ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on three main areas of discussion that attract philosophical attention. The first is the extremely fundamental question, ‘What is disability?’. The second main area of discussion centres on the question of what constitutes a good human life. The third part of the book concerns the relationship between disablement and the person. Some see disability as part of a person’s identity, in a very strict sense. The ‘strictness’ appealed to here can be expressed in these terms: the person would literally be a wholly different person were they not disabled. Finally, it may seem that the three areas of enquiry just summarised are unrelated. But, as will become apparent, there is a unity that can be brought to the three areas in an illuminating way.
