Main description:

In a challenge to current thinking about cognitive impairment, this book explores what it means to treat people with intellectual disabilities in an ethical manner. Reassessing philosophical views of intellectual disability, Licia Carlson shows how we can affirm the dignity and worth of intellectually disabled people first by ending comparisons to nonhuman animals and then by confronting our fears and discomforts. Carlson presents the complex history of ideas about cognitive disability, the treatment of intellectually disabled people, and social and cultural reactions to them. Sensitive and clearly argued, this book offers new insights on recent trends in disability studies and philosophy.

Contents:

A Note on Terminology Introduction: The Philosopher's Nightmare Part 1. The Institutional World of Intellectual Disability 1. Twin Brothers: The Idiot and the Institution; 2. Gendered Objects, Gendered Subjects; 3. Analytic Interlude Part 2. The Philosophical World of Intellectual Disability 4. The Face of Authority; 5. The Face of the Beast; 6. The Face of Suffering Conclusion: The Face of the Mirror; Postscript: Toward a New Philosophical Ethos Notes; Selected Bibliography; Index