DISABILITY AND THE SCOPE OF PUBLIC REASON

Abstract

Elvio Baccarini, in his recent book that is entitled In a better world? Public reason and biotechnologies, argues that interventions of genetic engineering to prevent a certain class of disabilities are justified. This paper suggests some refinements of Baccarini’s way of individuating the relevant class of disabilities. While two suggested amendments require minor clarifications, a third one is more substantial. Baccarini appears to endorse the medical account of disability. I argue that he should adopt, instead, an explicitly normative social account of disability. In particular, this would enable an enlargement of the scope of his public reason approach to the discussion of disabilities. Besides constraining the legitimate responses to disability, such an approach could help in offering justified grounds for specifying what should be regarded as a disability.