Premium
The indispensability of labelled groups to vulnerability in bioethics
Author(s) -
Kwek Adrian
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
bioethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.494
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-8519
pISSN - 0269-9702
DOI - 10.1111/bioe.12379
Subject(s) - bioethics , vulnerability (computing) , context (archaeology) , psychology , epistemology , sociology , environmental ethics , social psychology , political science , biology , computer science , philosophy , law , computer security , paleontology
Regarding the determination of vulnerability, the bioethics community has univocally jettisoned “labelled groups”, groups whose membership confers a context‐invariant “vulnerable” status to their members. While the usual reasons against the sole use of labelled groups to determine the vulnerability of individuals are sound, labelled groups as exemplars of vulnerability can play indispensable roles in bioethical reasoning. In this article, I argue against the wholesale jettisoning of labelled groups by showing how they can be useful.