Barnes and MacIntyre

Barnes - Testimonial and hermeneutical injustice 

Hermeneutical injustice is when people cannot explain/articulate their experience at all or outside of negative stereotypes because it is obscured 

Testimonial injustice is when people explain their experience and we don’t believe them, especially because they are a minority

Barnes - adaptive preferences

Adaptive preference is when someone changes what they want based on what is available. In order for this to be meaningful, there must be outside evidence that they are not thriving - there is no evidence of this for disabled people

Barnes - normative distinctions

Descriptive distinction is a statement of observed fact, normative distinction includes a moral/ethical judgement

Disability has been normativized/normatively assessed as tragedy so people will generally not accept the contrary, and disability pride movements are evidence/examples against it

Barnes - mere difference

Disabled bodies are not tragic or a ‘bad-difference’, they are merely different or minority bodies

MacIntyre - disability and dependence

Lack of acknowledgement that all people are disabled and vulnerable as children and elderly and at other periods, some people are disabled their whole lives

MacIntyre - dolphin vs human flourishing

Both dolphins and humans rely on social relationships to flourish, but dolphins can flourish without and are not capable of using debate and interaction to decide what is the best way to flourish

MacIntyre - practical reasoning

Humans are practical reasoners because we can separate ourselves from our desires (I want to eat more ice cream but I know I should not) and because we can imagine different possibilities for our lives/futures and decide what is good

MacIntyre - ‘good’

‘Good’ can be what benefits all people or what benefits people in a role/situation (good shepherd vs thief) 

‘Goodness’ can be a means/skill, activity, or assessment of life - dolphins cannot assess their lives!