Philosophical Topics

Volume 49, Issue 1, Spring 2021

Social Visibility

Valuing the Lives of People with Profound Intellectual Disabilities

Some prominent contemporary ethicists, including Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan, do not consider human beings with profound intellectual disabilities to have the same moral status as “normal” people. They hold that individuals who lack sufficiently sophisticated cognitive abilities have the same moral value as nonhuman animals with similar cognitive capacities, such as pigs or dogs. Their goal—to elevate the moral standing of sentient nonhuman animals—is an admirable one which I share. I argue, however, that their strategy does not, in fact, achieve this goal and that there are better ways to advance it than to attach lesser value to the lives of profoundly intellectually disabled persons.