Life Worth Living

Joel Michael Reynolds is associate professor of philosophy and disability studies and core faculty in the Disability Studies Program at Georgetown University, as well as senior research scholar at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics and senior advisor to the Hastings Center. He is the founder and coeditor of The Journal of Philosophy of Disability.

• Introduction: The Ableist ConflationPart I. Pain1. Theories of Pain2. A Phenomenology of Chronic PainPart II. Disability3. Theories of Disability4. A Phenomenology of Multiple SclerosisPart III. Ability5. Theories of Ability6. A Phenomenology of AbilityConclusion: An Anti-Ableist FutureAcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex

"In this philosophically ambitious and deeply personal book, Joel Michael Reynolds exposes the ableist mistake that has afflicted philosophy at least since Socrates asked what makes a life worth living. To repair the damage done by that mistake, Reynolds exhorts us to stop looking for the worth of human lives in individual ‘normate’ bodies and to start building systems of access and care that make it possible for people with all sorts of bodies to flourish. Anyone committed to understanding what disability justice requires should read this book."-Erik Parens, director, The Hastings Center Initiative in Bioethics and the Humanities "Joel Michael Reynolds’s The Life Worth Living is the most insightful analysis of pain since Elaine Scarry’s The Body in Pain. His phenomenology of foreboding, beholdenness, bioreckoning, and disruption is brilliant. And his critical engagement with ableist assumptions that run throughout the history of thought and continue into contemporary medical discourses powerfully demonstrates that these discourses continue to conflate disability, pain, and harm in ways that devalue ‘disabled’ lives."-Kelly Oliver, Vanderbilt University“The Life Worth Living…is a book that is indispensable to anyone with a philosophical interest in disability.”-Eva Feder Kittay, Stony Brook University“A work of remarkable breadth, beauty, and clarity.”-Licia Carlson, Providence College"A thought-provoking and important book."-Kim Q. Hall, University of Alberta“Scrupulously precise and systematic in its account of the prejudices against disability that have dominated not just general public opinion over human history, but have, according to Reynolds, determined our fundamental thinking about human life and how we assess its value.”-Terence Dick, for Akimbo"An important contribution to the growing field of philosophy of disability"-Jane Dryden, Mount Allison University "Cements [Reynolds’s] reputation as a trailblazer in the new field of 'disability bioethics' and establishes The Life Worth Living as essential reading in the genre."-Amber Knight, UNC Charlotte, for Radical Philosophy Review"In a book that is both refreshing and hopeful, Reynolds offers a novel approach [to thinking about pain, disability, and ability]."-Nancy Hansen, University of Manitoba for H-Disability"Reynolds carefully builds his arguments…[and] novel phenomenological examinations of pain and disability."-Samantha Berry-Sullivan, Utica University for CHOICE