Abstract

[Excerpt]: In the nonideal world against which philosophical ideas and ideals are tried, suffering is distributed unequally. A central, if not defining, question for many late-twentieth-century feminist ethicists is how and why so many forms of suffering are distributed by virtue of bodily difference. For over four decades, disability studies, a multidisciplinary field spanning the humanities and social sciences, has principally revolved around a basic question: is the concept of "disability" constructed like "race," "gender," or "sexuality"? In other words, is it as much a construct as any category historically deployed to justify socially produced sufferings, inequities, and hierarchies and to disenfranchise, stigmatize, and...