Abstract
The paper discusses the concept of the precariate as it occurs in Gerd van Istendael's essay The Perish of St Precarius. The goal of the paper is, on one hand, to show that Van Istendael's usage of the concept is a piece of civic rhetoric rather than of ideology of Marxist type; on the other hand, it aims at supporting Van Istendael's rhetorical argument by developing a philosophical theory of ethics of the social state that is rooted in ethics of the modern state.