Disability and the Good Human Life

These original essays focus on fundamental issues and practical implications of the relationship between disability and the good human life.

Jerome E. Bickenbach (Edited by), Franziska Felder (Edited by), Barbara Schmitz (Edited by)

9781107545830, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 30 July 2015

342 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.49 kg

This collection of original essays, from both established scholars and newcomers, takes up a recent debate in philosophy, sociology, and disability studies on whether disability is intrinsically a harm that lowers a person's quality of life. While this is a new question in disability scholarship, it also touches on one of the oldest philosophical questions: what is the good human life? Historically, philosophers have not been interested in the topic of disability, and when they are it is usually only in relation to questions such as euthanasia, abortion, or the moral status of disabled people. Consequently disability has been either ignored by moral and political philosophers or simply equated with a bad human life, a life not worth living. This collection takes up the challenge that disability poses to basic questions of political philosophy and bioethics, among others, by focusing on fundamental issues and practical implications of the relationship between disability and the good human life.

1. Moral worth and severe intellectual disability - a hybrid view Simo Vehmas and Ben Curtis
2. 'Something else?' - cognitive disability and the human form of life Barbara Schmitz
3. Disability (not) as a harmful condition: the received view challenged Thomas Schramme
4. Nasty, brutish and short? On the predicament of disability and embodiment Tom Shakespeare
5. Recognizing disability Halvor Hanish
6. Understanding the relationship between disability and well-being David Wasserman and Adrienne Asch
7. Disability and the wellbeing agenda Jerome Bickenbach
8. Disability and quality of life: an Aristotelian discussion Hans S. Reinders
9. Living a good life…in adult-size diapers Anna Stubblefield
10. Ill, but well: a phenomenology of wellbeing in chronic illness Havi Carel
11. Natural diversity and justice for people with disabilities Christopher A. Riddle
12. Inclusion and the good human life Franziska Felder.

Subject Areas: Disability & the law [LNTQ], Human rights & civil liberties law [LNDC], Law & society [LAQ], Law [L], Human rights [JPVH]