Abstract

This dissertation is a call for a philosophical reorientation regarding a particular classification of human beings: mental retardation. Generally, individuals with mental retardation are only discussed in philosophy as moral problems to be solved: are they persons? do they have rights? how ought they be treated? I depart from the traditional approach, and ask a different set of questions about the nature of classification, the effects it has on classified subjects, and the power relations involved in the process of classifying. ;This project operates at three theoretical levels: it is at once a philosophical study of classification, an alternative history of mental retardation, and a discussion about the modes and effects of power. In the second and third chapters, I analyze the development of mental retardation as an object of knowledge, and outline a theoretical framework from which to discuss classification generally. A feminist re-examination of this history exposes the power dynamics involved in definitions and practices associated with mental retardation. In identifying five roles that women played in this history, it becomes evident that the development of this classification was inextricably bound with social and political factors, and involved multiple layers of oppression. ;In the final chapter, I present a critique of philosophical discourse about cognitive disability. The preceding historical analysis serves as an important backdrop to understand current discussions about the "mentally retarded", and reveals that many philosophers neither address this history, nor have they escaped it. In applying the analytic approach to classification and power relations developed in earlier chapters, it becomes apparent that many moral philosophers do not address the socially and historically determined nature of mental retardation as a classification. Rather, they assume a medical model which views it as an unproblematic "natural kind". After addressing the problem of philosophical language and definitions, I turn to one argument in particular: the case against speciesism. I argue that the treatment of persons with cognitive disabilities in arguments concerning the moral status of animals relies upon a kind of discrimination I call "cognitive ableism". I conclude by exploring future directions for philosophical work on cognitive disabilities