RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT LECTURE SERIES - Spring 2012
DATE: Thursday, March 29, 2012
TIME: 4:30PM
LOCATION: Seminar Room, 3 Seminary Place, College Avenue Campus
SPEAKER: Prof. Elizabeth Barnes, Leeds
TITLE: "Valuing Disability, Causing Disability"
Abstract- " Valuing Disability, Causing Disability"
Abstract: I distinguish between "mere-difference" and "bad-difference" views of disability. Roughly, bad-difference views of disability maintain that disability is something that's bad for you, and something that would still be bad for you even in a society that didn't discriminate against the disabled. Mere-difference views deny this. A common objection to mere-difference views of disability is that they have the unacceptable consequence of making it permissible to cause disability. I discuss various versions of this objection, and attempt to show that none of its many disambiguations presents a genuine problem for mere-difference views.
Reception to follow