Learning from My Daughter

Abstract

Abstract Disability offers a significant challenge to long-held philosophical views of the nature of the good life, what offers meaning in our lives, the importance of care, and the centrality of reason, as well as questions of justice, dignity, and personhood. In Learning from My Daughter, the author claims that living with a daughter who has multiple and significant disabilities, including cognitive disabilities, has been utterly transformative for thinking about her training, career and research as a philosopher. Interweaving the personal voice with the philosophical, the book argues that cognitive disability should reorient us to what truly matters; raises the question of whether normalcy is necessary for a good life; considers the ethical questions regarding prenatal testing and what it implies for understanding disability, the family, and ethically informed bioethics; and discusses the importance of care and an ethic built on an adequate understanding of care as it ought to be—not simply in how it is—practiced. The end of the book takes on the controversial case of Ashley X and the ethics of growth attenuation. In Learning from My Daughter, the disabled person takes center stage, but so does the ethic that needs to guide care. An ethic of care—if properly understood, the author claims—can be an ethical theory that is most useful for fully integrating disabled people and allowing them to live lives that are joyful and fulfilling.