LOVE’S LUCK-KNOT: emotional vulnerability and symmetrical accountability

Pamela Anderson argues for liberating love and vulnerability from the myths of the Western philosophical imaginary that tie them to fragility, subjection, and dependency. Spurred by Judith Butler’s work, Anderson finds herself challenged to rethink her ontological assumptions, away from the Kantian conception of the self as morally and ontologically invulnerable. In (partial) support of Anderson’s agenda, I distinguish different contrastive pairs of concepts of vulnerability, and argue for the relevance of ontological vulnerability, showing that in a Kantian framework this is the root of shared agency. I argue that this–largely unexplored–Kantian claim converges with and sustains Anderson’s general plan to reassess the positive value of vulnerability in relation to mutual accountability. The ontological concept of vulnerability makes the finitude and interdependency of human agency apparent. In this context, love vulnerability can be appreciated and valued as a distinctive drive to cooperative interaction and shared agency, which allows finite and limited agents to deal and cope with the predicaments of contingency. Focusing on the dynamic and reciprocal permeability distinctive of love, I defend the claim that vulnerability to love is not the source of burdens and constraints but a key capacity that shapes human identity, drives and expands agency, and sustains relations of mutual accountability.