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.

Ethical issues and the intellectually disabled

About the Author

Licia Carlson has written numerous articles on philosophy and disability and is the co-editor of Cognitive Disability and Its Challenge to Moral Philosophy. She is an assistant professor of philosophy at Providence College.

Reviews

Carlson's book is a significant addition to the welcome burgeoning of philosophical literature about disability generally and intellectual disability specifically.

* Social Theory and Practice *

Licia Carlson's The Faces of Intellecual Disability breaks new ground in disability studies, bioethics, philosophy, cultural sudies, and social justice studies generally.

* Disability Studies Quarterly *

[P]rovides a rigorous philosophical analysis of how the outsider's viewpoint of ID in particular (generalizable to disability as a whole) will blind, cripple, and even retard (puns intended!) theological work, and that only historical illumination and serious interaction with the perspectives of those with ID or their caretakers can help do justice to the issues at hand.

* Journal of Religion, Disability & Health *

Carlson provides a valuable, in-depth exploration of the philosophical and moral underpinnings of understanding of persons with intellectual disabilities. . . . This will be vital resource in a variety of disciplines. . . . Highly recommended.

* Choice *

The Faces of Intellectual Disability illuminates exquisitely the epistemological and normative commitments and implications of various philosophical accounts. As such, it is a valuable addition to the philosophical literature on intellectual disability.

* Teachers College Record *

Through her linguistic skill, Carlson renders complex ideas ascertainable. . . . [This] project is a sound and worthy foundation on which to build a more complete analysis in this growing area of scholarship.

* H-Disability *

Will have a significant impact on philosophical bioethics.

-- Hilde Lindemann * Michigan State University *



Book Information
ISBN 9780253221575
Author Licia Carlson
Format Paperback
Page Count 286
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press
Dimensions(mm) 235mm * 155mm * 16mm