Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence

Butler begins Precarious Life in recognition that vulnerability, both physical and social, is a reality of life and thus cannot be argued against, though there are many ways of thinking about this vulnerability, which can be argued.

Humans are physically vulnerable beings by virtue of being mortal and are born into a state of “primary vulnerability,” beginning life as entirely physically and socially reliant on others. While individuals can “achieve” a level of autonomy, they never become fully autonomous, nor does Butler think that unequivocal autonomy is something to be desired.

Many political movements, such as those struggling for the abolition of slavery, women’s rights, and other aspects of human justice, have argued for the inviolability and autonomy of the individual human, insisting that everyone should “possess” their own body. Butler thinks that such a normative insistence on autonomy is necessary for human rights. Nonetheless, it does not capture the full experience of life, in which true autonomy does not exist, and thus Butler argues for an additional normative aspiration that recognizes interdependence and social vulnerability and, even more challenging, the “dispossession” people experience in relation to one another: “Let’s face it. We are undone by each other.