Vulnerability and non-domination: a republican perspective on natural limits

Cannavó, Peter F.

doi:10.1080/13698230.2019.1698155

Cited by 15 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…This conceptual core also relates to what is usually identified as the fundamental flaw of the current paradigm: anthropocentrism (Grear 2011;Curry 2011;Grear 2015;Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos 2015;De Lucia 2017b). The core of this sovereign paradigm is premised on the centrality of the 'invulnerable' subject (Grear 2010;Fineman and Grear 2013;Kotzé 2019, p. 79), and on a framework of conceptual mastery and material domination over nature (Cannavò 2019) 15 which organizes the extraction and exploitation of natural resources according to a well ordained project underpinned by an appropriate legal framework (Merchant 1990;Sargent and Bacon 1999). Through sovereignty, the body of Earth has been materially and legally appropriated, has been distributed, and has been wounded.…”

Section: The Anthropocene and The 'Vulnerable' Earthmentioning

confidence: 98%

Rethinking the Encounter Between Law and Nature in the Anthropocene: From Biopolitical Sovereignty to Wonder

Lucia

2020

Law Critique

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The rise of the idea of the Anthropocene is promoting multiple reflections on its meaning. As we consider entering this new geological epoch, we realize the pervasiveness of humankind’s deconstruction and reconstruction of the Earth, in both geophysical and discursive terms. As the body of the Earth is marked and reshaped, so is its idea. From a hostile territory to be subjugated and exploited through sovereign commands, the Earth is now reframed as a vulnerable domain in need of protection. The mode of sovereignty, which has accompanied human and legal history and practice during modernity and its project of mastery, is no longer useful. Humanity’s control of the Earth is being reimagined and reconfigured along biopolitical coordinates of thought and action. Biopolitics shifts the focus of power, changes its modalities of interventions, and rearticulates its legitimacy on the idea of taking responsibility for the Earth, for nature. A biopolitical re-orientation of law captures the fundamental aim of caring for nature, of fostering its vital possibilities and of enhancing its productive potential. Yet, biopolitics engulfs nature in its entirety under its framework of control, where protection and subjugation, vulnerability and productivity, life and death are constantly entangled in a reciprocal and inevitable relation of indistinguishability. Sovereignty becomes thus a key modality of biopolitical intervention, when nature is recalcitrant, wild, spontaneous, unpredictable, violent, dangerous. Biopolitics, thus, remains caught in an undecidable dilemma, where in order to protect the Earth, it must subjugate it; to save it, it must condemn it. In this respect, biopolitics remains utterly modern, or as argued by Roberto Esposito, modernity has always been biopolitical, insofar as modernity has emerged as a framework for the protection of life against life’s own excesses. But how can we escape the biopolitical reframing and enframing of the Earth and its total subsumption under its matrix of control? How can we rethink the encounter between law and nature without remaining entangled in the aporetic dilemma of biopolitics? An aesthetics of wonder may offer a way.

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Section: The Anthropocene and The 'Vulnerable' Earthmentioning

confidence: 98%

Rethinking the Encounter Between Law and Nature in the Anthropocene: From Biopolitical Sovereignty to Wonder

Lucia

2020

Law Critique

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“…Needless to say, vulnerability is not the only human existential value that is allegedly being eroded by transhumanist ideals and by the emergence of new technological advances (see Birnbacher 2010), and yet recent literature has tended to focus in the idea that transhumanist projects menace the precious human vulnerability (Asla 2019, Cannavò 2019, Hauskeller 2019, Llano 2019, Woollard 2019). 1 It seems necessary, therefore, to give weight to the question of to what extent transhumanism defies human beings 1 In addition to Hauskeller's work, in a former monograph on Transhumanism of Scientia et Fides two articles mentioned in passing this topic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

In defence of posthuman vulnerability

Liedo

Rueda

2021

SetF

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Transhumanism is a challenging movement that invites us to rethink what defines humanity, including what we value and regret the most about our existence. Vulnerability is a key concept that require thorough philosophical scrutiny concerning transhumanist proposals. Vulnerability can refer to a universal condition of human life (ontological vulnerability) or, rather, to the specific exposure to certain harms due to particular situations (social vulnerability). Even if we are all vulnerable in the first sense, there are also different sources and levels of vulnerability depending on concrete social circumstances. Recently, Michael Hauskeller (2019) argued about a fundamental incompatibility between transhumanism and vulnerability. He understands vulnerability as an existential category, linked to woundability and mortality. This idea is akin to ontological vulnerability, but it does not notice some important features of social vulnerability. On the other side, transhumanism is a complex and non-homogeneous movement. Here we distinguish between a strong and a weak version of transhumanism. We will propose that the salience of vulnerability is only diminished

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Climate Change and Republicanism

Dodsworth

2023

Handbooks in Philosophy

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Vulnerability and non-domination: a republican perspective on natural limits

Cited by 15 publications

References 19 publications

Rethinking the Encounter Between Law and Nature in the Anthropocene: From Biopolitical Sovereignty to Wonder

Rethinking the Encounter Between Law and Nature in the Anthropocene: From Biopolitical Sovereignty to Wonder

In defence of posthuman vulnerability

Climate Change and Republicanism

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