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Added by: Björn Freter
Abstract: Perception, representations, and knowledge claims about disability and queerness vary across societies and cultures. In African cultures negative knowledge claims and representations of disability and queerness create a perception of the disabled and queer that are not only detrimental to such persons in African societies but arguably undermine the work of understanding difference and tolerance in general. These negative claims raise some epistemological questions, such as: how do Africans come to know about disability and how are such knowledge claims validated within African communities? Against this backdrop, this chapter critically examines the epistemology of disability and queerness in African traditions. It shows that the epistemic authoritarianism found in African epistemology leads to an epistemic injustice that contributes immensely to the discrimination against disabled and queer beings as reflected in many cultural practices across the continent of Africa. The chapter argues that knowledge claims about disability and queerness in Africa emerge mainly from neglect, superstition, myth, and, above all, ignorance.Barnes, Elizabeth. Valuing Disability, Causing Disability2014, Ethics, 125 (1): 88-113.-
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Added by: Rochelle DuFord
Abstract: Disability rights activists often claim that disability is not - by itself - something that makes disabled people worse off. A popular objection to such a view of disability is this: were it correct, it would make it permissible to cause disability and impermissible to cause nondisability (or impermissible to 'cure' disability, to use the value-laden term). The aim of this article is to show that these twin objections don't succeed.Comment: This text intervenes in the debate over whether disability, itself, makes someone worse off (the mere-disability/bad-disability debate). It could serve as a clear introduction to the sorts of arguments that support the view that disability is a bad-making feature of someone's life, and contains easily understood counter-examples to that view. It has a place in a course covering disability, impairment, bioethics, autonomy, and social minorities.
Barnes, Elizabeth. Disability, Minority, and Difference2009, Journal of Applied Philosophy 26(4): 337-355.-
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Added by: Emily Paul
Abstract: In this paper I develop a characterization of disability according to which disability is in no way a sub?optimal feature. I argue, however, that this conception of disability is compatible with the idea that having a disability is, at least in a restricted sense, a harm. I then go on to argue that construing disability in this way avoids many of the common objections leveled at accounts which claim that disability is not a negative feature.Comment: Really useful in an applied ethics course or, for instance, in a metaphysics course when teaching about social ontology and social constructivism. This would be a great primary or secondary reading for the latter. If being used as a primary reading, students could simply be asked as seminar preparation to summarise Barnes' argument in their own words. I think it's really important to get a good handle on, and having this question as preparation will get students thinking about it in depth beforehand. As this is quite a substantial task, it would be fine for this to be the only set question. I really think everyone should read this paper.
Bortolotti, Lisa, John Harris. Disability, Enhancement, and the Harm-Benefit Continuum2006, In John R. Spencer & Antje Du Bois-Pedain (eds.), Freedom and Responsibility in Reproductive Choice. Hart Publishers.-
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Added by: Chris Howard
Abstract: Suppose that you are soon to be a parent and you learn that there are some simple measures that you can take to make sure that your child will be healthy. In particular, suppose that by following the doctor’s advice, you can prevent your child from having a disability, you can make your child immune from a number of dangerous diseases and you can even enhance its future intelligence. All that is required for this to happen is that you (or your partner) comply with lifestyle and dietary requirements. Do you and your partner have any moral reasons (or moral obligations) to follow the doctor’s advice? Would it make a difference if, instead of following some simple dietary requirements, you consented to genetic engineering to make sure that your child was free from disabilities, healthy and with above average intelligence? In this paper we develop a framework for dealing with these questions and we suggest some directions the answers might take.Comment: This paper is an especially good inclusion in any bioethics course that has units on both disability and enhancement, covering issues at the intersection of these topics - indeed, it could be used quite effectively as a "transition paper", bridging a unit on the former topic with a unit on the latter. The piece pairs particularly well with Michael Sandel's, "The Case Against Perfection", and should be suitably accessible to all students, requiring very little philosophical background.
Bortolotti, Lisa, John Harris. Disability, Enhancement and the Harm-Benefit Continuum2006, In John R. Spencer & Antje Du Bois-Pedain (eds.), Freedom and Responsibility in Reproductive Choice. Hart Publishers-
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Added by: Simon Fokt, Contributed by: Nils-Hennes StearAbstract:
Suppose that you are soon to be a parent and you learn that there are some simple measures that you can take to make sure that your child will be healthy. In particular, suppose that by following the doctor’s advice, you can prevent your child from having a disability, you can make your child immune from a number of dangerous diseases and you can even enhance its future intelligence. All that is required for this to happen is that you (or your partner) comply with lifestyle and dietary requirements. Do you and your partner have any moral reasons (or moral obligations) to follow the doctor’s advice? Would it make a difference if, instead of following some simple dietary requirements, you consented to genetic engineering to make sure that your child was free from disabilities, healthy and with above average intelligence? In this paper we develop a framework for dealing with these questions and we suggest some directions the answers might take.
Comment: This is a paper that gives an account of enhancement and disability in terms of one's relative position on a harmed and benefitted continuum, and defends enhancement on completely general moral grounds according to which the pro tanto duty to enhance is the same as the pro tanto duty not to disable. It pairs well with criticisms of the 'new eugenics', such as Robert Sparrow's 'A Not-So-New Eugenics' (2011) and more generally with consequentialist or specifically harm-based accounts of moral obligation.
Brand, Peg Zeglin. Beauty as Pride: A Function of Agency2011, APA Newsletter 10(2): 5-9.-
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Added by: Hans Maes
Abstract: This is basically a paper about artistic evaluation and how multiple interpretations can give rise to inconsistent and conflicting meanings. Images like Joel-Peter Witkin's First Casting for Milo (2004) challenge the viewer to look closely, understand the formal properties at work, and then extract a meaning that ultimately asks, Is the model exploited or empowered? Is Karen Duffy, pictured here, vulnerable and "enfreaked" or is she potentially subversive, transgressive, and perhaps self-empowered? I will offer an argument in agreement with artist/author/ performer Ann Millett-Gallant that favors the latter interpretation, but will augment and complicate the issue by also introducing a pointed question or two taken from a recent analysis by Cynthia Freeland on objectification. I judge the works by photographer Joel-Peter Witkin to be representations of disabled persons who are empowered through agency and pride, but I also worry about the risk of multiple, conflicting interpretations on the part of viewers who do not, or cannot, entertain such enlightened readings. Like second wave feminist views about pornography that depicted women in demeaning ways, or feminist critiques of Judy Chicago's The Dinner Party , Witkin's photos can be judged as potentially offensive. But they are also objects of beauty - both in terms of aesthetic properties (they are magnificent studies in black and white, shadows, the human body, with many classical references) and because of the feeling of beauty and pride felt by the posers, who become performers of their own beauty and pride. I argue that beauty trumps offensiveness. Pride wins. But I'm not sure that everyone will agree.Comment: Questions the ideal standard of beauty portrayed throughout the history of art, particularly in form of the female nude, and examines works of art that defiantly challenge that ideal. Argues that in certain representations of disabled persons the model is empowered and not exploited and that beauty trumps offensiveness. Pride wins.
Artworks to use with this text:
Joel-Peter Witkin, First Casting for Milo (2004)
Portrait of Irish artist Karen Duffy engaged in a silent performance of 'disarming' Venus. In her own words, she is aiming to 'liberate herself from histories of oppressive representations of women and disabled women in particular.' Questions the ideal standard of beauty portrayed throughout the history of art, particularly in form of the female nude, and examines works of art that defiantly challenge that ideal. Argues that in certain representations of disabled persons the model is empowered and not exploited and that beauty trumps offensiveness. Pride wins.
Artworks to use with this text:
Joel-Peter Witkin, First Casting for Milo (2004)
Portrait of Irish artist Karen Duffy engaged in a silent performance of 'disarming' Venus. In her own words, she is aiming to 'liberate herself from histories of oppressive representations of women and disabled women in particular.'
Chambers, Emma. Face to Face: Representing Facial Disfigurement2010, in: Richard Sandell, Jocelyn Dodd, & Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, London: Routledge, pp. 179-193.-
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Added by: Hans Maes
Summary: In-depth analysis of how the Saving Faces exhibition challenges stereotypes of disabled people as dependent invalids or exotic specimens. Discusses the artist's rejection of experimentation in favour of a painting style that is as 'straight' as possible (and so makes for an interesting contrast with the use of cubist painting in Anita Silver's essays). Also draws attention to the interaction between artist and sitter and to the process of portraiture.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture, as well as depiction and representation in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Mark Gilbert, Saving Faces (2000)
Gilbert was artist-in-residence at the oral and maxillofacial surgery department of a London hospital. His brief was to illustrate what is, and also isn't, possible with modern facial surgery; and to capture the emotional journey undertaken by patients in ways that standard clinical photography cannot. Useful in discussing portraiture, as well as depiction and representation in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Mark Gilbert, Saving Faces (2000)
Gilbert was artist-in-residence at the oral and maxillofacial surgery department of a London hospital. His brief was to illustrate what is, and also isn't, possible with modern facial surgery; and to capture the emotional journey undertaken by patients in ways that standard clinical photography cannot.
Davis, Alison. Right to life of handicapped1983, Journal of Medical Ethics 9 (3):181-181.-
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Simon Fokt
Abstract: This notion of non-personhood denies the right of handicapped people to be recognised as equal human beings in a caring society, and it makes a mockery of the goodwill which seemingly abounded in the International Year of Disabled People. Legislation of the type proposed could well also lead to the de facto decriminalisation of the act of killing a handicapped person of any age, just as it did in Hitler'sGermany.And if it does, woe betide any handicapped people who are too ill to defend their right to life by protesting that they are in fact happy. And woe betide us all, when we get too old to be considered 'useful' and all the friends who could have spoken in our defence have already been oh so lovingly 'allowed to die'.Comment:
Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Picturing People with Disabilities: classical portraiture as reconstructive narrative2010, in: Richard Sandell, Jocelyn Dodd, & Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Re-presenting Disability: Activism and Agency in the Museum, London: Routledge, pp. 179-193.-
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Added by: Hans Maes
Summary: Provides a close reading of formal portraits of people with disabilities. Focuses on the fundamental elements of traditional portraiture: frame, pose, costume, likeness. Central argument: a conservative representational genre can act in the service of a progressive politics. Through framing, pose, costume, and likeness portraits accord dignity, authority, and symbolic capital to disabled subjects.Comment: Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, as well as empowerment and art's role in power relations in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Doug Auld, Shayla (2005) Portrait of a black woman with significant burn scars
Compared and contrasted with Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington (1810).
Sasha Newley, Christopher Reeve (2004)
Juxtaposed with earlier iconic portraits of the 'man of steel'.
Marc Quinn, Alison Lapper Pregnant (2006)
Powerfully asserting that a woman with significant disabilities who is evidently sexual, about to become a mother, is worthy of being seen on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square. Useful in discussing portraiture and depiction, as well as empowerment and art's role in power relations in general.
Artworks to use with this text:
Doug Auld, Shayla (2005) Portrait of a black woman with significant burn scars
Compared and contrasted with Gilbert Stuart's portrait of George Washington (1810).
Sasha Newley, Christopher Reeve (2004)
Juxtaposed with earlier iconic portraits of the 'man of steel'.
Marc Quinn, Alison Lapper Pregnant (2006)
Powerfully asserting that a woman with significant disabilities who is evidently sexual, about to become a mother, is worthy of being seen on the Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square.
Imafidon, Elvis. Africa and the Unfolding of Difference: An Introduction2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 1-11-
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Added by: Björn Freter, Contributed by: Björn Freter
Abstract: This chapter provides introductory comments or preliminary remarks to the Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. It begins by defending the claim that difference stands under as the foundation of the unfolding of African philosophy as an academic discipline and the unfolding of many lived experiences in African spaces both in Africa and in the Diaspora. Hence, African philosophy of difference is a critical reflection on the place of difference in the African experience. The chapters in this handbook thus explore various and specific aspects of such lived experiences and the roles difference or alterity play in their unfolding. The handbook is thus divided into five sections with each section exploring key aspects of the importance of difference in the understanding of the African experience. The first section provides conceptualizations of difference in African thought. The second section explores various aspects and provides critical comments on the question of racism, particularly the institutionalized racial discrimination by whites against blacks due to racial differences. The third section examines some key issues emerging from the role difference plays in the unfolding of African experiences such as epistemological issues, the language issue, the role of art in the institutionalization of difference, and moral issues. The fourth section explores the important roles that difference plays in questions of disability, gender, and the non-human other. The last section examines how difference plays key roles in the unfolding of lived experiences in specific African places such as the experience of xenophobia in South Africa, the Skolombos in Calabar, Nigeria, and the land distribution question in Zimbabwe. The chapter concludes that this handbook is an important contribution to alterity discourse in African philosophy not because it exhausts the issues involved, but because it provided a robust discussion that would provoke further reflections and discussions.Comment:
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Abudu, Kenneth U. , Imafidon, Elvis. Epistemic Injustice, Disability, and Queerness in African Cultures
2020, In: Imafidon, E. (ed.) Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference. Cham: Springer, 393-409
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