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Disability and Domination: Lessons from Republican Political Philosophy
Author(s) -
O'Shea Tom
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of applied philosophy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.339
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1468-5930
pISSN - 0264-3758
DOI - 10.1111/japp.12149
Subject(s) - ideal (ethics) , politics , agency (philosophy) , power (physics) , democracy , sociology , citizen journalism , cognition , epistemology , law and economics , political science , law , psychology , social science , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , neuroscience
The republican ideal of non‐domination identifies the capacity for arbitrary interference as a fundamental threat to liberty that can generate fearful uncertainty and servility in those dominated. I argue that republican accounts of domination can provide a powerful analysis of the nature of legal and institutional power that is encountered by people with mental disorders or cognitive disabilities. In doing so, I demonstrate that non‐domination is an ideal which is pertinent, distinctive, and desirable in thinking through psychological disability. Finally, I evaluate republican strategies for contesting domination, focusing on the limits of contestatory democracy, and proposing a participatory alternative which better addresses problems of political agency in the mentally disordered and cognitively disabled.