  Traditional philosophy paid almost no attention to the existence and experiences of people who are physically or cognitively impaired. That in the past philosophers only rarely took notice of disability is understandable, if not condonable. The general culture usually associates disability with defectiveness, insufficiency, and imperfection, in other words, with states that philosophy throughout its history has mainly aimed to transcend or overcome. Traditionally, philosophers rarely mentioned the kinds of impairments that are identified with disabling conditions. And when they did mention disability, their purpose almost always has been to invoke a limiting case (Silvers et al. 1998, 3), for example, babies so deformed as to vitiate the value of human life (Kuhse and Singer 1986), or adults too dependent and noncontributing to be parties to the social contract (Rawls 1985).