Abstract
In this chapter, the author proposes the metaphysical aspects of vulnerability. All human being physically and existentially stands between life and death. This situation combines the three-dimensional human being: the existential pathos of “being in time” where we are vulnerable; the biological body and the interiority; and lately the capacity of the human subject. The conjunction of these three dimensions allows us to reach a deep ontological analysis of man and his life. This research includes an analysis of the Greek concept of “pathos” and the oversight of the “vulnerability” in the history of Philosophy. This way, the study demonstrates the importance of “being between life and death” and “being vulnerable” as a true and radical human essence. And so it offers an upgrade of bioethics research on a path towards a “Path-Ethics” and “Bio-philosophy”.
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- 1.
Fragen zum Leben und Tod. Eine Untersuchung Bio-philosophie is the title of a postdoctoral research which the author develops at the Technische Universität of Berlin since the winter semester in 2013.
- 2.
The etymology comes from “in carnis” – in the flesh – from which derives the verb “incarnere”(incarnate, in carnarse); the term is inexistent in the classical Latin and begins to be used by some ecclesiastical authors of the fourth century like St. Ambrose of Milan and San Augustine in order to define the dogma of “Jesus Christ as incarnated God.”
- 3.
This presentation allows us to maintain a three-dimensional analysis that includes the ontological aspect, meaning, the question of the being in the humanity of every single human. It is the Self as an act in which coincide existence and being: the Being as a vital, Being between life and death is in itself the life of a human and Being as “presence” and not just only as “mere presence” and as existential contour.
- 4.
It must be remembered that Aristotle defines the man as Zoon politikon (ζw,oν πoλιτιkόν) – Policy, I.
- 5.
The Apert Syndrome is a genetic disorder characterized by the premature fusion of certain skull bones (craniosynostosis). This early fusion prevents the skull from growing normally and affects the shape of the head and face. In addition, a varied number of fingers and toes are fused together (syndactyly).
Many of the characteristic facial features of Apert syndrome result from the premature fusion of the skull bones. The head is unable to grow normally, which leads to a sunken appearance in the middle of the face, bulging and wide-set eyes, a beaked nose, and an underdeveloped upper jaw leading to crowded teeth and other dental problems. Shallow eye sockets can cause vision problems. Early fusion of the skull bones also affects the development of the brain, which can disrupt intellectual development. Cognitive abilities in people with Apert syndrome range from normal to mild or moderate intellectual disability. Information available at: http://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/apert-syndrome.
- 6.
Boethius’ classic definition of the “person” in De person et duabus naturis, c. 2 as “naturae individua rationalis substantia” (individual substance of a rational nature) has been relevant throughout the Tradition, although later Aquinas explained this definition in substantially diverse terms: the individua substantia would mean a complete substance, subsistent for itself existing independent from others. (S. Th. III, q. 26, a. 12).
- 7.
In the Modernity, Suárez considers the “modus” as an essential fundament of the person, and in his perspective asserts he understands that there is no a real distinction between nature and being (esse). Many theologians and philosophers sustain that the concept of mode, that is to say the determination of a substance, is actually distinguished from the substance, but the substance does not add reality, which would implicate a contradiction. Cf. Castellote, S., Die Anthropologie des Suarez. Beiträge zur spanischen Anthropologie des XVI. und XVII. Jahrhunderts, Freiburg/München, Verlag Karl Alber, 1982.
- 8.
Cfr. Cayuela, A., La parte del diablo: La insuficiencia de la ética liberal y los principios de la bioética, en Cayuela, A., (ed.), Argumentos Bioéticos, Madrid, Marova, 2006, pp. 11–44.
- 9.
Cayuela, A. Path-ética de la Modernidad tardía. El pathos y el tiempo: ¿Ascenderá algún día el amor?, en Cayuela, A., (ed.), Path-Ética, Paradoja del humano existir, Madrid, Marova, 2007, (National Prize for Research in the Humanities “Ángel Herrera” 2008), pp. 150–193; Cayuela, A., La condición vulnerable del ser humano: Presupuestos para una ética de la fragilidad humana, in Bellver, V. (ed.), Bioética y cuidados de Enfermería, Vol. 1.: Aproximación Teórica, Valencia, CECOVA, 2014, pp. 39–55.
- 10.
Cf. Casimiro, C., Path-ética en el pensamiento griego. El papel de las pasiones en Aristóteles, en Cayuela, A., (ed.), Path-Ética, Paradoja del humano existir, Madrid, Marova, 2007, pp. 14–81.
- 11.
The Republic 378a; Sophist 248d; Phaedrus 96ª.
- 12.
Phaedrus 96ª.
- 13.
The Republic 380 a.
- 14.
Grater Hippias 285 c.; Phaedrus 93 c.
- 15.
Metaphysics 4, 21.
- 16.
Metaphysics 1, 5, 2.
- 17.
Bailly, M. A., Abrége’du Dictionnaire Grec – Francais, Hachette, 1901.
- 18.
Höffe, O., (Hg.), Aristoteles – Lexikon, Stuttgart, Kröner, 2005.
- 19.
Heidegger, M., Was ist Metaphysik?, Bonn, 1939, cf. Gesamtausgabe, V. 9: Wegmarken (1919–1961), Frankfurt, V. Klostermann, 1975 ss. See also the work: Einführung in die Metaphysik, Tübingen, 1953, in Gesamtausgabe, V. 40. From the second letter Heidegger’s concept of metaphysics takes a decidedly negative connotation as “forgetfulness of being”. In the following work Sein und Zeit Heidegger claims that this great project has not been completed due to the insufficient language (as indicated in Über den Humanismus, Frankfurt, 1949, p. 17). Heidegger claims that the compression of the Western metaphysical tradition coincides with what he calls inauthentic existence (explicitly in Introduction to Metaphysics, recovering paragraph 38 of Sein und Zeit). For this reason the term metaphysics becomes synonymous to oblivion of being – Seins Vergessenheit – in Heidegger.
- 20.
Topics 145ª 3–12; On the parts of animals 678ª 33.
- 21.
Categories 8, 9a 28-b9.
- 22.
On Generation and Corruption I, 4, 319 b 8; Metaphysics IX, 7, 1049 a 29.
- 23.
Metaphysics, XII 2, 1069 b 12; On Generation and Corruption I 4, 319b 10.
- 24.
Nicomachean Ethics 1105b 21–23; Rhetoric II, 2, 11.
- 25.
Nicomachean Ethics II, 4, 1106 a 4.
- 26.
Cf. Cayuela, A., Vulnerabilidad, en Tomás Garrido, G.; Manero, E., Diccionario de Bioética para Estudiantes, Jaén, Formación Alcalá Ed., 2008, pp. 330–332.
- 27.
MacIntyre, A., Dependent Rational Animals. Why Human Beings need the Virtues, Illinois, Open Court Publishing Company – Carus Publishing Company, 1999, Chapter 1: Vulnerability, dependence, animality, pp. 1–2.
- 28.
Cf. Moeller, Ch., Sabiduría griega y paradoja cristiana, Madrid, Encuentro, 1989, pp. 18–19:
Un humanismo que no tuviese en cuenta los sufrimientos, los pecados y la muerte, que no los pusiera en el centro de su visión del mundo, sería radicalmente incompleto sería falso… La muchedumbre de los humillados y ofendidos se ha hecho inmensa, cubre la tierra. En esa multitud se pone de manifiesto la tragedia de la condición humana, la desnudez que constituye el signo distintivo de la condición del hombre. ¿Hay que hablar a todos esos desgraciados de la ciudad terrena, de confianza en el hombre, de progreso intelectual, de la paz del mañana? Saben perfectamente que eso no alcanza su mal profundo. Hace falta un médico más radical, una transformación más total.
- 29.
Heidegger, M., Sein und Zeit, Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1927.
- 30.
Taylor , Ch., Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1989, vid.: Plato’s Self-Mastery, pp. 115–126.
- 31.
Nussbaum M. C., The fragility of Goodness. Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2001, vid. pp. 87–234.
- 32.
For instance: The use of immunological knowledge in order to create viral and bacteriological weapons of mass destruction.
- 33.
The “human being” as “a conscious being between life and death” is not only aware of himself, and his ubication in himself, but also of a similar ubication of the others, regardless of their being aware of that or not. Thus, the human moral element does not only reside in self-awareness but in the awareness of the self in regard to others, in the ability to know the other’s place when he doesn’t reach, doesn’t arrive, when the potency (imperfect dotation tending to ‘what must be’) prevails over the act (perfection of nature as for ‘his humanity’ or ‘his being human’). Else let us think for a moment: the whole great ethic tradition, especially from the Christianity to the Enlightenment places the human moral act in the putting of oneself in other’s place when s/he is weaker. Terms like mercy, charity, solidarity, compassion, giving, devotion, abnegation and many others imply that the potentiality of the human being between life and death, in his vulnerable position, is just what moraly questions and stimulates the capacity of every conscious human being. Therefore, in the example suggested, someon like Obama –capable, intelligent, powerful–is called to protect, assume, put himself in other’s place, respond constructively to the vulnerability, fragility and dependence of Sophia as the essential content of his humanity. The inhumanity would consist exactly in the opposite: a lack of ethical self-understanding of the pre-existent species specially when in this one, in its ubication between life and death, prevails the potentially human, that is, it is imperfect, fragile and vulnerable. In other more direct words – Obama’s moral greatness, or Vargas Llosa’s or any other human’s lies in his response of giving shelter and protecting Mizars’s imperfection and indigence or, the greater indigence of Sophia’s.
- 34.
Habermas, J., Die Zukunft der Menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalem Eugenik?, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2002, pp. 62–63; 70–80 (eng. tr.: The Future of Human Nature, Cambridge, U. K., Polity Prees, 2003, pp. 33–34; 37–44).
- 35.
Sartre, J. P., L’etre et le néat, París, Gallimard, 1943, pp. 560–640; L’existentialisme est un humanisme, París, Nagel, 1968, pp. 15–25.
- 36.
This is how we define the conception of a “radical and absolute freedom” which is no more than a desperate impulse, whose purpose is to satisfy some vital whims, a shouting of desperation in the shabby space of the self.
- 37.
Roth, J., Hiob, Köln, Verlag Kiepenheuer und Witsch, 1974, p. 18 (tr. eng.: Job. The story of a simple man, New York, The Overlook Press, 2003, Chapter 1).
References
Bailly, M. A., Abrége’du Dictionnaire Grec – Francais, Hachette, 1901.
Bellver, V. (ed.), Bioética y cuidados de Enfermería, Vol. 1.: Aproximación Teórica, Valencia, CECOVA.
Castellote, S., Die Anthropologie des Suarez. Beiträge zur spanischen Anthropologie des XVI. und XVII.Jahrhunderts, Freiburg/München, Verlag Karl Alber, 1982.
Cayuela, A., (ed.), Vulnerables. Pensar la fragilidad humana, Encuentro, Madrid, 2005.
Cayuela, A., (ed.), Argumentos Bioéticos, Madrid, Marova, 2006.
Cayuela, A., (ed.), Path-Ética, Paradoja del humano existir, Madrid, Marova, 2007, (National Prize for Research in the Humanities “Ángel Herrera” 2008).
Cayuela, A., (ed.), Vulnerabilidad, en Tomás Garrido, G.; Manero, E., Diccionario de Bioética para Estudiantes, Jaén, Formación Alcalá Ed., 2008.
Habermas, J., Die Zukunft der Menschlichen Natur. Auf dem Weg zu einer liberalem Eugenik?, Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp Verlag, 2002 (eng. tr.: The Future of Human Nature, Cambridge, U. K., Polity Prees, 2003).
Heidegger, M., Sein und Zeit, Tübingen, Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1927.
Heidegger, M., Was ist Metaphysik?, Bonn, 1939, cf. Gesamtausgabe, V. 9: Wegmarken (1919–1961), Frankfurt, V. Klostermann, 1975 ss.
Höffe, O., (Hg.), Aristoteles – Lexikon, Stuttgart, Kröner, 2005.
MacIntyre, A., Dependent Rational Animals.Why Human Beings need the Virtues, Illinois, Open Court Publishing Company – Carus Publishing Company, 1999.
Moeller, Ch., Sabiduría griega y paradoja cristiana, Madrid, Encuentro, 1989.
Nussbaum M. C., The fragility of Goodness. Luck and Ethics in Greek Tragedy and Philosophy, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Sartre, J. P., L’etre et le néat, París, Gallimard, 1943.
Sartre, J. P., L’existentialisme est un humanisme, París, Nagel, 1968.
Taylor, Ch., Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press, 1989.
Roth, J., Job. The story of a simple man, New York, The Overlook Press.
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Cayuela, A. (2016). Vulnerable: To Be Between Life and Death. In: Masferrer, A., García-Sánchez , E. (eds) Human Dignity of the Vulnerable in the Age of Rights. Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice, vol 55. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32693-1_4
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