»Disability« and Society

People with »disabilities« are forced into the margins of our society and are often not recognised as human beings with full rights. The discrimination they face – ableism – undermines the promise of equality that is supposed to be at the foundations of liberal democracy. Although this stigmatisation exhibits structural similarities to racism, sexism, and antisemitism, it currently receives much less attention. With this book, Regina Schidel closes this gap, by analysing ableism from a philosophical and socio-theoretical perspective, with a focus on the example of people with cognitive »disabilities«. Schidel looks into the origins of ableist thought in the philosophical tradition and sketches out possibilities for overcoming them.