The Rise of Vulnerability: How Expanding Moral Concepts Reshape Political Culture

Max-Planck-Gastvortrag

Anfahrt
  • Datum: 12.10.2026
  • Uhrzeit: 17:00 - 19:00
  • Vortragende: Prof. Dr. Maria-Sibylla Lotter (Ruhr University Bochum)
  • Maria-Sibylla Lotter is a full professor of modern philosophy with a focus on ethics and aesthetics at Ruhr University Bochum. She works on the cultural preconditions of personhood, guilt and responsibility and on questions of the ethics of everyday life and science. Her books on this topic have been published by Suhrkamp: Scham, Schuld, Verantwortung (2012) sowie Schuld und Respekt (2024).
  • Ort: Freiburg, Fürstenbergstr. 19
  • Raum: Seminarraum (F 113) | Gäste sind herzlich eingeladen; Anmeldung erbeten
  • Gastgeber: Max-Planck-Institut zur Erforschung von Kriminalität, Sicherheit und Recht
  • Kontakt: c.hillemanns@csl.mpg.de
This talk explores how contemporary political and academic discourse is being shaped by the expansion of con­cepts used to describe aspects of human vulnerability. Psychological terms such as trauma, anxiety, and de­pres­sion, as well as moral categories like violence, hate, discrimination, and oppression, have been extended to cover an even wider range of experiences. As a result, individuals increasingly appear more vulnerable, and an increas­ing number of situations are interpreted through the lens of harm.

The talk focuses on four interconnected developments: the diffusion of therapeutic modes of thinking into everyday moral discourse; the semantic broadening of both psychological and moral concepts; the growing valorization of victimhood in connection with group-based identities; and the politicization of vulnerability in debates over language and discursive spaces.

Drawing on recent analyses of “therapeutic morality”, Maria-Sibylla Lotter argues that these narrative shifts trans­form how harm is perceived, how moral authority is distributed, and how conflicts are negotiated. She concludes by examining the consequences for freedom of expression and academic freedom, highlighting tensions between the expansion of protection against harm and the conditions of open, critical inquiry.

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