Safeguarding the Epistemic Agency of Intellectually Disabled Learners

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Safeguarding the Epistemic Agency of Intellectually Disabled Learners
Ashley Taylor, Colgate University
Kevin McDonough, McGill University
Young people labelled as significantly intellectually disabled are often denied full inclusion in
classrooms, because they are positioned as diminished knowers.
1
Stereotypes of epistemic incompetence
play an important role in this positioning.
2
More curiously, the epistemic exclusion of intellectually disabled
students also persists in nominally inclusive educational contexts where ableist stereotypes are challenged.
For example, within educational philosophy and philosophy of disability, social and educational inclusion
is frequently promoted on political or moral grounds.
3
Some forms of formal inclusion are even framed as
morally compulsory because students labelled with significant intellectual disabilities are worthy of respect,
even though they supposedly lack the rational capacities that are normally regarded as grounds for mutual
respect. Similarly, political inclusion is justified because interaction between cognitively diverse students
is viewed as a means of expanding the surplus of “civic capital” necessary for social justice. However, such
arguments are compatible with perceptions of intellectually disabled students—and particularly students
understood as “profoundly” intellectually disabled—as epistemically less capable, and even incapable, and
therefore as permissibly excluded from the regular epistemic projects of education. Indeed, such arguments
often betray a commonly held assumption that intellectually disabled students should be expected to learn
and contribute little if any knowledge through participation in ostensibly inclusive settings, instead serving
as mere means of developing enhanced capacities of empathy for nondisabled peers. In short, the epistemic
exclusion of intellectually disabled students may be regarded as the natural consequence of their disability,
thus rendering their epistemic inclusion ethically non-compulsory.
In this paper, we argue that the epistemic exclusion of intellectually disabled students is
educationally and ethically misguided. First, we identify a type of epistemic regard owed to all children as
a normative condition of education—namely, the presumption of their epistemic potential. Second, we
introduce the notion of “epistemic transparency” in order to explain that educators’ tendency to attribute
diminished epistemic potential to intellectually disabled students—a widely documented pattern—is

unfounded, and thus violates the ethical requirement to presume students’ epistemic competence.
4
We argue
that the asymmetrical application of this principle constitutes a serious problem of educational justice
because it is grounded in an ethically arbitrary double standard, which also underwrites harmful and
discriminatory educational practices and institutions. Moreover, in order to focus on the problem of
epistemic transparency as a problem that persists even within efforts to elevate the epistemic contributions
of intellectually disabled people, we examine philosopher Eva Kittay’s recent book Learning from My
Daughter—a significant contribution to inclusive theorizing about intellectual disability. Finally, we
propose the presumption of students’ epistemic agency as an ethical principle whose primary purpose is to
rectify the problem of epistemic exclusion and to promote the epistemic inclusion of intellectually disabled
students.
As scholars who identify as able-minded and who have close personal and professional
relationships with people labelled with intellectual disabilities, we come to this project with both the limited
perspective of able-minded experience and the critical lens of philosophically informed advocacy. For
Ashley, the experience of teaching intellectually disabled learners has been both epistemically
transformational and ethically challenging. Nevertheless, when she is faced with her limitations as a teacher
to work beyond communication barriers, or to understand and evaluate the contributions of intellectually
disabled learners, Ashley has confronted the uncritical assumption of diminished epistemic competence
that persists as a specifically ableist presumption more broadly. For Kevin, his experience as a parent of an
autistic child with intellectual disability labels raises similar challenges. Like many parents of children
labelled as intellectually disabled, internalized social pressures to “ratchet down” expectations about his
child’s cognitive capabilities are often exposed in exceptional circumstances where opportunities for his
child to demonstrate intellectual abilities unexpectedly expands the perimeter of possibility. Our respective
experiences converge on the conclusion that much work remains to be done in providing able-minded adults
in positions of educational and developmental authority with more finely tuned conceptual resources for
circumventing default orientations that lead to epistemic exclusion. This paper contributes such conceptual
resources.

EPISTEMIC OPACITY
For students considered to be able-minded—that is, considered to be intellectually and
developmentally typical—the idea that we should presume a high degree of epistemic potential is relatively
uncontroversial, if frequently undermined within existing educational contexts.
5
As an ethical orientation
towards developing knowers, teachers should proceed on the basis of the assumption that students are
epistemically opaque to them insofar as the limits of their potential as knowers is unknown. Good teachers
presume that specific evidence of students’ learning in the present indicates epistemic capabilities that have
the potential to develop into more sophisticated and complex abilities—or “intellectual virtues”—even
when they cannot be certain that they will. Despite the pervasiveness of such inferences, any specific
instance of learning does not actually provide comprehensive evidence in support of a pedagogical
judgment about favorable or unfavorable developmental trajectory. Indeed, teachers are often left only to
hope that the seeds they have planted will take route and continue to grow. Of course, and for any number
of reasons, a particular student’s experienced epistemic competence may be less than or exceed, perhaps
dramatically, any suggestion of what their capabilities at a given moment can be reasonably taken to imply.
It is baked into the very definition of teaching that we presume such epistemic potential; otherwise, our
work would be at best absurd and at worst cruel.
At first glance, this argument may seem like a straightforwardly empirical matter whose legitimacy
turns solely on the adequacy of empirical judgments about evidence concerning students’ cognitive ability
or lack thereof. In practice, however, the presumption of epistemic potential in educational contexts actually
flies in the face of available evidence at least to some extent. Evidence for future capability or present
potential necessarily relies somewhat on speculative, and generous, projections about students’ future
development and growth. As such, the presumption of epistemic competence reflects both an empirical
judgment about their capabilities and a normative commitment on the part of educators. Students are owed
such a presumption because otherwise educational impositions cannot be adequately justified.
Nevertheless, some students are regularly denied the presumption of epistemic opacity.
Specifically, intellectually disabled students are frequently treated as if the label itself provides definitive

information about their epistemic potential, and/or they are placed in educational contexts that fail to
provide opportunities to develop epistemic competence. While learning disabled students are increasingly
understood through much less reductive frames, they still face persistent educational denial, including low
expectations and lack of access to stimulating learning materials. Students labelled with intellectual
disabilities experience even greater opportunity costs. In particular, they are less likely to be placed in
general education classrooms, and, when they are, they typically spend a great deal of time being taught
basic skills that are deemed necessary for proper socialization, rather than for participation in broader
epistemic communities, including higher education. As we discuss in the next section, intellectually
disabled learners are epistemically excluded in education because the presumption of epistemic opacity that
provides the normative impetus for education is deferred or withheld for students with intellectual
disabilities. Instead of being regarded as epistemically opaque, which entails the attribution of epistemic
potential and agency, these students are apt to be viewed as epistemically transparent.
THE EPISTEMIC TRANSPERENCY PROBLEM
Identified as a normative condition of education, the presumption of epistemic competence
highlights an important and overlooked problem of educational justice for intellectually disabled students:
the obligation to treat students as if they have epistemic potential. Injustice occurs when educators
arbitrarily withhold this presumption from intellectually disabled students. In contrast to able-minded peers,
intellectually disabled students are frequently regarded as epistemically transparent, a move which appears
to release teachers from their obligation to treat students as if they are epistemic agents. Intellectual
disability is taken to imply epistemic incompetence, providing educators with what they regard as sufficient
reason to withhold application of the presumption of epistemic competence. In this section, we identify two
problems with this asymmetrical application of the epistemic competence principle.
First, the presumption of epistemic transparency rationalizes, rather than justifies, the exclusion of
intellectually disabled students from school-based knowledge production practices. The tendency to
substitute presumptions of epistemic transparency for those of epistemic opacity in the case of intellectually
disabled students is not grounded in an appeal to ethical principle. Rather, the presumption is a

manifestation of harmful stereotypes about intellectual disability, which encourage unwarranted inferences
about global intellectual competence from more specific cognitive limitations. More generally, the failure
to “presume competence” about students’ epistemic potential is structured and reinforced by the intersection
of “cognitive ableism” and epistemic exclusion within educational institutions.
6
Cognitive ableism works
to obscure a labelled person’s epistemic potential at a given moment and to downgrade assessments about
students’ epistemic potential—that is, the view that they will, if given the proper support, experience
epistemic agency in the future. Carlson defines cognitive ableism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor
of the interests of individuals who possess certain cognitive abilities (or the potential for them) against those
who are believed not to actually or potentially possess them.”
7
As such, this form of unequal treatment lacks
moral justification.
Second, as noted in the introduction, epistemic exclusion also occurs in spaces of formal
inclusion—that is, mainstreaming—and can be perpetuated by advocates of intellectually disabled students
and their learning. Even in such comparatively favorable contexts, intellectually disabled students
nevertheless encounter the presumption of epistemic transparency. In these cases, epistemic exclusion
requires explanations that go beyond cognitive ableism.
In order to explore how assumptions of epistemic transparency creep into more critical
perspectives, we turn to a recent book by Eva Feder Kittay—a moral philosopher whose well-known
engagement with theoretical questions of intellectual disability are explored through her relationship with
her intellectually disabled daughter, Sesha. In Learning from My Daughter, Kittay argues for revisioning
core philosophical insights in light of the lived experiences of intellectually disabled people.
8
Central to
Kittay’s ethical conception of CARE
9
is the requirement to recognize “genuine needs and legitimate
wants”
10
of intellectual disabled persons. As such, Kittay insists that treating intellectually disabled people
with respect and care requires a commitment to honor their subjective individuality. It remains unclear,
however, what resources Kittay’s account of respect provides to uphold the epistemic individuality of
intellectually disabled people. Kittay eloquently portrays Sesha in ways that vividly illustrate Sesha’s
distinctive, individual desires and preferences for music and physical touch. However, at other times, when

emphasizing Sesha’s communicative limitations, Kittay portrays herself as unable to “know” what Sesha
“really” wants.
It also remains unclear from Kittay’s account to what extent, and on what basis, the wants and
needs of intellectually disabled people can be justifiably attributed to an individual other whose standpoint
with respect to her own needs and wants remains epistemically separable from the needs and wants of those
who care for her. In raising this question, we acknowledge that Kittay’s overarching ethical theory is deeply
relational. As such, Kittay believes intellectually disabled people are owed respect for reasons arising from
relationships of dependency to and with caregivers. Kittay also insists they are owed respect as persons
whose intrinsic value is distinguishable from these relations. While we accept that epistemic agency is
relational, and that it may be very difficult to distinguish the boundaries of the subjective separateness of
intellectually disabled people who do not communicate through verbal, signed, or typed language, we also
emphasize that thoroughly relational ethical theories are uncongenial—historically and conceptually—to
people labelled with intellectual disabilities. Historically, “caring relations” have dictated that intellectually
disabled people are treated as passive recipients of care, and as epistemic non-agents—a status that seems
to justify their treatment as non-knowers. While giving a forceful argument for ethical respect, Kittay’s
account does not provide clarity on why ethical respect includes epistemic respect.
Kittay frequently refers to Sesha and others with similar intellectual disabilities in terms that are
notably ambiguous between the categories of epistemic opacity and epistemic transparency. It is not
altogether clear whether the existing absence of the communicability of desires, preferences, and wants
implies that those with intellectual disabilities should be regarded as agents with epistemic potential, or as
individuals whose wants and needs are necessarily determined by caring others. On the one hand, Kittay’s
overall ethical conception, which is specifically designed to include intellectual disability as a conceptually
transformative and corrective influence, aligns itself with a view of intellectually disabled people as agents
whose epistemic opacity portends educational potential. On the other hand, considering that ethical theories
exist within highly non-ideal and at least somewhat unjust political and social contexts, Kittay’s ethical
account seems to leave unanswered important questions about how educators might go about enacting

educationally progressive attributions of epistemic agency, rather than simply projecting their own able-
minded assumptions for the “legitimate wants and needs” of their students. For example, she writes, “The
attentive responsiveness critical to successful caring is made possible—often, at least—by an empathetic
connection to and understanding of the other. These enable us to ‘read’ the mind of another, especially in
cases where the other is either temporarily or permanently incapable of communicating through speech. As
such, affective connections are a needed moral epistemic resource.”
11
While emphasizing the importance
of both physical and epistemic intimacy in the caring relation, this passage reveals a tension between what
it means to “read” the mind of the other and under what conditions such epistemic projection is regarded
as necessary, and therefore permissible.
These questions aside, Kittay makes the case that intellectually disabled people, and Sesha in
particular, have a great deal that is of importance to teach the rest of us if we are only willing and open
enough to learn from them. Sesha is positioned as a teacher whose lessons arise from and illustrate her
subjective separateness: “The first chapter of part II has been a lesson on dependency. It is what I have
learned from my daughter . . . It is Sesha’s lesson.”
12
Troublingly, the un-foreclosed possibility that in
certain cases epistemic competence is unknowable and therefore potentially absent, renders it unclear in
what sense people labelled with intellectual disabilities are to be understood as active contributors to
knowledge making. To illustrate, consider the following (problematic) possibility: people often
metaphorically attribute educational properties to inanimate objects, even going so far as to say that things
(a mountain, a forest, an ocean) teach us. In such cases, the educational and epistemic dimensions of the
‘relationship’ turn on the agency of a (non-disabled) epistemic agent. The “epistemic perspective” of the
ocean or mountain remains obscure. In cases like this, the student and teacher are essentially equivalent,
and the educational process is most easily understood as a process of self-education, rather than as an
educational relation between separate individuals. Kittay would, rightly, balk at construing Sesha’s
epistemic contributions in these terms. Nevertheless, her portrayal of Sesha’s teaching role is frustratingly
circumspect about how we should understand Sesha as an epistemic agent.

Because we are broadly sympathetic with Kittay’s account, we are inclined to explore a possible
extension of her view that caring (educational) relations involve epistemic respect for the legitimate wants
and needs of intellectually disabled people. Kittay, along with Licia Carlson, another philosopher of
cognitive disability, has positioned intellectually disabled people as transformative to philosophy—indeed,
as challenging its core assumptions. As Kittay states passionately, “My daughter gave the lie to most of my
professed philosophical beliefs.”
13
As Sesha is clearly not a passive object—Kittay describes her discerning
love of music, her responsiveness to close friends, her laughter—we are best to interpret her as having a
more than simply object role whose epistemic contributions are non-derivative or separate from the
interpretations of others. In fact, within the context of Kittay’s family, Sesha is an epistemic participant in
the sense that Dohmen, following Hookway, describes it: “According to the participant perspective, the
relevant questions about epistemic competence concern one’s ability to be involved in the activities that
contribute to the growth and sharing of knowledge.”
14
As an epistemic participant, Sesha can be seen as
competent in a broad sense, and not only in the extent to which she provides specific kinds of information.
15
The distinction between an “informative perspective” and a “participant perspective” describes the
difference between being a reliable source of information, on the one hand, and being a participant on the
other hand.
16
We suggest that in numerous passages like the one above in Kittay’s book, Sesha’s epistemic
contribution lies somewhere in between, as she is taken as both a reliable informant—“she gave lie to most
of my professed philosophical beliefs”—and as a participant whose ability to contribute such information
is heavily mediated by relationships.
17
Still, it remains unclear the extent to which it is Sesha’s epistemic
separateness—her status as a knower—rather than simply Kittay’s interpretation of her being, that provides
this information.
A charitable reading of Kittay’s account of “learning from my daughter” would seem to require us
to take seriously a potential middle-ground between a non-participant object understanding of teacher and
the view of the teacher as able-minded author—which is to say, an understanding of the teacher as a
subjectively separate epistemic agent. Perhaps, then, epistemic agency is best understood on a spectrum
wherein one’s ability to participate in epistemic projects may be heavily structured by caregiving—or

teaching—practices but where one’s separateness is nonetheless assured. While among the many attributes
of a teacher, the extent to which they are understood as reliable sources of information is certainly at the
top—such estimations of reliability take place within and according to able-minded norms. Metrics of
epistemic reliability are premised on the assumption that a person is epistemically non-transparent. And,
because epistemic transparency is frequently ascribed in the absence of verbal, typed, or signed
communication (and is sometimes assumed even if such things are present), this epistemic context makes
it very difficult to regard intellectually disabled people as epistemic participants even in the minimal sense.
Finally, it is perhaps important to note that caregiving contexts and educational contexts frequently
overlap, particularly when intellectually disabled people also experience physical or health disabilities that
result in their needing physical care while at school. However, there are notable differences between the
relationship that a teacher has to her students and the relationship a caregiver has to a person in his care.
While both teachers and caregiver may be responsible for making quick decisions that safeguard the
physical well-being of a person, teachers’ obligations to students go beyond safeguarding physical and
mental health (although they certainly include these things). As we outlined above, the teacher’s obligation
to her students is also to safeguard their epistemic potential by treating students as subjectively separate
and epistemically opaque in the sense that their epistemic horizons are not fully known. In fact, as we
argued above, the encounter with an epistemically opaque other demands that we presume potential
epistemic competence and avoid acting as if any information we have of their epistemic competence now
determines their later epistemic competence. In sum, the asymmetrical application of the principle of
presumption of epistemic competence implies a harmful and unjust arbitrary double standard—one that
jeopardizes the epistemic potential of intellectually disabled students.
PRESUMING EPISTEMIC AGENCY
The fact that a double standard persists makes clear that identity-based discrimination is at play and
reveals the unjustifiability of proceeding as if that student can be treated as epistemically transparent.
Recognizing differences in students’ intellectual and social needs and developmental pace does not,
therefore, entail changing one’s ethical orientation towards epistemic competence and growth. Indeed, a

“spectrum” view of achieved epistemic agency enables recognition of differences in the character and form
of epistemic competence, but it does not thereby entail the absence of epistemic competence. Precisely
because of educators’ uncertainty about students’ full epistemic potential, they are ethically obliged to
proceed as if their students are both presently epistemically capable and possess the potential for epistemic
growth.
In their influential essay “Presuming Competence,” Douglas Biklen and Jamie Burke argue that
when a teacher is confronted with a student who uses limited or no speech and possesses at the time of the
encounter no recognized form of communication, the situation “demands a kind of compact between teacher
and student to choose the most optimistic stance possible,” namely “presuming competence.”
18
Biklen and
Burke’s principle of presuming competence articulates an ethical orientation that teachers must adopt as
part of their professional and ethical responsibilities to all students. We suggest that the purpose of this
principle should be construed more broadly as a presumption of epistemic agency. Our “presumption of
epistemic agency” principle emphasizes the preservation of the epistemic opacity of students labelled with
intellectual disabilities, so as to promote a baseline for comprehensive (moral and epistemic) inclusion. It
is our contention that doing so requires not only a reformation of teachers’ psychological and professional
commitments (for example, epistemic humility or awareness of bias) but also a deep cultural
transformation.
Like the presuming competence principle, the presumption of the epistemic agency principle is a
distinctively educational ethical principle; both principles are grounded in the distinctive context of
educators’ obligations towards their students in virtue of the need to treat epistemic opacity as a normative
condition of the educator-student relationship. Indeed, the intuitive case for these principles is supported
by an argument from the ethical obligation to minimize harm. In contexts of uncertainty, the presumption
of epistemic agency is the least harmful alternative—what Anne M. Donnellan long ago called “the criterion
of the least dangerous assumption”—available in educational contexts.
19
However, suspending judgment about a students’ epistemic potential in recognition of the reality
of epistemic opacity is a necessary but insufficient condition for presuming epistemic agency. Consider

how an emphasis on epistemic humility in professional encounters with intellectually disabled people
emphasizes that professionals regard themselves as fallible or potentially wrong in their interpretation of a
student. But the problem of treating people labelled with intellectual disabilities as if they are epistemically
transparent is not (only) a problem of a teacher’s failure to recognize their fallibility or to exercise good
intentions; rather, it is a function of a larger problem of the interpretive context of able-minded supremacy
that shapes educational encounters in general. Thus, while our argument is certainly not intended to take
non-ideal, unjust contexts for granted, we recognize that educators’ current decision-making takes place
within contexts of entrenched ableism that shape their educational decision-making. However, the
presumption of epistemic agency principle applies beyond teacher decisions and to assessments of the
background conditions against which such decisions are made. Thus, questions of how this principle plays
out in practice require first addressing how the principle applies to both the wider background conditions
of schooling and to the decisions teachers make within schools.
20
The presumption of the epistemic agency principle relies on the insight that interpretations of
epistemic agency are culturally mediated. This insight can be illustrated by adapting concepts from liberal
multicultural theory. Will Kymlicka has noted that a culture can be understood in at least two distinct
senses.
21
First, there is the view of culture as a “structure”: cultural formations include certain norms, and
education is a process of internalizing those norms. However, this understanding of culture fails to capture
the ways in which cultural education enables individuals to critically assess, and, if necessary, modify
cultural norms and expectations. The broadly educational process of enabling individuals to participate in
culturally embedded practices of norm revision reflects Kymlicka’s second sense of culture: culture as a
"context of choice." The distinction between cultural structure and culture as a context of choice has a clear
application to the case of intellectual disability. Most societies consist of cultural structures that strongly
enforce norms of able-mindedness, and these norms inscribe horizons of possibility for epistemic agency.
Importantly, cultural resources for imagining and perceiving the epistemic agency of individuals labelled
with intellectual disability are likely to lie beyond the visible horizons of ableist cultures. To the extent that
educators rely on existing and prevailing cultural narratives and patterns for their interactions with

intellectually disabled students, they are condemned to reiterate patterns of epistemic incompetence in and
for their students. Failures to recognize epistemic agency in people labelled with intellectual disabilities
occur in part because educators who wish to challenge ableist logics of epistemic exclusion lack adequate
interpretive frames for stimulating and perceiving expressions of epistemic agency. Inclusive research
practice is still rare and cultural representations of intellectual disability are rarely derived from the first-
person epistemic perspective of “disabled narratives.”
22
Rather, culturally valued meanings are shaped by
able-minded ways of interpreting the world. Even when intellectual disability is culturally represented, it is
often portrayed through a lens distorted by able-minded normalcy. Thus, the pedagogical task of applying
the principle of presumption of epistemic agency is a complex task of cultural interpretation and critique.
This challenge underscores why and how it is so important that educators who wish to uphold a principle
of the presumption of epistemic agency seek out cultural counternarratives that portray and illustrate
atypical—verbal and non-verbal—expressions of epistemic agency. Whether educators’ particular
decisions bear out the ethical orientation of presuming epistemic agency will necessarily need to be
considered within context. Moreover, our emphasis on background conditions underscores the importance
of not over-emphasizing the responsibility that teachers (in particular) can rightly be said to have for
reproducing cognitively ableist educational projects, especially within ableist social structures.
A principle of presumption of epistemic agency goes beyond harm reduction and a posture of
expecting learning potential, by emphasizing the more fundamental problem of epistemic exclusion and
highlighting epistemic inclusion as a distinctive ethical imperative. This ethical principle includes both an
individual ethical obligation to honor students’ epistemic potential and the commitment to more expansive
democratic and epistemic projects of educational inclusion. The epistemic exclusion of intellectually
disabled people impoverishes knowledge frames, and the antidote to this impoverishment is epistemic
inclusion via the presumption that labelled people are knowers.
CONCLUSION
We have argued that even sympathetic philosophical and educational accounts of intellectual
disability lack clarity over how to define the epistemic agency of intellectually disabled people, and how to

facilitate labelled people’s participation in epistemic projects as knowers. In response, this paper offers
some conceptual resources for educators committed to the comprehensive—moral and epistemic—
inclusion of intellectually disabled students. It is our hope that such conceptual resources propel
continued—and expanded—work in promoting educational justice for students labelled with intellectual
disabilities.
1
Intellectual disability is a medical/psychological term used to describe a person who is regarded as having
significant limitations in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior. Following critical scholarship
in disability studies and disability studies in education, we use the terminology “labelled with an intellectual
disability” or “intellectually disabled” to emphasize the socially embedded and defined nature of the label
of intellectual disability. While our discussion here may be relevant to the epistemic inclusion of students
labelled with other forms of cognitive disability or who are regarded as neuro-atypical, our focus is on
students who are labelled as intellectually disabled.
2
Licia Carlson, The Faces of Intellectual Disability: Philosophical Reflections (Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press, 2009); Christopher Kliewer, Douglas Biklen, and Amy Petersen, "At the End of
Intellectual Disability," Harvard Educational Review 85, no. 1 (2015): 1-28.
3
Sigal Ben‐Porath, "Defending Rights in (Special) Education," Educational Theory 62, no. 1 (2012): 25-
39; Carlson, The Faces of Intellectual Disability.
4
Christine Ashby, “The Trouble with Normal: The Struggle for Meaningful Access for Middle School
Students with Developmental Disability Labels,” Disability & Society 25, no. 3 (2010): 345-358; Douglas
Biklen, and Jamie Burke, "Presuming Competence," Equity & Excellence in Education 39, no. 2 (2006):

166-175; Amy Petersen, “Shana’s Story: The Struggles, Quandaries, and Pitfalls Surrounding Self-
Determination,” Disability Studies Quarterly 29, no. 2 (2009).
5
Biklen and Burke, "Presuming Competence."
6
Biklen and Burke.
7
Licia Carlson, "Cognitive Ableism and Disability Studies: Feminist Reflections on the History of Mental
Retardation," Hypatia 16, no. 4 (2001): 140.
8
Eva Feder Kittay, Learning from My Daughter: The Value and Care of Disabled Minds (Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press, 2019).
9
Kittay uses the capitalized CARE to distinguish her normative conception of care from other meanings
of care. See Kittay, Learning from My Daugher, 137,
10
Kittay, Learning from My Daughter, 135.
11
Kittay, 175.
12
Kittay, 163.
13
Kittay, 8.
14
Josh Dohmen, "A Little of Her Language: Epistemic Injustice and Mental Disability." Res Philosophica
93, no. 4 (2016): 669-691; Christopher Hookway, "Some Varieties of Epistemic Injustice: Reflections on
Fricker," Episteme 7, no. 2 (2010): 151-163; Dohmen, “A Little of Her Language,” 688.
15
Dohmen, 688.
16
Hookway, “Some Varieties of Epistemic Injustice.”
17
Kittay, Learning from My Daughter, 8.
18
Biklen and Burke, “Presuming Competence,” 172.
19
Anne M. Donnellan, "The Criterion of the Least Dangerous Assumption," Behavioral Disorders 9, no. 2
(1984): 141-150.
20
Our thanks to Jaime Ahlberg, whose response paper comments helped us to think through these points.
21
Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community and Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).
22
Michael Berube, The Secret Life of Stories (New York: NYU Press, 2016).