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Disability, Rationality, and Justice: Disambiguating Adaptive Preferences

Begon, Jessica

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Authors



Contributors

David T. Wasserman
Editor

Adam Cureton
Editor

Abstract

Is disability disadvantageous? Although many assume it is paradigmatically so, many disabled individuals disagree. Whom should we trust? On the one hand, pervasive mistrust of already underrepresented groups constitutes a serious epistemic injustice. Yet, on the other, individuals routinely adapt to mistreatment and deprivation and claim to be satisfied. If we take such “adaptive preferences” (APs) at face value, then injustice and oppression may not be recognized or rectified. Thus, we must achieve a balance between taking individuals’ preferences and self-assessment as definitive, and ignoring them entirely. Furthermore, current accounts of APs suffer from an ambiguity: are APs an unreliable guide to individuals’ interests, or to just policy? This chapter argues that we should distinguish between those that are unreliable in the former sense (“well-being APs”), and the latter (“justice APs”). Although all APs are nonautonomous, only well-being APs are irrational. Thus, preferences may be diagnosed as unreliable from the perspective of justice without impugning individuals’ rational capacities.

Citation

Begon, J. (2018). Disability, Rationality, and Justice: Disambiguating Adaptive Preferences. In D. T. Wasserman, & A. Cureton (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of philosophy and disability. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190622879.013.27

Acceptance Date Sep 27, 2017
Online Publication Date May 8, 2018
Publication Date May 8, 2018
Deposit Date Sep 10, 2018
Publicly Available Date Oct 5, 2018
Publisher Oxford University Press
Series Title Oxford handbooks
Book Title The Oxford handbook of philosophy and disability.
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190622879.013.27

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Accepted Book Chapter (238 Kb)
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Copyright Statement
Begon, Jessica (2020). Disability, Rationality, and Justice: Disambiguating Adaptive Preferences. In The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability. Wasserman, David T. & Cureton, Adam Oxford: Oxford University Press, reproduced by permission of Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190622879.013.27





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