‘Metaphilosophy’ emerged in the late 1960s as a discipline aimed at investigating the nature of philosophy. General metaphilosophical topics include philosophy’s aims, missions, methods, and objects, as well as philosophy’s relation to other disciplines and society, broadly understood. Within contemporary debates, special attention has been given to the prescriptive dimension of metaphilosophy, which invites normative answers to […]
Letter in Opposition to Bill C-7 Signed By 129 Canadian Disabled People’s Organizations and Allies
I hope that philosophers will begin to support Canadian disabled people in their political struggle against Bill C-7, proposed legislation that targets them. The grievous injustice that Bill C-7 embodies should be of particular concern to Canadian philosophers given that a number of their colleagues have initiated it, developed it, and lobbied for it. Where […]
Blowing the Whistle on MAiD/Bill C-7 and the Naturalization of Disability and Mental Illness
As a disabled philosopher of disability, one of the most (though certainly not the most) frustrating aspects of the recent discussions and debates about MAiD and Bill C-7 that have ensued in the Canadian Senate, on Daily Nous and other blogs, on Facebook, and on Twitter is the way that disability and mental illness have […]
Dialogues on Disability: Shelley Tremain Interviews Gerald Moore
Hello, I’m Shelley Tremain and I’d like to welcome you to the seventy-first installment of Dialogues on Disability, the series of interviews that I am conducting with disabled philosophers and post to BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY on the third Wednesday of each month. The series is designed to provide a public venue for discussion with disabled philosophers […]
The Carceral Character of Nursing Homes and How Eugenics in Canada is MAiD
This post comprises an excerpt from my article “Philosophy of Disability, Conceptual Engineering, and the Nursing Home-Industrial-Complex in Canada,” which is forthcoming in Philosophies of Disability and the Global Pandemic, a special issue of The International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies of which I am guest editor. Additional posts about nursing homes and about MAiD […]
Dialogues on Disability on Wednesday, February 17th, at 8 am EST
“I have read almost all of your interviews and they are always wonderful. … I am really looking forward to the next installment of Dialogues on Disability.” — Adrian Piper “The Dialogues on Disability platform … has been very helpful to me, especially at times where I did not feel I belong in the world of […]
Senator McPhedran and Bill C-7 Amendment
Here is a must-watch speech by Senator Marilou McPhedran in the current Canadian Senate debate on Bill C-7, proposed legislation to remove the foreseeable death clause from current MAiD legislation. Senator McPhedran, who has a long history of work on policy instruments with respect to international treaties, human rights, and minority populations, both disputes a […]
The Reputation of Canadian Philosophy is in the Balance
On social media platforms all across Canada and the United States, academics, activists, lawyers, physicians, and students, have come alive to the eugenic impetus of MAiD and its latest incarnation, Bill C-7, as well as to the philosophical underpinnings of these policies. Indeed, as I have noted in previous posts on BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, eugenics is […]
Jama and Downie on MAiD
In previous posts, I have drawn attention to the creative and important work of Sarah Jama and the Disability Justice Network of Ontario (DJNO). For instance, I alerted readers/listeners of BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY to the recent “Death By Coercion” webinar that DJNO organized to push back against the way that the perspectives and experiences of Black, […]
Letter in Opposition to Bill C-7 from Robert Wilson and Matthew Barker
In my previous post, I strongly urged members of the philosophical community in Canada and elsewhere to write letters to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs of the Canadian Government in opposition to the passage of Bill C-7, proposed legislation that would remove the “reasonably foreseeable” clause of the current MAiD legislation […]
