Elizabeth Barnes, “The Minority Body: A Theory of Disability” (Oxford UP, 2016)
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What introductory questions set up the discussion of disability theory?
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Hello and thank you for joining us for this episode of New Books in Philosophy. I'm Robert Talise. I'm Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. I co host the program with Carrie Figter. And Carrie is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Iowa. My guest today is Elizabeth Barnes. Elizabeth is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Virginia. And she's the author of a fabulous new book titled The Minority Body A Theory of Disability. The book is published uh by Oxford University Press. Now, in this book, Elizabeth explores a broad range of philosophical questions. Concerning our conceptualization of disability. What is disability? What makes it such that a condition is a disability, rather than say say a disease or merely a a way of being different?
Is disability always and intrinsically bad? Are disabilities things that are to be cured? What role should the testimony and experience of disabled persons play in our thinking about these questions? Now Elizabeth argues that at least for a range of conditions characterized as disabilities. Disabilities are merely ways in which bodies can be different. Not ways of being intrinsically badly off. Now there's a lot to talk about, uh, even given that little statement of um the the the core of Elizabeth's view, uh and we'll we'll get to that in a minute. But before going into those details, uh let's begin uh where we usually do, namely uh by greeting our guest. Hello Elizabeth.
Hi.
How are you doing today?
I'm doing really well. I'm really excited to be talking to you. Thank you so much uh for uh for having me on your program.
Well and thank you uh for joining us today. Um so we usually begin, uh Elizabeth, uh, with with the author. Uh can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how uh you got into this uh this project?
Sure. Yeah. So um as you said, I um am a philosophy professor at uh the University of Virginia. Um and I guess how I uh how I got into this project uh was a little bit of a um o of a of a roundabout way of uh of uh coming to a book on disability. Um the my uh my background, my graduate training, what I wrote my sort of first published papers on, um, is actually in analytic metaphysics. Um so I did uh metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language. That was what a lot of my my training was in. Um and uh so definitely uh a little bit further afield uh from this kind of thing, the kind of thing um that I'm doing now. I was always really interested um in the philosophy of disability, uh but it was something I was
I guess I was a little hesitant to work on. Um, partly because I am myself a person with a disability. I'm a disabled person and uh For some reason I felt like that sort of meant that I shouldn't do the philosophy of disability because I I wasn't gonna be able to do it right or I was gonna
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What introductory questions set up the discussion of disability theory?
0:00–10:42
2
How does Elizabeth Barnes define disability and distinguish it from disease or mere difference?
10:42–19:27
3
Why do natural‑function accounts of physical disability fail, according to Barnes?
19:27–27:46
4
What is the relationship between the social model of disability and Barnes’s ‘value‑neutral’ view?
27:46–35:12
5
How does Barnes articulate the ‘mere‑difference’ (value‑neutral) theory of disability?
35:12–44:03
6
In what ways does the book link disability to well‑being and why isn’t it always a harm?
44:03–51:55
7
What skeptical challenges does Barnes raise against positive disability testimony?
51:55–1:00:39
8
How does testimonial injustice affect disabled voices and what are the book’s concluding thoughts?
1:00:39–1:09:23
Speakers
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