Allard and Fineman co-author chapter on vulnerability |

Silas W. Allard, Associate Director at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion and Harold J. Berman Fellow of Law and Religion, and Martha Albertson Fineman, Robert W. Woodruff Professor of Law, have co-authored a chapter in Exploring Vulnerability (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017), edited by Heike Springhart and Gunter Thomas, titled Vulnerability, the Responsive State, and the Role of Religion. 

The chapter addresses the growing perception that law, politics, and the state are failing in their most fundamental task of ensuring a just and equitable society and sets forth an argument for the intentional and society-centric development of a political and legal ethic of compassion, which mandates a more socially responsive state. That vision is secular in its roots, though it may resonate with many religious understandings of social justice. Organized religions and religious dictates, however, cannot stand alone to address growing social-economic inequality and the complex needs of those who are ill-served by the secular "values" expressed in contemporary society, Fineman and Allard write.