The Faces of Intellectual Disability: Philosophical Reflections »

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.

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.

Acknowledgments xi

A Note on Terminology xv

Introduction: The Philosopher's Nightmare 1

Part 1 The Institutional World of Intellectual Disability

1 Twin Brothers: The "Idiot" and the Institution 21

2 Gendered Objects, Gendered Subjects 53

3 Analytic Interlude 85

Part 2 The Philosophical World of Intellectual Disability

4 The Face of Authority 105

5 The Face of the Best 131

6 The Face of Suffering 163

Conclusion: The Face of the Mirror 189

Notes 209

Selected Bibliography 245

Index 259