Thinker · TH-0142
Elizabeth Barnes
Elizabeth Barnes is a philosopher at the University of Virginia working in metaphysics, social philosophy and feminist philosophy. In The Minority Body she defends…
On the Coordinates: 6.28 Philosophy of Disability
active 2000s – present · University of Virginia
Traditions: Analytic
Elizabeth Barnes is a philosopher at the University of Virginia working in metaphysics, social philosophy and feminist philosophy. In The Minority Body she defends a 'mere-difference' view of physical disability: being disabled is not by itself bad for a person, though it may be bad in combination with other factors, including social ones. The view challenges common assumptions in bioethics and remains contested.
Key ideas
- Disability is a mere difference, not by itself something that makes a person worse off.
- Disability is a social category, picked out by the bodily features the disability rights movement seeks justice for.
- Testimony of disabled people about their well-being deserves epistemic weight.
- Health and disease raise distinctively philosophical puzzles about value and normality.
Major works
- The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability (2016)
- Health Problems: Philosophical Puzzles about the Nature of Health (2023)
In the conversation
- Debate Health cannot be defined without values, and Boorse’s statistical theory shows it by trying
- Debate Barnes is right: being disabled is not in itself bad for you
- Question Deafness: disease, disability, or difference? And who gets to decide?
In the Journal
In the Coordinates
The questions of philosophy where Elizabeth Barnes takes a place, from The Coordinates of Thought.
- 6.28 Philosophy of Disability Is the difficulty in the body or in the world it meets?