Beyond the ‘Veil of Ignorance': Political Theory, Disability and Mutual Dependence

The small attention paid by the political thought to the issue of disability is an immediate symptom of the complexity of a question of such a kind as to involve a revision and a reconsideration of the principal political categories. Since the 1970s, disability is the object of studies in complementary disciplinary contexts, from philosophy to sociology, from political science to literature. This issue was analysed in the political thought, with regard above all to the contractual logic of classical thinkers, such as Hobbes and Locke and in the light of Rawls’ more recent proposals. The critical perspectives opened by this this debate allow in general to underline the ambivalent nature of notions such as equality and reason, together with the possibility of tempering the Liberal Democratic model by building a society founded on ‘mutual dependence’.