Many social practices treat citizens with cognitive disabilities differently from their nondisabled peers. Does John Rawls's theory of justice imply that we have different duties of justice to citizens whenever they are labeled with cognitive disabilities? Some theorists have claimed that the needs of the cognitively disabled do not raise issues of justice for Rawls. I claim that it is premature to reject Rawlsian contractualism. Rawlsians should regard all citizens as moral persons provided they have the potential for developing the (...) two moral powers. I claim that every citizen requires specific Enabling Conditions to develop and exercise the two moral powers. Structuring basic social institutions to deny some citizens the Enabling Conditions is unjust because it blocks their developmental pathways toward becoming fully cooperating members of society. Hence, we have a duty of justice to provide citizens labeled with cognitive disabilities with the Enabling Conditions they require until they become fully cooperating members of society. (shrink)

I argue that there is an important analogy between sex selection and selective abortion of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome. There are surprising parallels between the social construction of Down syndrome as a disability and the deeply entrenched institutionalization of sexual difference in many societies. Prevailing concepts of gender and mental retardation exert a powerful influence in constructing the sexual identities and life plans of people with Down syndrome, and also affect their families' lives.1.

The question of how to treat people with cognitive disabilities (PCDs) poses an important problem for Rawlsian theories of justice because it is unclear whether PCDs are included within the scope of moral personhood. Rawls’s Standard Solution focuses on nondisabled adults as the fundamental case, while later addressing PCDs as marginal cases. I claim that the Standard Solution has two weaknesses. First, it relies on a dichotomy between nondisabled and disabled that is tenuous and difficult to defend. Second, it makes (...) the theory circular in a vicious way.I argue that Rawls’s theory can be revised so that it solves the problem of how to treat PCDs while avoiding the two weaknesses of the Standard Solution. There are three constraints on any successfully revised Rawlsian theory: 1) it must be resourcist rather than welfarist; 2) it must provide some principled basis for limiting our obligations to PCDs; and 3) it must address the whole range of PCDs, including the most severely disabled individuals. (shrink)