In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, Judith Butler turned her attention from gender theory to questions of violence, grief, and political responsibility. The resulting work represents a significant evolution in her thinking, moving toward what we might call a philosophy of precariousness—an ethics grounded in our shared vulnerability and fundamental dependence on others.
Shared Vulnerability and Grievability
Butler begins with a simple but profound observation: we don't choose our dependencies. From birth, we rely on others for care, recognition, and survival. This reliance never entirely ends; throughout our lives, we remain vulnerable to loss, injury, and the withdrawal of support. Our lives are, in Butler's terms, precarious—exposed to forces beyond our control, dependent on networks of care and recognition we didn't choose and can't fully secure.
What makes this observation ethical rather than merely descriptive is Butler's argument that recognizing our shared precariousness should transform how we respond to others. If my own life depends on being recognized as grievable—as a life that would be mourned if lost—then I have a stake in ensuring that other lives are recognized as equally grievable. The question "whose lives count as lives?" becomes urgent and political.
Butler argues that dominant political frameworks distribute precariousness unevenly. Some lives are protected, valued, and publicly mourned when lost, while others are treated as disposable, their deaths barely registered. After 9/11, she observed how American grief was mobilized to justify violence against populations whose own losses would not be counted or mourned. The asymmetry in which lives are considered grievable underlies the ability to wage war with a clear conscience.
An Ethics of Interconnection
This analysis leads Butler to a critique of national frameworks that divide humanity into those who merit protection and those who don't. She challenges the notion that our ethical obligations stop at national borders or extend only to those we recognize as "like us." Instead, she proposes an ethics based on our shared vulnerability—what she calls our "precarious life" in common.
But Butler's ethics of precariousness isn't simply a call for universal recognition or inclusion. She's interested in how our dependencies make us relational subjects, fundamentally connected to others in ways we don't control. This means accepting that we're partially opaque to ourselves, formed by relationships and histories we didn't choose. It means acknowledging that the other person exceeds my capacity to know or understand them fully.
This emphasis on vulnerability and dependence might seem to counsel passivity, but Butler sees it differently. Recognizing our precariousness can motivate fierce political action—not to transcend vulnerability by securing absolute safety, but to challenge the unequal distribution of precariousness and to build more robust networks of care and support. The goal isn't invulnerability but a world where everyone's vulnerability is acknowledged and addressed.
Butler's ethics thus offers an alternative to both liberal individualism (which fantasizes about autonomous, self-sufficient subjects) and identity politics (which can reinforce boundaries between "us" and "them"). Instead, she proposes an ethics and politics grounded in our fundamental interconnection, our shared exposure to loss and harm, and our common need for recognition and care.
