Justice and equality for people with disabilities: disability as one of Rawls' frontiers of Justice

Abstract

People considered as non-cooperative, with abnormal functioning, that stand below a line of basic capacities have traditionally been excluded from the mantle of justice. Concerning this problem, our objective is to analyze Rawls' concept of justice with regard to the inclusion of people with disabilities, both when composing justice, in the hypothetical consensus of the original position, and when applying the rules of architected justice. We identified four cleavages in the Rawlsian theory of justice that prevent the reception of disability: the veil of ignorance combined with hypothetical equality; the normal range of capacity’s variation; the natural inequalities considered in the difference principle; and the concept of “ethical people”. In a second foray, we report the criticisms of Kittay, in the scope of the ethics of care and interdependence, and of Nussbaum, in the context of the capabilities approach. Our methodology is hypothetical-deductive, with a qualitative-descriptive approach and it is based on a bibliographic review.