I wanted to write you a post in response to the passage of Bill C-7 in the Canadian House of Commons last week, the vote that, after the Senate signs off on it, will have made euthanasia in Canada entirely legal, that is, the vote that now enables physicians to offer their disabled patients, including […]
(How) Is Disability Relevant to the Field of Social Ontology?
The conception of disability that currently prevails in philosophy construes it as a philosophically uninteresting and value-neutral biological trait, that is, as a self-evidently natural and deleterious characteristic, difference, or property that some people embody or possess. Insofar as philosophers hold this naturalized and individualized conception of disability, they assume that disability is a prediscursive […]
IWD, Philosophy of Disability, and Vulnerability
Almost a year ago, I wrote the post below. The post has been viewed thousands of times and effectively launched discussion about COVID-19 and nursing homes on social media and in the popular press in Canada. As increasingly happens when one puts ideas and writing into circulation (especially with the proliferation of new social media […]
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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
Open Questions in Social Ontology
Hsiang-Yun Chen and Sally Haslanger have just edited an special issue on Social Meaning and Reality for the EurAmerica Journal and it features an article by yours truly. This is how they summarize it on their introduction to the special issue: Just as there is a large variety of social categories that an individual can […]
Philosophy of Disability, Conceptual Engineering, and the Nursing Home-Industrial-Complex
The writing below constitutes an excerpt of the penultimate version of my article “Philosophy of Disability, Conceptual Engineering, and the Nursing Home-Industrial-Complex,” which will appear in Philosophies of Disability and the Global Pandemic, a special issue that I’m guest editing for The International Journal of Critical Diversity Studies. The issue should be out by June […]
BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 