealism is precursor to cybernetics, and the Anthropocene and Noosphere (Teilhard de Chardin) point toward the realization of a gigantic cybernetic system, which lead us back to the question of freedom. It questions the concept of absolute contingency (Meillassoux) and proposes a cosmotechnical pluralism. Engaging with modern and contemporary European philosophy as well as Chinese thought through the mediation of Needham, this book refers to cybernetics, mathematics, artificial intelligence and inhumanism.

Viral Critique

Author : Hannah Richter
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1000964868
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (9 download)

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Book Synopsis Viral Critique by : Hannah Richter

Download or read book Viral Critique written by Hannah Richter and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-09-25 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book brings together papers that employ postfoundational theory to critically investigate the social, political, economic and ecological dynamics and power structures that shaped Western democracies, non-Western societies and international politics during the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted not only social relations and personal lives across the globe, but also the landscape of postfoundational theory. Giorgio Agamben, one of its most prominent figures, attracted harsh criticism for his suggestion that the pandemic was nothing but an invented tool of state power. In the face of a collectively experienced emergency, it seemed tempting to forgo critical questioning in favour of taking action on a manifestly real, viral threat. Resisting this temptation, this volume makes the case that COVID-19 has rendered postfoundational critique urgently necessary. The chapters collected here use postfoundational theory to unpack the pandemic’s global social event beyond dominant narratives of unprecedentedness, exception and necessity. The authors explore where the pandemic has actually altered political, social and economic dynamics. But they also highlight where divisions, inequalities and expropriation continued unchanged, or even reinforced, throughout and after the COVID-19 event. The chapters apply, scrutinise and re-work the writings of postfoundational thinkers from Jacques Derrida, Roberto Esposito and Gilles Deleuze to Jasbir Puar to both offer a better understanding of the pandemic’s social reality and to draw from it visions for a different post-pandemic future. Viral Critique will be a key resource for academics, researchers, and advanced students of Philosophy, Political Science, Sociology, Economics and Cultural Studies. The chapters included in this book were originally published as a special issue of Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory.

Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy

Author : Christopher Donohue
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031126041
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (311 download)

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Book Synopsis Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy by : Christopher Donohue

Download or read book Vitalism and Its Legacy in Twentieth Century Life Sciences and Philosophy written by Christopher Donohue and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-01-02 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Open Access book combines philosophical and historical analysis of various forms of alternatives to mechanism and mechanistic explanation, focusing on the 19th century to the present. It addresses vitalism, organicism and responses to materialism and its relevance to current biological science. In doing so, it promotes dialogue and discussion about the historical and philosophical importance of vitalism and other non-mechanistic conceptions of life. It points towards the integration of genomic science into the broader history of biology. It details a broad engagement with a variety of nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first century vitalisms and conceptions of life. In addition, it discusses important threads in the history of concepts in the United States and Europe, including charting new reception histories in eastern and south-eastern Europe. While vitalism, organicism and similar epistemologies are often the concern of specialists in the history and philosophy of biology and of historians of ideas, the range of the contributions as well as the geographical and temporal scope of the volume allows for it to appeal to the historian of science and the historian of biology generally.

Naturalism in the Philosophy of Health

Author : Élodie Giroux
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319290916
Total Pages : 227 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (192 download)

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Book Synopsis Naturalism in the Philosophy of Health by : Élodie Giroux

Download or read book Naturalism in the Philosophy of Health written by Élodie Giroux and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-25 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In a series of papers published in the 1970s, Christopher Boorse proposed a naturalist theory of health, mainly based on a value-free concept of ‘biological function’, a concept of ‘reference class’ and the notion of ‘statistical normality’. His theory has profoundly shaped the philosophical debates on the concepts of health and disease. It could even be said that the numerous criticisms of his 'biostatistical theory' are at the centre of what is usually referred to as the debate between ‘normativists’ and ‘naturalists’. Today, the predominant naturalist theory of health is still Boorse’s biostatistical theory. This volume offers the first comprehensive review and critical assessment of the nature and status of naturalism in the philosophy of health. It explores the notion of biological normativity and its relevance for the philosophy of health, and it analyses the implications of the philosophical theories of health for healthcare and the debate on health enhancement. In the first section, several contributions identify the kind of ‘naturalism’ the biostatistical theory belongs to and offer further criticisms or possible modifications, such as the concept of function that is required by this theory, and whether a comparativist approach to health is more relevant than a non-comparativist one. The second section explores natural or biological ‘normativity’ and some possible accounts of health that could be based on this concept. The third and final section focuses on the implications of naturalism in healthcare. 'Goals of Medicine’ is the first paper in which Christopher Boorse ventured toward analysing the implication of his biostatistical theory of health on the practice of medicine, the difficult issue of the goals of medicine and the boundary between treating and enhancing. Other papers in this section critically evaluate Boorse’s account and analyse the importance of a positive concept of health.

The Things That Really Matter

Author : Michael Hauskeller
Publisher : UCL Press
ISBN 13 : 1800082177
Total Pages : 304 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Things That Really Matter by : Michael Hauskeller

Download or read book The Things That Really Matter written by Michael Hauskeller and published by UCL Press. This book was released on 2022-05-10 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While being rooted in the academic discourse, The Things That Really Matter comprehensively explores the most fundamental aspects of human life in an accessible, non-technical language, adding fresh perspectives and new arguments and considerations that are designed to stimulate further debate and, in some cases, a deliberate redirection of research interests in the respective areas. It features a series of conversations about the things in our life that we all, in one way or another, wrestle with if we are at all concerned about what kind of world we live in and what our role in it is: things like birth, age, and death, good and evil, the meaning of life, the nature of the self and the role the body plays for our identity, our gendered existence, love and faith, free will, beauty, and our experience of the sacred. Situating abstract ideas in concrete experience, The Things That Really Matter encourages the reader to participate in an open-ended dialogue involving a variety of thinkers with different backgrounds and orientations. Lively and accessible, it shows thinking as an open-ended process and a collaborative endeavour that benefits from talking to each other rather than against each other, featuring real conversations, where ideas are explored, tested, changed, and occasionally dropped. It is thinking in motion, personal yet universal.

Philosophy, Biopolitics, and the Virus

Author : Michael Lewis
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1666923796
Total Pages : 269 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (669 download)

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Book Synopsis Philosophy, Biopolitics, and the Virus by : Michael Lewis

Download or read book Philosophy, Biopolitics, and the Virus written by Michael Lewis and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2023-09-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Every aspect of the pandemic was said to be ‘total,’ absolute, and undiscriminating. Its very name implied as much. The virus was everywhere, and a threat to us all. In Philosophy, Biopolitics, and the Virus: The Elision of an Alternative, Michael Lewis identifies three moments within the pandemic that were conceived in such a monolithic way: (1) ‘The Science,’ which had to be unanimous if it was to assume a sovereign role, and to have us ‘follow’ it; (2) ‘non-pharmaceutical interventions,’ which were regarded as the only possible response, without which death and disease would ‘run riot’; and (3) the one sole remedy that could bring about the promised end of the restrictions, to the exclusion of every other conception of medicine, treatment, and care. In each case of seeming universality, dissent immediately identifies you as a friend of the virus. And yet if all of these cases have been revealing their counterproductivity ever since, what are we to make of the elision of alternatives? Is it part of a more general tendency to thrust the questioning of hegemonic notions to the margins of respectable discourse, inhabited solely by the mad, bad, and dangerous to know?

The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory

Author : Jeffrey R. Di Leo
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1350012815
Total Pages : 800 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory by : Jeffrey R. Di Leo

Download or read book The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory written by Jeffrey R. Di Leo and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2018-11-15 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Bloomsbury Handbook of Literary and Cultural Theory is the most comprehensive available survey of the state of theory in the 21st century. With chapters written by the world's leading scholars in their field, this book explores the latest thinking in traditional schools such as feminist, Marxist, historicist, psychoanalytic, and postcolonial criticism and new areas of research in ecocriticism, biopolitics, affect studies, posthumanism, materialism, and many other fields. In addition, the book includes a substantial A-to-Z compendium of key words and important thinkers in contemporary theory, making this an essential resource for scholars of literary and cultural theory at all levels.

Autoimmunities

Author : Stefan Herbrechter
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351009184
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (51 download)

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Book Synopsis Autoimmunities by : Stefan Herbrechter

Download or read book Autoimmunities written by Stefan Herbrechter and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-12-13 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Autoimmunity refers to the phenomenon whereby an organism or body mounts an immune response against its own tissues. As a medical term, autoimmunity is today used to account for any instance in which the body fails to recognise its own constituents as ‘self’, an error that results in the paradoxical situation in which self-defense (immunity, protection) manifests as self-harm (pathology). As a result, the very possibility of autoimmunity poses a problem for the notion of immunity and the concept of identity that underpins it: if self-protection can just as readily take the form of self-destruction, then it seems that the very identity of the self, and thus the boundary between self and other, is in question. Conceptually, autoimmunity thus challenges us to think critically about the nature of any sovereign entity or identity, be they human or nonhuman, cells, nations, or other forms of community. This volume reflects and engages with different disciplinary approaches to autoimmunity in the theoretical, medical or posthumanities, social and political theory, and critical science studies. It aims to provide a topical intervention within the current discussion on biopolitical thought and critical posthumanist futures. This book was originally published as a special issue of Parallax.

Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights

Author : Aniceto Masferrer
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 3319326937
Total Pages : 346 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (193 download)

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Book Synopsis Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights by : Aniceto Masferrer

Download or read book Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights written by Aniceto Masferrer and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-08-26 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume is devoted to exploring a subject which, on the surface, might appear to be just a trending topic. In fact, it is much more than a trend. It relates to an ancient, permanent issue which directly connects with people’s life and basic needs: the recognition and protection of individuals’ dignity, in particular the inherent worthiness of the most vulnerable human beings. The content of this book is described well enough by its title: ‘Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights’. Certainly, we do not claim that only the human dignity of vulnerable people should be recognized and protected. We rather argue that, since vulnerability is part of the human condition, human vulnerability is not at odds with human dignity. To put it simply, human dignity is compatible with vulnerability. A concept of human dignity which discards or denies the dignity of the vulnerable and weak is at odds with the real human condition. Even those individuals who might seem more skilled and talented are fragile, vulnerable and limited. We need to realize that human condition is not limitless. It is crucial to re-discover a sense of moderation regarding ourselves, a sense of reality concerning our own nature. Some lines of thought take the opposite view. It is sometimes argued that humankind is – or is called to be – powerful, and that the time will come when there will be no vulnerability, no fragility, no limits at all. Human beings will become like God (or what believers might think God to be). This perspective rejects human vulnerability as in intrinsic evil. Those who are frail or weak, who are not autonomous or not able to care for themselves, do not possess dignity. In this volume it is claimed that vulnerability is an inherent part of human condition, and because human dignity belongs to all individuals, laws are called to recognize and protect the rights of all of them, particularly of those who might appear to be more vulnerable and fragile.