“Philosophy and Disability” with Anita Silvers

silvers2-copy

Originally recorded: December 9, 2016
Originally broadcast: December 11, 2016

For a transcript of this episode, click here.

In 2003 there was a fire at a Russian boarding school, 28 deaf children were killed. In a published analysis, two philosophers claimed that it was their deafness that caused their death. They had to be woken up individually and they couldn’t hear instructions to run. The rest was inevitable. Anita Silvers not only takes issue with this interpretation, but describes this analysis as emblematic of everything wrong about our thinking on disability. On this episode of Why? we talk with her about the philosophical errors in our discussions about the disabled and how to learn from these mistakes.

Anita Silvers is professor and chair of the philosophy department at San Francisco State University. She has authored, coauthored, and edited many books and articles. Her professional website is here . She is a nationally recognized advocate for disability rights with a scholarly emphasis on medical ethics, bioethics, social and political philosophy, and feminism.

The text of this episode’s monologue can be found here at our blog, PQED.


To subscribe in another app or platform, copy and paste the following RSS feed into your program:
http://news.prairiepublic.org/podcasts/11132/rss.xml.


Follow us on our social Networks


Want more philosophy?

Listen to Philosophical Currents, a philosopher’s take on this month’s biggest news stories.

Join Ashley Thornberg as she interviews Why? Radio’s host Jack Russell Weinstein for a philosopher’s look a the news, cultural trends, and controversies everyone is talking about. No arguments, just good humored and trustworthy conversation from two people who like and respect one another. .

2 thoughts on ““Philosophy and Disability” with Anita Silvers

Leave a Reply