Department of Political Science

Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination

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 Department of Political Science CEPDISC Events PhD Course 2025

PhD Course 2025

Disability, Discrimination, and Justice Summer Seminar

25-27 August 2025, Aarhus University

PhD-course (3 ECTS) under the Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination (Danish National Research Foundation).

How should we understand disability and what are the responsibilities of a just society toward its disabled members? This course seeks to explore these questions from a philosophical perspective by delving into current debates in political, social, and moral philosophy and bioethics. The course will traverse topics ranging from the social construction of disability, the connection between disability and well-being, the ethics of discrimination on the basis of disability and its distinctive features, feminist perspectives on disability, epistemic injustice in relation to disability experience, and the disability challenge vis-à-vis theories of justice.

Teachers: Miklós István Zala (CEPDISC, Aarhus University) & Adi Goldiner (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)

The full literature list is also included in the course description.

Literature Day 1: What is Disability? Models and Definitions

1st session: Disability Models and Definitions

Mandatory readings:

  • Silvers, A. (2010). “An essay on modeling: The social model of disability.” In D. C. Ralston & J. Ho (Eds.), Philosophical reflections on disability (pp. 104). Philosophy and Medicine, 104. doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-2477-0_2  (17 pages)
  • Scotch, R. K., & Schriner, K. (1997). “Disability as human variation: Implications for policy.” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 549(1), 148–159. (12 pages)
  • Barnes, E. (2016). The minority body: A theory of disability (Ch. 1). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (pp. 9-53). (45 pages)
  • Davis, L. (2002). “The end of identity politics and the beginning of dismodernism: On disability as an unstable category.” In Bending over backwards: Disability, dismodernism and other difficult positions (pp. 9-32). New York: NYU Press. (24 pages)

Recommended reading:

  • Gregory, A. (2020). “Disability as inability.” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, 18(1), 23–48. (26 pages)

2nd session

No reading required

3rd session: Disability Models and Definitions II

Mandatory readings:

  • Swain, J., & French, S. (2000). “Towards an affirmational model of disability.” Disability & Society, 15(4), 569–582. (14 pages)
  • Savulescu, J., & Kahane, G. (2011). “Disability: A welfarist approach.” Clinical Ethics, 6(1), 45–51. (15 pages)
  • Begon, J. (2020). “Disability: A justice-based account.” Philosophical Studies, 178(3), 935–962. (28 pages)

Recommended reading:

  • Kahane, G., & Savulescu, J. (2009). “The welfarist account of disability.” In K. Brownlee & A. Cureton (Eds.), Disability and disadvantage (pp. 14–53). New York: Oxford University Press. (40 pages)

Total mandatory pages for day 1: 155

Literature Day 2: Disability and Discrimination

1st session: What is discrimination? What makes it wrong?

Mandatory reading:

  • Altman, A. (2020). Discrimination. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from plato.stanford.edu/entries/discrimination/ (20 pages)
  • Hahn, H. (1996). Antidiscrimination laws and social research on disability: The minority group perspective. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 14(1), 41–59. (19 pages)
  • Brown, J. M. (2021). What makes disability discrimination wrong? Law and Philosophy, 40(1), 1–31. (31 pages)
  • Aas, S., & Wasserman, D. (2017). Discrimination and disability. In K. Lippert-Rasmussen (Ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Ethics of Discrimination (pp. 231–242). New York: Routledge. (12 pages)

Recommended reading:

  • Goldiner, A. (2022). Moral accommodations: Tolerating impairment-related misconduct under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Columbia Human Rights Law Review, 54(1), 171–242. Read only: 206-242 (36 pages)

2nd session

No reading required

3rd session: Disability, Health Care Rationing, and the COVID-19 Pandemic

Mandatory readings:

  • Scully, J. L. (2020). Disability, disablism, and COVID-19 pandemic triage. Bioethical Inquiry 17(4), 601-605. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11673-020-10005-y (5 pages)
  • Godfrey, E. (2020, April 3). Americans with disabilities are terrified. The Atlantic. (6 pages)
  • Bognar, G. (2020). Cost-effectiveness analysis and disability discrimination. In A. Cureton & D. Wasserman (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Disability (pp. 652–668). New York: Oxford University Press. (17 pages)
  • Amundson, R. (2022). Disability, ideology, and quality of life: A bias in biomedical ethics. In J. M. Reynolds & C. Wieseler (Eds.), The Disability Bioethics Reader (pp. 137–146). New York: Routledge. (10 pages)

Recommended reading:

  • Hellman, D., & Nicholson, K. (2021). Rationing and disability: The civil rights and wrongs of state triage protocols. Washington and Lee Law Review, 78(4), 1207–1287. (Read only pages 1–11, 41–68. 39 pages)

Total mandatory pages for day 2: 156

Literature Day 3: Disability and Justice

1st session: Disability, Well-being, and Social Justice

Mandatory readings:

  • Macbryde Johnson, M. H. (2003, February 16). Unspeakable conversations. The New York Times. (13 pages)
  • Wasserman, D., & Asch, A. (2014). Understanding the relationship between disability and well-being. In J. Bickenbach, F. Felder, & B. Schmitz (Eds.), Disability and the good human life (pp. 139–167). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (29 pages)
  • Anderson, E. S. (1999). What is the point of equality? Ethics, 109(2), 287–337. (Read only pages 302–307, 312–321, 331–336. 22 pages)
  • Barclay, L. (2010). Disability, respect, and justice. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 27(2), 154–171. (18 pages)
  • Wolff, J. (2009). Cognitive disability in a society of equals. Metaphilosophy, 40(3–4), 402–415. (14 pages)
  • Wendell, S. (1989). Toward a feminist theory of disability. Hypatia, 4(2), 104–124. (21 pages)

Recommended reading:

  • Nussbaum, M. (2006). Disability and the social contract. In Frontiers of justice: Disability, nationality, species membership (Ch. 2, pp. 96–154). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (59 pages)
  • Kittay, E. (2019). Dependency and disability. In Learning from my daughter (Ch. 6, pp. 143–163). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (21 pages)

2nd session: Disability and Sexuality

Mandatory readings:

  • Shakespear, T. (2022). Disability and sexuality. In B. D. Earp, C. Chambers, & L. Watson (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Sex and Sexuality (pp. 271–285). Routledge. (15 pages)
  • Zola, I. K. (1982). Four steps on the road to invalidity: The denial of sexuality, anger, vulnerability, and potentiality. In Missing pieces: A chronicle of living with a disability (Ch. 11, pp. 212–237). Philadelphia: Temple University Press. (8 pages)

3rd session: Disability and Epistemic Injustice

Mandatory readings:

  • Barnes, E. (2016). The minority body (Ch. 4: "Taking their word for it," pp. 119–143). Oxford: Oxford University Press. (24 pages)
  • Wieseler, C. (2020). Epistemic oppression and ableism in bioethics. Hypatia, 35(4), 714–732. (18 pages)

Total mandatory pages for day 3: 182

Description of Qualifications

By participating in this course students acquire the following abilities:

  1. Have an in-depth understanding of the definition and models of disability.
  2. Have an in-depth understanding of the concept of discrimination and its application in the case of disability discrimination.
  3. To become familiar with concepts referred to and understand the key positions within the literature on disability studies, philosophy of disability and disability bioethics.
  4. Produce critical and well-structured arguments regarding ethical, philosophical, and political issues on disability.
  5. Evaluate the weakness and strengths of different positions in contemporary philosophical debates about disability.
  6. Summarise arguments on these issues clearly and succinctly.

Eligibility Criteria

The course is open to PhD-candidates involved in a relevant field, e.g., Political Science, Philosophy, Public Policy, Psychology or Law.

About the Course

Contact: Miklós István Zala

ECTS: 3

Period: 25-27 August 2025

Level: PhD-Course

Form: Presentations by scholars and discussions

Syllabus: 493 pages

Exam: 1500 words essay

Language: English

Department: Political Science, Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination

Faculty: BSS

Location: Aarhus University, Room TBA, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark

Course Requirements and Exam

A reflection paper (of at least 1500 words) providing a detailed overview of what the participant has learned over the 3-day course (whether it is about a particular topic or broad insight), identifying which arguments or debates they have found most significant for their research moving forward, and describing new questions or areas of inquiry that have arisen from their study (to be handed in to Miklós István Zala – mikloszala@ps.au.dk – at the latest 14 days after the conclusion of the course. Will be assessed and commented on by one of the teachers of the course).

Registration Fee

Participation fee is 995 DKK and covers: 

  • Course fee
  • Dinner 25 August
  • Lunch and refreshments during the course 25-27 August

We will distribute a link to pay the registration fee by email.

Please notice the system only accepts payment by card (visa, master etc.) unless you are employed by a Danish institution and can provide an EAN number for an invoice.

Participants will have to make their own arrangements regarding travel and accommodation.

Sign Up

Deadline June 15, 2025

 

CONTACT – For questions about the course

Miklós István Zala

Postdoc
M
H 1340, 247
P +4587150667

– For questions regarding logistics

Maj Thimm Carlsen

Centre Administrator
M
H 1340, 251
P +4593521498

This course is co-funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions project HUMWAR, under grant agreement No. 1011067614.

Revised 13.05.2025
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Maj Thimm Carlsen