The unifying theme of this volume is the centrality of human vulnerability as a starting point for ethics. But how should we think about and respond to vulnerability? In this chapter, I argue there is a danger that responses to vulnerability in world politics will bifurcate into rational universalist attempts to eliminate vulnerability on the one hand and radically particularist attempts to perpetually encircle vulnerability on the other hand. I draw on the unorthodox Hegelian thought of British philosopher Gillian Rose to argue that an adequate response to vulnerability takes the form of anxious negotiation of the middle between these two approaches. 1 Debates about how best to respond to vulnerability in global politics have been dominated by narrow forms of rationality, which propose technical ‘solutions’ based on means-end analysis or rational argument in an effort to ‘do something’to address human suffering. In contemporary International Relations (IR), normative political theory is largely captured by liberal cosmopolitanism, which affirms the intrinsic value of individual human beings, regardless of their origin, and is underpinned by a strong theory of moral learning (Beitz, 1999; Linklater, 1998; Pogge, 2002; Singer, 2002). At the core of liberal cosmopolitanism is faith in modernity, which entails a particular way of knowing (positivist and rational) and a particular approach to suffering (problem-solving and forward-looking). Such an approach maintains that the proliferation of universal norms such as those promoted by the human rights regime will lead to positive change for individuals in world politics. However, liberal faith in progress through rationality has led to challenges both from realist thinkers,