The Disabled Contract
Severe Intellectual Disability, Justice and Morality

Beaudry shows how the social contract fails to take account of the moral status of people with severe intellectual disabilities.

Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry (Author)

9781316606681, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 8 September 2022

334 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.8 cm, 0.452 kg

Social contract theories generally predicate the authority of rules that govern society on the idea that these rules are the product of a contractual agreement struck between members of society. These theories embody values, such as equality, reciprocity and rationality, that are highly prized within our culture. Yet a closer inspection reveals that these features exclude other important values, relations and even persons from the realm of contractual morality and justice, especially people with severe intellectual disabilities. Jonas-Sébastien Beaudry explores the moral status of intellectually disabled people in social contract thought and argues that this tradition needs to be revisited to include the most vulnerable. Addressing this problem will have concrete repercussions in law and policy, because many issues that people with disabilities face are connected to deeply rooted assumptions about their status as full citizens or full members of our moral, political and legal communities.

1. Intellectual disability and the social contract
2. Inclusive contractarianism: persons with severe intellectual disabilities within a society of self-interested contractors
3. The capacity to trust as a contractual basis for robust moral status
4. People with severe intellectual disabilities as active citizens
5. People with severe intellectual disabilities as passive citizens
6. Other-regarding concern and exploitation
7. Beyond contractual relations.

Subject Areas: Disability & the law [LNTQ], Law [L], Human rights [JPVH], Political science & theory [JPA], Philosophy [HP]