Vulnerability, Agency, and Orthodox Christianity

A taxonomy of worth which attributes greater value to rationality and independent agency is often assumed of Patristic figures like Maximus the Confessor. This taxonomy renders persons who do not display independent agency—including those who rely on caregivers, medical or ambulatory devices, or other daily supports—less than fully human. Such a taxonomy is a feature of Aristotelian virtue ethics, so even disability theologians like Shane Clifton and Hans Reinders contend with hierarchical representations of human capacities and scales of value for achieving eudaimonia. I argue that Maximus does not replicate the Aristotelian taxonomy of worth, but instead inverts this model, creating a model for agency which emphasizes the mediation of others in the facilitation of each person, distributing agency to trusted others. I argue that Maximus’ distributed agency forms a latent social model for disability that could provide an alternative disability-positive virtue ethic from the Christian East.