The Choice: Disabled and Expensive Preferences

Abstract

We usually distinguish between who we are, what we do and what we have, not only in our everyday moral life and reasoning, but in our moral theories as well, and we think that this distinction is a fundamental one. Although different authors draw this distinction among these things in a different though related way, it is especially prominent when discussing distributive justice. The authors that we label as "egalitarians" have debated this distinction since the eighties and have given it a central role in their proposals. Taking what these authors have in common, I will analyze the way in which the new genetic technologies have moved the line between disabilities and expensive preferences. I will also consider some practical implications of such new understanding.