ABSTRACT

Disability has recently become a central topic in discussions of distributive justice and social equality. This chapter provides an overview of the role of disability in these discussions, focusing on Rawlsian contractualism, luck egalitarianism, and democratic equality. It then proposes a novel interpretation of the claim that compensatory public policies for disability undermine respect for persons. Even if compensatory policies are not intrinsically disrespectful, they carry a significant risk of undermining respect for persons by promoting stereotypes about people with disabilities that obscure the existence or full importance of their non-medical interests.