Vulnerability between political theory and normative texts: a new language to repeat old things or a new tool to problematize differences in social power?

Resumo

Through perspective of vulnerability, it springs to mind that exposure to vulnus is the primary engine of the Hobbesian mechanism: it is the reason for the "mutuall Relation between Protection and Obedience" (Hobbes 1651, 445). Vulnerability is the source of the Leviathan-state’s legitimacy: it is its ability to protect and guarantee physical security from assaults and to allow for its relative certainty over time, which rationally bases the relationship of subordination.