Introduction
Philosopher Anita Silvers is a leading scholar and advocate for disability equality. She is Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at San Francisco State University. The purpose of this entry is to discuss themes from Silvers work on the nature of disability and how reflecting on the nature of disability matters for our thinking about justice and equality. There are two important themes in Silvers work. First, she defends a social model of disability. Second, she argues justice requires providing participatory rights for people with disabilities.
The Nature of Disability
The concept of “disability,” as invoked in our contemporary social, political, and legal discussions, connects disability with physical or mental differences that limits a person’s ability to achieve typical levels of success in different areas of social life, such as learning, communicating, or being able to contribute to productive economic activity (Silvers 2010: 23). The key idea is that...
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References
Arneson R (2000) Disability, discrimination and priority. In: Francis LP, Silvers A (eds) Americans with disabilities: exploring implications of the law for individuals and institutions. Routledge, New York, pp 18–33
Pogge T (2000) Justice for people with disabilities: the semiconsequentialist approach. In: Francis LP, Silvers A (eds) Americans with disabilities: exploring implications of the law for individuals and institutions. Routledge, New York, pp 34–53
Silvers A (1994) Defective’ agents: equality, difference and the tyranny of the normal. J Soc Philos 25:154–174
Silvers A (1995) Reconciling equality to difference: caring (f)or justice for people with disabilities. Hypatia 10:30–55
Silvers A (1998a) Formal justice. In: Silvers A, Wasserman D, Mahowald M (eds) Disability, difference, discrimination: perspectives on justice in bioethics and public policy. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 13–145
Silvers A (1998b) A fatal attraction to normalizing: treading disabilities as deviations from “species-typical functioning”. In: Parens E (ed) Enhancing human traits: conceptual complexities and ethical implications. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC, pp 95–123
Silvers A (2000) The unprotected: construing disability in the context of antidiscrimination law. In: Francis LP, Silvers A (eds) Americans with disabilities: exploring implications of the law for individuals and institutions. Routledge, New York, pp 126–145
Silvers A (2003) People with disabilities. In: LaFolllette H (ed) The Oxford handout of practical ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 300–327
Silvers A (2010) An essay on modeling: the social model of disability. In: Ralston C, Ho N (eds) Philosophical reflections on disability, Philosophy and medicine, vol 104. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht, pp 19–36
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Brown, J.M. (2017). Silvers, Anita. In: Sellers, M., Kirste, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_24-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6730-0_24-1
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