The Journal of Philosophy of Disability

28 Sept 2025

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability accepts submissions year round. #disability #philosophy #accessibility

doi.orgThe Human Variation Model of Disability: A Defense - published on July 28, 2026This paper aims to defend the human variation model of disability (HVM) from a philosophical perspective. The HVM highlights how disability-related disadvantage often arises because social and material environments are designed for a narrower range of human variation than actually exists. Although the model remains central to disability theory, it has received limited philosophical attention since its foundational formulation by Richard K. Scotch and Kay Schriner in the late 1990s. This paper addresses that gap in two ways. First, it presents the HVM, evaluates its strengths and weaknesses, and offers several necessary revisions. Second, it mounts a philosophical defense of the HVM by answering potential objections and comparing it with two recent, related accounts of disability by Alex Gregory, and Katharine Jenkins and Aness Kim Webster, that just like the HVM, also strongly build on the notion of atypicality.

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "The Human Variation Model of Disability" by Miklós Zala recently came out! Abstract in the comments. Read it here: doi.org/10.5840/jpd2... #PhilSky #Philosophy #DisabilityStudies #DisabilitySky

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First, it presents the HVM, evaluates its strengths and weaknesses, and offers several necessary revisions.

Second, it mounts a philosophical defense of the HVM by answering potential objections and comparing it with two recent, related accounts of disability by Alex Gregory, and Katharine Jenkins and Aness Kim Webster, that just like the HVM, also strongly build on the notion of atypicality.

Zala's paper aims to defend the human variation model of disability (HVM) from a philosophical perspective. The HVM highlights how disability-related disadvantage often arises because social and material environments are designed for a narrower range of human variation than actually exists.

Although the model remains central to disability theory, it has received limited philosophical attention since its foundational formulation by Richard K. Scotch and Kay Schriner in the late 1990s. Zala's paper addresses that gap in two ways.

pdcnet.orgTrauma, Alienation, and Grasp - published on July 3, 2026First, I give an account of grasp alienation, which is a distinctive kind of alienation that happens when we cannot map our phenomenal experience of the world onto our cognitive understanding. Second,...

11 Aug

Michaela McSweeney is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston University. Her interests include epistemology (understanding, grasping, standpoint epistemology), trauma, mental disorder/health, metaphysics, philosophy of science, aesthetics, moral psychology, social philosophy, and feminism.

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability@jphildis.bsky.social

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "Trauma, Alienation, and Grasp" by Michaela M. McSweeney is available now! Read it here: www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/... #PhilSky #Philosophy #DisabilityStudies #DisabilitySky

21 July

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "Trauma, Alienation, and Grasp" by Michaela M. McSweeney is available now! Read it here: www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/... #PhilSky #Philosophy #DisabilityStudies #DisabilitySky

quillrkukla.xyzQuill R KuklaI am Professor of Philosophy at Georgetown University.

11 June

Quill Kukla (@quillkukla.bsky.social) is Professor of Philosophy and Disability Studies at Georgetown University. For most of 2025 and 2026, they'll be a fellow at the SOCRATES Institute at Leibniz Universität Hannover. See their full bio at: www.quillrkukla.xyz and check out their article with us!

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability@jphildis.bsky.social

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "Centering Gender Euphoria" by @quillkukla.bsky.social is available now! Read the full article here: doi.org/10.5840/jpd2... #PhilSky #Philosophy #genderstudies #transstudies

doi.orgCentering Gender Euphoria - published on May 23, 2026The concept of gender dysphoria, typically understood as a pathological experienced mismatch between one’s “inner gender identity” and one’s body, has been central to defining and “diagnosing” transness. Gender euphoria, which I define as joy, excitement, or pleasure in one’s gendered embodiment (including the social reception and emplacement of one’s gendered body), is an important notion in trans communities, but it has received little attention from academics, health care systems, or mainstream culture. Beginning from the reality and central importance of euphoria allows us to better understand everyone’s gendered experience and embodiment, and to avoid the substantial conceptual and ethical harms inflicted by a mental health model of trans identity that centers dysphoria. Organizing our understanding of trans identity, desires, and experiences around trans joy is conceptually clarifying; helps ground better medical and legal policy; and is more accurate than when we organize it around trans tragedy and pathology, even while we retain our realism about the fact that trans tragedy and dysphoric suffering are real and important.

2 June

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "Centering Gender Euphoria" by @quillkukla.bsky.social is available now! Read the full article here: doi.org/10.5840/jpd2... #PhilSky #Philosophy #genderstudies #transstudies

pdcnet.orgThe Journal of Philosophy of Disability - The Journal of the Society for Philosophy and Disability

26 May

📬 Submissions are open year-round at the Journal of Philosophy of Disability! We welcome scholarship from all philosophical perspectives and fields that substantively engage research in philosophy of disability. Learn more and submit: www.pdcnet.org/jpd/The-Jour... #PhilSky #Philosophy

17 Mar

#NewArticle #OpenAccess The 5th Issue of the JPD is now available! We are thrilled to share this issue's exciting new contributions to the philosophy of disability with you all. Read the full issue here: www.pdcnet.org/collection-a... #PhilSky #Philosophy #DisabilityStudies #DisabilitySky

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10 Mar

Rebecca Esterson is Associate Professor of Sacred Texts and Traditions and Dean of the Center for Swedenborgian Studies in Berkeley, CA. Her research and teaching centers on hermeneutics, Jewish-Christian relations, biblical reception history, Swedenborgian studies, and death and dying.

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability@jphildis.bsky.social

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "A Deafblind Critical Phenomenology: Helen Keller on Intersubjectivity and the Senses in The World I Live In" by Rebecca Esterson is available now! Read it here: doi.org/10.5840/jpd2... #PhilSky #Philosophy #DisabilityStudies #DisabilitySky

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8 Mar

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doi.orgWhat the Suffering of Others Demands of Us: Levinas, Critical Disability Theory, and Procreative Beneficence - published on February 3, 2026In this paper, I offer a Levinasian critique of the moral reasoning within liberal eugenics—specifically, the principle of procreative beneficence. This principle asserts that prospective parents have...

17 Feb

Cynthia D. Coe is a professor of philosophy at Central Washington University. Her research interests are in contemporary Continental philosophy (especially the work of Emmanuel Levinas), medical ethics, and feminist theory. Her paper with us is out now! #philsky #philosophy #disabilitysky

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability@jphildis.bsky.social

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "What the Suffering of Others Demands of Us: Levinas, Critical Disability Theory, and Procreative Beneficence" by Cynthia Coe is now out! Read it here: doi.org/10.5840/jpd2... #PhilSky #Philosophy #DisabilityStudies #DisabilitySky

12 Feb

doi.orgNaturally Enhanced Capabilities in Bivalent Disability: A Case for the Incommensurability of Positive and Negative Well-Being - published on January 28, 2026This essay introduces the concept of naturally enhanced capabilities in several types of disability and argues that such instances are best understood as bivalent disabilities, where impairment and en...

10 Feb

Osamu Muramoto is retired physician and neurologist. He was a senior scholar at the Center for Ethics in Health Care at Oregon Health and Science University. His research focuses on the bioethics of brain death, brain death determination, and end-of-life care. #philsky #philosophy

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability@jphildis.bsky.social

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "Naturally Enhanced Capabilities in Bivalent Disability: A Case for the Incommensurability of Positive and Negative Well-Being" by Osamu Muramoto is now out! Read it here: doi.org/10.5840/jpd2... #PhilSky #Philosophy #DisabilityStudies #DisabilitySky

2 Feb

societyforphilosophyanddisability.orgThe Society for Philosophy and Disability Anita Silvers Essay Prize - SPDAnita Silvers Essay Prize The Society for Philosophy and Disability’s Anita Silvers Essay Prize is awarded to the best unpublished (or published within the last two years) English-language essay in th...

29 Jan

The Society for #Philosophy and Disability's 2026 Anita Silvers Prize is now open for submissions! The deadline is June 15, 2026: www.societyforphilosophyanddisability.org/the-society-... #philsky #DisabilityStudies

doi.orgThe Double Double-Empathy Problem: Autistic People’s Moral Experience of the Alleged Empathy Deficit - published on January 17, 2026This paper draws on neuroethics and analytic philosophy to critique the relationship between autism, empathy, and morality. Damian Milton’s double-empathy problem presents a problem for empathy resear...

26 Jan

Peter Katz is the Clinical Ethics Fellow at University Hospitals, Cleveland Medical Center and Lecturer in Bioethics at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. His research focuses on justice at the intersections of pain, epistemology, embodiment, and language. #philsky

The Journal of Philosophy of Disability@jphildis.bsky.social

#NewArticle #OpenAccess "The Double Double-Empathy Problem: The Empathy Deficit and Autistic People’s Moral Experience" by Peter Jeffrey Katz. Read now: doi.org/10.5840/jpd2.... #philsky #philosophy #DisabilityStudies

25 Jan

pdcnet.orgSubmission Guidelines - The Journal of Philosophy of Disability - The Journal of the Society for Philosophy and Disability

21 Jan

Reminder that the Journal of Philosophy of Disability accepts submissions year-round! We welcome scholarship from all philosophical perspectives and any other discipline that engages in the philosophy of disability: www.pdcnet.org/jpd/Submissi... #philsky #philosophy #DisabilityStudies

12 Jan

📢 Issue 5 of the JPD is almost here! Keep your eyes peeled, and stay tuned for the release!

4 July 2025

Amber Knight is Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at University of North Carolina at Charlotte. Her research focuses on contemporary democratic theory, disability theory, and feminist political thought.

pdcnet.orgGene Editing Technologies, Utopianism, and Disability Politics - Volume 3, 2023Scholars have long speculated about what a future affected by gene editing technologies might hold. This article enters current debates over the future of gene editing and the place of disability with...

4 July 2025

Her essay, “Gene Editing Technologies, Utopianism, and Disability Politics,” was included in the third volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

20 June 2025

Researcher Highlight: Johnathan Flowers is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Northridge. His work focuses on questions in African American intellectual history and philosophy, Japanese Aesthetics, and Philosophy of Disability.

pdcnet.orgAgainst Philosophy, Against Disability - Volume 2, 2022This paper argues that the field of philosophy, and bioethics specifically, engages in a series of speech acts that identify scholarship advocating for increased philosophical engagement with the exp...

20 June 2025

His essay, “Against Philosophy, Against Disability,” was included in the second volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

16 May 2025

Researcher Highlight: Eva Feder Kittay is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University, a Senior Fellow of the Stony Brook Center for Medical Humanities, and an Affiliate of the Women's Studies Program. Her research focuses on feminist ethics and disability studies.

pdcnet.orgWhy Human Difference is Critical to a Conception of Moral Standing: An Argument for the Sufficiency of Being Human for Full Moral Status - Volume 1, 2021I argue that the claim that merely being born of two human beings in a condition that supports life is sufficient for full moral status. Not only ought we not to exclude any human being from full mor...

16 May 2025

Her essay, “Why Human Difference is Critical to a Conception of Moral Standing: An Argument for the Sufficiency of Being Human for Full Moral Status,” was included in the first volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

2 May 2025

Researcher Highlight: Rhea Ienni is a philosophy PhD student at Loyola University Chicago and the 2022 winner of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy (SPEP) S. Kay Toombs Prize.

pdcnet.orgAccess Without the Demand for Explanation: Glissant, Disability, and the Right to Access Opacity - Volume 3, 2023Within Western approaches to disability, the expectation for disabled people to ‘prove our disability’ is not only central for receiving access supports, but also for being accepted by those around us...

2 May 2025

Her prize-winning essay, “Accommodation Without the Demand for Explanation: Glissant, Disability, Opacity,” was included in the third volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

18 Apr 2025

Researcher Highlight: Adam Cureton is the Lindsay Young Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee. His research focuses on issues in ethics, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, and the philosophy of disability.

pdcnet.orgGaming the System?: Justice, Fairness, and Disability Accommodations - Volume 2, 2022I am legally entitled to certain accommodations for my visual impairment that I do not always need. Affording me these rights is required by justice even on those rare occasions in which they are not ...

18 Apr 2025

His paper, “Gaming the System?: Justice, Fairness, and Disability Accommodations,” was included in the second volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

11 Apr 2025

Researcher Highlight: Leslie Francis holds joint appointments as Alfred C. Emery distinguished professor of law and distinguished professor of philosophy at the University of Utah. Her research focuses on philosophy of law, bioethics, & disability law and ethics.

pdcnet.orgSupported Decision-making: The CRPD, Non-Discrimination, and Strategies for Recognizing Persons’ Choices About their Good - Volume 1, 2021People with cognitive impairments often have difficulties formulating, understanding, or articulating decisions that others judge reasonable. The frequent response shifts decision-making authority to ...

11 Apr 2025

Her paper, “Supported Decision-making: The CRPD, Non-Discrimination, and Strategies for Recognizing Persons’ Choices About their Good,” was included in the first volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

4 Apr 2025

Researcher Highlight: Licia Carslon is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at Providence College. Her research focuses on philosophy of disability, biomedical ethics, and 20th century continental philosophy.

4 Apr 2025

pdcnet.orgIntellectual Disability, Dehumanization, and the Fate of “the Human” - Volume 3, 2023Dehumanization Studies is a burgeoning field that has much to teach Critical Disability Studies and philosophers of disability. Conversely, a critical disability perspective can inform and challenge t...

4 Apr 2025

Her paper, “Intellectual Disability, Dehumanization, and the Fate of 'the Human',” was included in the third volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

28 Mar 2025

Researcher Highlight: Thomas Nadelhoffer is a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Charleston, affiliate member of the Department of Psychology, and roster faculty member in the Neuroscience Program. His research focuses on moral psychology, free will, and neuroethics.

pdcnet.orgChronic Pain, Mere-Differences, and Disability Variantism - Volume 2, 2022While some philosophers believe disabilities constitute a “bad-difference,” others think they constitute a “mere-difference” (Barnes 2016). On this latter view, while disabilities may create certain h...

28 Mar 2025

His paper, “Chronic Pain, Mere-Differences, and Disability Variantism,” was included in the second volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

21 Mar 2025

Researcher Highlight: Desiree Valentine is an Assistant Professor in the philosophy department at Marquette University. She works at the intersections of Critical Philosophy of Race, Feminist Philosophy, Queer Theory, and Disability Bioethics.

pdcnet.orgTechnologies of Reproduction: Race, Disability, and Neoliberal Eugenics - Volume 1, 2021When considering the relation between race, disability, and reproduction, race and disability tend to figure as outcomes of reproduction. It is assumed that one births a child with a certain race and ...

21 Mar 2025

Her paper, “Technologies of Reproduction: Race, Disability, and Neoliberal Eugenics,” was included in the first volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

14 Mar 2025

Researcher Highlight: Bella-Rose Kelly is a doctoral candidate in the philosophy department at Georgetown University. Her research interests include critical phenomenology, settler colonial studies, and philosophy of disability.

pdcnet.orgConcealing Gender Non-Conformity: A Trans Phenomenology of Disability - Volume 4, 2024Cissexist perception involves a prejudicial judgment and an unmediated affective response, such as that of disgust, directed at the gendered aspects of another person. In this paper, I advance a view ...

14 Mar 2025

We are excited that her paper—“Concealing Gender Non-Conformity: A Trans Phenomenology of Disability”—was included in the fourth volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

1 Mar 2025

Researcher Highlight: Dr. Nate Whelan-Jackson is an Associate Professor in the Religion and Philosophy Department at Capital University. His research focuses on pragmatism, philosophy of disability, and 20th century philosophy.

pdcnet.orgMore than Merely Present: Mobile Maps and Agency in the City - Volume 4, 2024E-mapping technologies are a recent technological intervention promising to promote accessibility for disabled city residents. As part of their promise, they seem to position disabled people as agents...

1 Mar 2025

We are excited that his paper—“More than Merely Present: Mobile Maps and Agency in the City”—was included in the fourth volume of the JPD! You can read it here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

21 Feb 2025

Researcher Highlight: Joshua St. Pierre is Canada Research Chair in Critical Disability Studies and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He researches the interplay between communication and disability in information societies.

pdcnet.orgCurative Eschatology: Christian Ableism and Religious Cripistemology - Volume 4, 2024Mobilizing a “cripistemological” approach that “think[s] from the critical, social, and personal position of disability,” (Johnson and McRuer 2014, 134), this paper engages a fundamental site of Chris...

21 Feb 2025

We are excited that his paper—“Curative Eschatology: Christian Ableism and Religious Cripistemology”—was included in the fourth volume of the JPD! You can read the article here! www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/...

17 Feb 2025

Researcher Highlight: Chris Weigel is Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy and Humanities at Utah Valley University. Her research extends to caregiving ethics, experimental philosophy of free will, and moral psychology.