This essay explores various roles that philosophers occupy in relation to intellectual disability. In examining how philosophers define their object of inquiry as experts and gatekeepers, it raises critical questions concerning the nature of philosophical discourse about intellectual disability. It then goes on to consider three alternate positions, the advocate or friend, the animal, and the “intellectually disabled,” each of which points to new ways of philosophizing in the face of intellectual disability.

This Introduction to the collection of essays surveys the philosophical literature to date with respect to five central questions: justice, care, agency, metaphilosophical issues regarding the language and representation of cognitive disability, and personhood. These themes are discussed in relation to three specific conditions: intellectual and developmental disabilities, Alzheimer's disease, and autism, though the issues raised are relevant to a broad range of cognitive disabilities. The Introduction offers a brief historical overview of the treatment cognitive disability has received from philosophers, (...) and explains the specific challenges that cognitive disability poses to philosophy. In briefly summarizing the essays in the collection, it highlights the distinctive contributions the collection makes to ethics, political philosophy, bioethics, and the philosophy of disability. We hope that the richness of the topics explored by these essays will be a spur to further investigation. (shrink)

The ideal of educational equality is fundamentally grounded in the egalitarian principle that social and institutional arrangements should be designed to give equal consideration to all. However, beyond this broad stipulation, the precise content of the ideal of educational equality is more difficult to determine. In this article, I aim to contribute to the debate on equality in education by dealing with the current, contentious issue of provision for students with disabilities and special educational needs. Thus, the paper addresses the (...) question of what constitutes a just provision for these students, and it provides an answer in terms of the capability approach, as developed by Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum. (shrink)