Handicap, vrijheid en overheersing: Een republikeins perspectief op het gehandicaptenbeleid

Jurgen De Wispelaere, University of Montreal
David Casassas, Universitat de Barcelona

Abstract

This article outlines a republican perspective on disability policy. Committed to ensuring the freedom-as-nondomination of disabled citizens, such a republican perspective first offers a particular diagnosis of the injustice of disability disadvantage, both in relation to individuals (dominium) and the state (imperium). Next we argue that a republican perspective may be able to sidestep some perverse implications of social contract approaches to social justice, and capable of offering a robust philosophical foundation for a theory of justice for disabled citizens. Finally, we offer a brief outline of republican remedies, grounded in the twin principles of civic participation and democratic contestation, that ought to guide robust institutional protection of disabled citizens’ republican freedom.