 The lack of attention to “disability” or the related concept of “impairment” may have a simple explanation: there were no such concepts to attend to until nineteenth century scientific thinking put variations in human function and form into categories of abnormality and deviance. Once such categories were established, it became possible to talk, and generalize, about (first) “the disabled”, and (then) “their impairments”, and philosophers have done so for various purposes [Hacking, 1990; L. Davis, 2002: Ch. 4]). The resurgent political philosophy of the second half of the last century, preoccupied with eliminating or reducing unearned disadvantages, tended to treat disability as a primary source of those disadvantages, to be addressed with medical correction or government compensation (Cohen 1993; Sen 1993). Somewhat later, social philosophers began to see disability as a source both of discrimination and oppression, and of group identity, akin to race or gender in these respects. And biomedical and other practical applied’ ethicists have been concerned to help policy-makers construct and interpret new legal and regulatory frameworks making central reference to “disability” and related concepts.