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This book centres on the notion of human life that lies at the foundation of contemporary thinking in the areas of ethics, law and politics. Centrally, the book addresses the deep divide, characteristic of this thinking, between: on the one hand, those who wish to do away with any anthropological understandings of the human, and appeal to mere facts delivered by science; and, on the other hand, critics who defend an anthropological understanding of human life that is tied to traditional, teleological, metaphysics. In short: knowledge of the world is given over to the sciences and moral theory is considered to operate in a distinct, and insulated, domain. But this opposition has, Piergiorgio Donatelli argues here, outlived its usefulness. Through a discussion of the intimate human spheres of reproduction, dying and sexuality, he argues that we now live in a world characterized by new ways of living: by novel rearrangements of emotions, and by the modification, and in some cases a radical rupture in, existing ideas of human life. These shifts challenge any established separation between facts and norms, between human life and its conceptualization. As such, it is argued here, they simultaneously offer the possibility of a new, socially articulated, understanding of the relationship between subjectivity and normativity. Engaging pressing contemporary themes, this book will be invaluable to scholars in the fields of ethics, law and political theory, and both analytic and continental philosophy.

The article establishes a contrast between approaches in ethical and political theory from vulnerability and approaches which require an account of the perfect conditions of morality or of the flourishing of human life. The stage is set by offering various example of approaches from vulnerability, then the Wittgensteinian perspective – especially elaborated by Stanley Cavell – is presented as one fruitful approach within this family of views. Human life in its naturalness, easiness and happiness is seen as the overcoming and reparation of episodes of crisis and blocks: it is achieved as a condition inherently open to vulnerability. This is also connected to the notion of forms of life as the work involved in such a reparation requires a redefinition of who we are from the point of view of other beings, and of various sorts of others.

L'articolo stabilisce un contrasto tra gli approcci alla teoria morale e politica che partono dalla vulnerabilità e quelli che richiedono un resoconto delle condizioni perfette della moralità e della fioritura della vita umana. La scena è introdotta con alcuni esempi di approcci che partono dalla vulnerabilità. Quindi la prospettiva wittgensteiniana (elaborata in modo particolare da Stanley Cavell) è presentata come un approccio proficuo interno a questa famiglia di concezioni. In questa prospettiva la vita umana nella sua naturalità, facilità e felicità è quanto è conquistato come superamento e riparazione di episodi di crisi e blocchi: è raggiunta come una condizione intrinsecamente aperta alla vulnerabilità così intesa. Questo tema è collegato anche a quello delle forme di vita in quanto il lavoro coinvolto in tale riparazione richiede una ridefinizione di chi siamo da un punto di vista di altri esseri e di vari tipi di alterità. ; The article establishes a contrast between approaches in ethical and political theory from vulnerability and approaches which require an account of the perfect conditions of morality or of the flourishing of human life. The stage is set by offering various example of approaches from vulnerability, then the Wittgensteinian perspective – especially elaborated by Stanley Cavell – is presented as one fruitful approach within this family of views. Human life in its naturalness, easiness and happiness is seen as the overcoming and reparation of episodes of crisis and blocks: it is achieved as a condition inherently open to vulnerability. This is also connected to the notion of forms of life as the work involved in such a reparation requires a redefinition of who we are from the point of view of other beings, and of various sorts of others.