Harm, Fear, Betrayal: Aspects of the Bodily Genesis and Moral Meaning of Vulnerability

The paper outlines a phenomenological description of the meaning and moral significance of vulnerability. Such a description begins with a negative characterization in accordance with the contributions to the phenomenology of the body found in the works of Edmund Husserl and Ludwig Landgrebe, to advance at a later stage to the phenomenological characterization of the notion of the individuation of harm in relation to what Heidegger calls “the harmful” in his description of the affective disposition of fear. The exposure to harm that reveals the anticipatory understanding of fear in relation to the harmful, not explicitly thematized by Heidegger, is what we refer to here, in a broad sense as vulnerability. In the second moment I will present a positive characterization of vulnerability in relation to two levels of the formation of axiological meaningfulness. As we shall see, vulnerability, including bodily vulnerability, points to an understanding of exposure to being wounded as a guideline to follow in the reconstruction of axiological meaning revealed through affective life, in accordance with Husserl's programmatic indications. In this sense, it is necessary to refer more specifically to the place of trust, and its essential relationship with vulnerability, in the formation of the meaning of values, in particular, of moral value.

Phenomenology, emotions, moral value, Husserl, trust

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