Through personal narrative and philosophical argumentation, Eva Feder Kittay relates how raising a multiply-disabled daughter has altered her views on what matters and gives meaning in life. She explores such difficult topics as the desire for normalcy, reproductive technology's promise that we can choose our children, the importance of care, and the need for an ethic of care.

• Foreword by Susan J. Brison


• Author's Preface And Acknowlements


• Part I: Learning to Become a Humbler Philosopher


• Chapter One: On What Matters/Not


• Chapter Two: The New Normal and a Good Life


• Part II: Learning to Think About Choosing Children and The Limits of Planning


• Chapter Three: The Limits of Choice


• Chapter Four: The Ethics of Prenatal Testing and Selection


• Chapter Five: How Not to Argue for Selective Reproductive Procedures


• Part III: Care in Philosophy, Disability and Ethics


• Chapter Six: Dependency and Disability


• Chapter Seven: An Ethics of Care


• Chapter Eight: The Completion of Care: The Normativity of Care


• Chapter Nine: Forever Small: The Strange Case of Ashley X


• Bibliography

Eva Feder Kittay was Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University for over 35 years. She has authored and edited collections as well as numerous articles in the philosophy of language, feminist philosophy, and disability studies. Her pioneering work interjecting questions of care and disability (especially cognitive disability) into philosophy and her work in feminist theory have garnered numerous honors and prizes: the 2003 Woman Philosopher of the Year by the Society for Women in Philosophy, the inaugural prize of the Institut de Mensch, Ethik und Wissenschaft, the Lebowitz prize from the American Philosophical Association and Phi Beta Kappa, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Center for Discovery, an NEH Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the parent of a daughter with very significant disabilities.