Abstract

The goal of this paper is to offer some remarks about how teachers, especially teachers of moral theories and arguments, should respond to insulting messages about disability that may be expressed in their courses. While there is a strong prima facie presumption for instructors to convey the truth as they see it, this is not an absolute requirement when the views they teach have a tendency to be insulting. I investigate some circumstances in which a moral view embeds and expresses an insulting message about disability and I argue that affording due respect to their students requires ethics instructors to be alert to disparaging messages about disability and to send counter-messages when the views they teach give such messages.