AG Heinzelmann, 07.11.2025 Disability as a Lack of Society-relative Abilities

Recent years have seen increased interest in ability-based views of disability, i.e., views on which disability is characterized as a lack of certain abilities. The primary question that proponents of ability-based views have focused on is: which inabilities (to perform which sort of activities) constitute disabilities? Intuitively, not just any inability makes someone disabled. We thus need a restriction on the set of inabilities that matters. Two broad approaches have been defended: naturalistic views hold that having a disability is, roughly, to lack certain species-normal abilities; evaluative views say that the relevant inabilities are determined by some social or political criterion.

Theorists’ focus on spelling out which inabilities matter has distracted from another, equally important problem: what type of inability matters? Metaphysical work on abilities introduces various helpful distinctions. Comparing different ability-based views through the lens of these distinctions helps structure the debate. Two points in particular can help us make progress. First, we should ask about the background circumstances against which we ought to assess whether someone has or lacks an ability. Second, we should consider the level of grain at which the relevant abilities are to be specified. I argue that attending to these points raises a number of challenges for existing ability-based views and helps motivate a different view: disability is a lack of society-relative abilities. Finally, I argue that my preferred view has an important advantage over other ability-based views: it doesn’t imply that disability is a ‘bad difference’. 

Sophie Kikkert is a postdoctoral researcher at the Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (MCMP), LMU Munich. Her work connects social philosophy, modal epistemology, metaphysics, and practical rationality. She focuses on how social contexts affect people’s access to their own abilities, what options they should rationally represent given their beliefs about those abilities, and developing a new theory of disability that incorporates embodiment and normative aspects of abilities. Recent publications include critiques of disability models in Topoi (2024) and contributions on epistemic challenges in self-knowledge for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2025).