Disability, Relational Equality, and the Expressivist Objection

Abstract

Proponents of the expressivist objection argue that the use and provision of testing to select against disability in offspring express negative judgments about existing persons with disabilities. But does the expression of such judgments also wrong those persons? This paper argues that whether the expressivist objection succeeds will ultimately depend on whether a plausible explanation can be supplied for how persons with disabilities are wronged by the expression of negative judgments and that the literature on relational egalitarianism can supply such an explanation, albeit with important limitations.