Abstract

Concern for human vulnerability seems to be at the heart of the recent sanitary emergency. The aim of this article is to show why actual reflections on Covid-19 need an adequately theorized conception of vulnerability. We first review anthropological and ethical approaches to vulnerability in two of the main authors of the classical-medieval tradition: Aristoteles and Thomas Aquinas, proving that they include the vulnerability in their reflections. The thought of these authors is then combined with the ethical reflections of the contemporary philosophers Alasdair MacIntyre and Marta Nussbaum, identifying some of the challenges emerging from these authors. In particular, we wonder how to reconcile constitutive human vulnerability, which reappears manifestly after Covid-19, with the general tendency to be scared from or to avoid it. We then briefly propose theoretical concepts, such as humility, care and creativity, available within the philosophical literature, to address these challenges.