A key question in disability studies, philosophy, and bioethics concerns the relationship between disability and well-being. The mere difference view, endorsed by Elizabeth Barnes, claims that physical and sensory disabilities by themselves do not make a person worse off overall—any negative impacts on welfare are due to social injustice. This article argues that Barnes’s Value Neutral Model does not extend to intellectual disability. Intellectual disability is (1) intrinsically bad—by itself it makes a person worse off, apart from a non-accommodating environment; (...) (2) universally bad—it lowers quality of life for every intellectually disabled person; and (3) globally bad—it reduces a person’s overall well-being. While people with intellectual disabilities are functionally disadvantaged, this does not imply that they are morally inferior—lower quality of life does not mean lesser moral status. No clinical implications concerning disability-based selective abortion, denial of life-saving treatment, or rationing of scarce resources follow from the claim that intellectual disability is bad difference. (shrink)

Research shows that a high majority of parents receiving prenatal diagnosis of intellectual disability terminate pregnancy. They have reasons for rejecting a child with intellectual disabilities—these reasons are, most commonly, beliefs about quality of life for it or them. Without a negative evaluation of intellectual disability, their choice makes no sense. Disability-based abortion has been critiqued through virtue ethics for being inconsistent with admirable moral character. Parental selectivity conflicts with the virtue of acceptingness and exhibits the vice of wilfulness. In (...) this paper I claim that, beyond failures of moral virtue, disability abortion often involves failures of epistemic virtue on the part of parents. I argue two things: parents believe something false, or at least contested, about life with intellectual disability—and they do so because they are not epistemically conscientious. I first explain why a central motivation for disability abortion—that it prevents harm to the child—is mistaken. I next give a brief account of intellectual virtue and culpable ignorance. I then indicate why many parents fail to be intellectually virtuous when choosing to terminate pregnancy. I focus on elimination of intellectual disability and have little to say about physical and sensory impairments. (shrink)

The Covid-19 pandemic provides a real-world context for evaluating the fairness of disability-based rationing of scarce medical resources. I discuss three situations clinicians may face: rationing based on disability itself; rationing based on inevitable disability-related comorbidities; and rationing based on preventable disability-related comorbidities. I defend three conclusions. First, in a just distribution, extraneous factors do not influence a person’s share. This rules out rationing based on disability alone, where no comorbidities decrease a person’s capacity to benefit from treatment. Second, in (...) a just distribution, undeserved luck does not influence a person’s share. This rules out rationing for biologically caused comorbidities that decrease capacity to benefit. Third, in a just distribution, social injustice does not influence a person’s share. This rules out rationing for socially caused comorbidities that decrease capacity to benefit. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that selective abortion for disability often involves inadequate counselling on the part of reproductive medicine professionals who advise prospective parents. I claim that prenatal disability clinicians often fail in intellectual duty—they are culpably ignorant about intellectual disability. First, I explain why a standard motivation for selective abortion is flawed. Second, I summarize recent research on parent experience with prenatal professionals. Third, I outline the notions of epistemic excellence and deficiency. Fourth, I defend culpable ignorance as (...) the best explanation of inadequate disability counselling. Fifth, I rebut alternative explanations. My focus is pregnancies diagnosed with mild or moderate intellectual disability. (shrink)

The common belief is that disability is bad for the person who is disabled, that it has a negative effect on well-being. Some disability rights activists and philosophers, however, assert that disability has little or no impact on how well a person’s life goes, that it is neutral with respect to flourishing. In recent articles Stephen Campbell and Joseph Stramondo, while rejecting both views, claim that we cannot make any broad generalizations about the effect of disability on well-being. Whether they (...) are right about physical and sensory disabilities, I do not know, but I argue that they are wrong about intellectual disabilities. A broad generalization about intellectual disabilities is justified: it always has a negative impact on quality of life, even though there is no single negative impact. The disadvantages of ID are plain but complicated. (shrink)

This paper uses themes from Catholic social teaching to challenge Church and society to prioritize a group that is left behind by social injustice: people with intellectual disabilities. It provides background information on intellectual disability, summarizes moral principles of Catholic social doctrine, describes sociological facts about how people with intellectual disabilities are left behind by social factors, and prescribes actionable solutions for treating them as equal members of society. The goal is to identify how to shape a society at all (...) socio-ecological levels in ways that better protect the dignity, solidarity, and participation of people with intellectual disabilities. Although the analysis references the US and is limited to intellectual disabilities, its lessons apply to other countries and disabilities as well. (shrink)

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol is more than a happy tale—it is a text of moral self-reflection that challenges us to think about the nature of moral duty, human happiness and personal transformation. The story speaks to fundamental questions: How are morality and the good life related? How does a self-centered person open their heart to the welfare of others? What are the steps in moral change? The story’s characters function as mirrors by which we can examine our own moral (...) dispositions. A Christmas Carol is an engaging way to discuss important and relevant moral topics with students. We first describe the format of our interdisciplinary course—we then discuss how we teach topics of personal ethics found in Dickens’ tale. (shrink)

The traditional elimination view affirms that people with intellectual disabilities will be healed in heaven when God restores all things to what they were meant to be. Several contemporary scholars, however, have put forth a revisionist retention view claiming that people with intellectual disabilities will not be healed in heaven. While the elimination view has strong biblical and theological credentials, it faces a significant philosophical difficulty. Heaven must maintain identity so that individuals exist as the same people they were in (...) life. But post-mortem healing appears to disrupt the identity of people with intellectual disabilities. In this paper I reject this charge. I argue that for individuals with mild or moderate intellectual disabilities heaven preserves personal identity, while for individuals with profound intellectual disabilities heaven creates personal identity. These conclusions rest on an emergentist anthropology which I describe. (shrink)

The mere difference view, endorsed by some philosophers and Christian scholars, claims that disability by itself does not make a person worse off on balance—any negative impacts on overall welfare are due to social injustice. This article defends the bad difference view—some disability is bad not simply because of social arrangements but because of biological deficits that, by themselves, make a person worse off. It argues that the mere difference view contradicts core doctrines of Christian faith. The analysis focuses on (...) intellectual rather than physical or sensory disabilities. (shrink)

While there are many significant ethical questions which can deliver the lessons of an introductory ethics course (e.g. global warming, world hunger, genetic engineering), students do not face these moral difficulties directly in their lives. The author argues that commonly-faced ethical questions are more effective for rendering the content of introductory ethics immediately relevant to students. This paper presents a general outline of an introductory ethics course structured around the theme of drunk driving. Not only is drunk driving something that (...) college students are confronted with consistently, but the topic lends itself to discussions of moral subjectivism and moral skepticism, various moral theories’ framings of the problem, the assignment of culpability and conditions which mitigate it, secondary responsibility, intoxication and agency, punishment, deterrents, contrition, and forgiveness. The author details each of these discussions and concludes by considering further benefits of teaching a course built around this theme. (shrink)

The theology of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, which is deeply rooted in classical Christology and Lutheran orthodoxy, has close affinities with views about the nature of God and God’s relationship with the world that has recently been labeled “open theism.” Bonhoeffer’s concepts of God, freedom, providence and ethics provide relational views of God with firm theological credentials and exemplify a strong integration of philosophy and theology.

Too often, ethics courses are taught in a way that Aristotle would reject, viz., they aim at the acquisition of theoretical moral knowledge as an end in itself. Aristotle instead argued that the ultimate goal in studying ethics should be to become good. This paper proposes a way to teach introductory ethics that takes Aristotle’s goal seriously. Such a course emphasizes the study of applied virtue ethics by exploring the nature of many of the most dangerous vices (e.g., envy, greed, (...) and lust) and detailing various concepts involved in, and ways individuals respond to, their own moral shortcomings, e.g., making excuses, repenting, the nature of temptation and forgiveness. Such a course, it is argued, can both convey many important points in ethical theory and moral reasoning as well as bridge the gap between abstract knowledge of an ethical theory and ethical choices that students face in their daily lives. (shrink)

This paper argues that to study and teach ethics without due attention to feminism and other relevant aspects of critical theory (e.g. race or sexual orientation) is to be ethically handicapped. In arguing for this point, the author explains the key components of critical theory, how critical theory augments critical thinking insofar as the former points out certain limitations of exclusive abstract analysis, and how a consideration of critical theory can aid teachers to achieve their learning objectives. In illustrating these (...) points, the paper points to various perspectives on the nature and scope of sexual harassment. (shrink)

In this paper I defend three points: (1) God loves and desires the salvation of every human person, (2) saving grace is available outside of the Christian church to those who do not hear the gospel but pursue moral goodness and (3) most, if not all, human persons will be saved. I argue that soteriological restrictivism is logically incoherent since its two ideas—every person is loved by God and only those who hear and believe the Christian gospel can be saved—cannot (...) both be true. Throughout I integrate insights from Karl Rahner’snotion of “anonymous Christianity.”. (shrink)

This paper reports on a pedagogical strategy used when discussing consensual and non-consensual sex in college ethics courses. The paper outlines a general teaching technique designed to elicit what students already think about a particular issue and then applies this general technique to the seven specific cases involving unwanted sex. Classroom results on these cases are described, reporting that students tend to adopt two different definitions of what it means for sex to be “consensual”. A commentary on these cases is (...) provided that can be used to encourage students to think through the cases critically, and the author provides a brief commentary on how these cases relate to the notion of autonomy. (shrink)

A proven classic, this anthology stimulates readers' interest in philosophy through an innovative ldquo;sides of the argumentrdquo; presentation, representing positions on each of the fundamental philosophical principles. Each reading contains a biographical sketch of the author, with a group of further readings for those wishing to pursue issues in further depth. Using debate and argument as a vehicle, the eleventh edition ofClassic Philosophical Questionssimultaneously gives readers the fundamentals of philosophy while demonstrating that philosophy is a discourse that has spanned centuries. (...) Topics covered include knowledge, metaphysics, religion, ethics, social and political philosophy, aesthetics, and the meaning of life. This anthology offers both classic and contemporary selections that challenge readers with the basic inquiries that philosophers have discussed throughout the ages. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the benefits of discussing moral issues concerning the domestic realm in an introductory ethics course, especially moral issues surrounding divorce. The subject of divorce in introductory courses can illustrate to students significant dimensions in ethical theory and also serves as a useful pedagogical tool to bridge the gap between abstract ethical theories and students’ daily lives. Divorce is a common experience that allows students to personally engage with ethical questions that often have often immediate relevance to (...) their personal morality. (shrink)

College courses are often disconnected both from other disciplines and from student’s lives. When classes are taught in isolation from each other students experience them as unrelated fragments. In addition, college courses often lack personal meaning and relevance. Interdisciplinary learning communities—classes in which the subject matters of two or more fields are integrated—can help overcome these two problems by providing an education that is holistic and coherent. In this paper I report on how philosophy courses can be blended with English (...) classes and how theoretical perspectives can be connected to student’s personal lives. (shrink)

Political theory contains two views of social care for people with intellectual disabilities. The favor view treats disability services as an undeserved gratuity, while the entitlement view sees them as a deserved right. This paper argues that David Hume is one philosophical source of the favor view; he bases political membership on a threshold level of mental capacity and shuts out anyone who falls below. Hume’s account, which excludes people with intellectual disabilities from justice owing to their lack of power, (...) but includes them in charity, is morally deficient. The shortcomings of Hume’s theory underscore the necessity of having a view of justice which ensures that people with intellectual disabilities are not marginalized. In defending the entitlement view, I integrate philosophical analysis and concrete examples of policy issues. (shrink)

CRITICISMS of metaphysics are almost as old as philosophy. It is the argument of this article that these result not so much from the nature of metaphysics as from erroneous methods of conceiving it. These misconceptions have been shared even by metaphysicians. This is not to claim that specific systems of metaphysics have been universally misunderstood, nor to deny that there have been brilliant and impressive systems; rather, it is the metaphysical enterprise as a whole which has been misconceived.