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Vulnerability in Old Age. The Fragility of Inappropriately Protected Interests

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Aging and Human Nature

Part of the book series: International Perspectives on Aging ((Int. Perspect. Aging,volume 25))

Abstract

Protecting the vulnerable is recognized as important; but who is vulnerable and what protections are needed? Six definitions of vulnerability are found in the literature: human finitude, an incapacity to defend one’s own interests, fragility, barriers to health, list-based definitions, and layered vulnerability. Because none of these definitions adequately captures cases where particular vulnerability might exist, we proposed to define vulnerability as an increased risk of being wronged or having our morally protected interests unjustly considered. In applying this definition to old age, many forms of vulnerability both within medicine and in everyday life are revealed. These vulnerabilities can form clusters: Ordinary protections and practices are developed for the situations that, for various reasons, are considered to be the most important or the most “normal” in a given society. Rather than being a misfortune that we may have some duty to compensate, such situations represent a direct consequence of our collective actions: We are committing wrongs and have a much stronger duty to correct this.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This section is based on an earlier paper published in French by the same author (Hurst 2013).

  2. 2.

    See Rüegger, Chap. 4 in this volume.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

    Samia Hurst

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  1. Samia Hurst
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Correspondence to Samia Hurst .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Health Services Research, University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, Germany

    Mark Schweda

  2. Institute of Social Ethics, Faculty of Theology, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

    Michael Coors

  3. Department of Medical Ethics & History of Medicine, University of Freiburg, Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

    Claudia Bozzaro

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Hurst, S. (2020). Vulnerability in Old Age. The Fragility of Inappropriately Protected Interests. In: Schweda, M., Coors, M., Bozzaro, C. (eds) Aging and Human Nature. International Perspectives on Aging, vol 25. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25097-3_17

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-25097-3_17

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-25096-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-25097-3

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