ISBN:
9781032346656
,
9781032346632
Language:
English
Pages:
xv, 273 Seiten
,
Diagramme
Series Statement:
Gender in law, culture, and society
Series Statement:
A GlassHouse book
Parallel Title:
Erscheint auch als Fineman, Martha Albertson Law, Vulnerability, and the Responsive State
Keywords:
Civil rights
;
Equality before the law
;
Public policy (Law)
;
Government liability
;
Vulnerability (Personality trait)
Abstract:
"This book considers how vulnerability theory provides the basis for a reconceptualization of the liberal ideas of autonomy, equality, and freedom. Vulnerability theory argues a 'vulnerable legal subject' should displace the 'liberal legal subject' that currently dominates law and policy. The theory is based on the fundamental empirical realities of the material body and offers an alternative to a social contract or rights-based notion of state responsibility, both of which tend to privilege abstractions such as rationality or dignity. A vulnerability analysis poses law and policy questions based on the "vulnerable legal subject" and requires new thinking about state or governmental responsibility. Importantly, to achieve a truly comprehensive and inclusive notion of what constitutes social justice or a universal or 'common' good, vulnerability theory mandates a reassessment of both equality and freedom as these concepts are currently conceived. Presenting the work of scholars from a wide-range of doctrinal areas, it is this task that the book takes up. In particular, in recognizing that many social or institutional relationships entail uneven positions of dependence and reliance, it maintains that individualized notions of equality or freedom are inadequate and must be reformulated to include a sense of collective or social justice, incorporating asymmetric or unequal allocations of responsibility and requiring appropriate limitations on the individual. This book's reorientation of the subject, as well as the central objectives of law and policy will appeal to scholars and students in law, vulnerability studies, gender studies, critical legal and political theory, politics, philosophy, and sociology"--
DOI:
10.4324/9781003323242
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