Rejecting 'Bad Bodies': Defending a Relational Model of Disability

Abstract

Disability is often unreflectively taken to be intrinsically harmful, but Elizabeth Barnes rejects this with a model that takes disability to be neutral with respect to wellbeing. I argue that a model of disability ought not to characterize harm as arising from the body. A model ought to have a neutral evaluation of the body, but maintain disability as a harmful state. I defend such a model of disability.