Frances Darling

Disabled people are the largest minority group, one which anyone could join at any time. Despite this, disabled people still face injustice, facing poorer outcomes in education, employment, and healthcare, and are more likely to experience poverty than non-disabled people. This project will use methodology of analytic philosophy, including the latest frameworks in social epistemology, to examine the ways disability injustice, oppression, and de facto inequality are linked to the kind of ignorance I’m calling ‘abled ignorance’. This is an epistemological phenomenon linked to disability injustice and oppression; false or absent beliefs about disability and disabled people, arising from the historical oppression and exclusion of disabled people. By investigating this noted – but neglected – factor contributing to disability injustice, we will be better able to track its existence in our social systems and individual epistemic practices, which will be the first step in exploring how to ameliorate it and a further important step in addressing disability injustice.