Disability

Banno

The critique of social contract dogma is particularly salient:

People with disabilities may not be free or independent; and those with severe mental disabilities may be unequal. Nussbaum argues that such people should nevertheless be considered full citizens entitled to dignified lives, even if no one could gain from cooperating with them. She notes that the social contract tradition has always denied the reality of dependency, despite the obvious fact that everyone is dependent on others during infancy, old age, injury, and illness. Historically women have done most of the largely unpaid work of caring for dependents, so by ignoring women, the social contract theorists conveniently evaded the thorny issue of justice for dependents and caregivers. Nussbaum argues that justice for people with disabilities should include whatever special arrangements are required for them to lead a dignified life, and the work of caring for them should be socially recognized, fairly distributed, and fairly compensated. — Jean Chambers

Moliere

Why not just that some folk dance on their legs, others in their chair?

Note that this removes the impairment? — Banno

I haven't read the links yet, but to answer: I was thinking of your example of the warriors who were treated the same while being impaired and attempting to generalize.

In the specific case of dancing I think "Some folk dance on their legs, others in their chair" is perfect.

Moliere

Though then I think against that thought, as I do -- there is also the case of a person would rather not be such-and-such, in which case impairment might fit too.

Banno

↪Moliere

,

↪Moliere

yep.

DO you find it interesting how ubiquitous and indelible the idea of deficit is?

Moliere

↪Banno

Yes.

frank

Recently an elderly blind gentleman became frustrated because, while in the hospital, the fact that he's disabled was not communicated from day shift to night shift. Night staff came into his room unaware that he was blind. He had to explain it and all the accommodations he required.

Much turmoil was raised because he had to do this. Corrective action was required in the form of staff re-education on the importance of smooth transitions between shifts and what not. New emphasis was placed on shift communication taking place at the bedside, in front of the patient if appropriate so that things like blindness aren't overlooked.

Much eye-rolling did take place among staff, but rules that are enforced are followed, and these new rules were enforced. The question is: why? Why was one unhappy white man cause for such outpouring of regret on the part of the hospital?

Everyone who works at such hospitals knows why. It's because in this community, hospitals compete with one another for business. Hospitals spend money on grand education initiatives of all sorts because patient experience impacts the bottom line.

In short, the hospital reacted this way because money was involved. That's how the world works.

Hanover

↪frank

Not sure why you inserted his race or why you thought the motivation mitigated the outcome.

Should it be true that only certain. races are afforded appropriate care, that should be remedied, but the opposite shouldn't be suggested, which is that the privileges should be flipped.

You also needn't reject every aspect of an economic system to where you must reject even its positive outcomes, especially in this instance where you suggest purely altruistic motivations would have left him not fully attended.

Hanover

DO you find it interesting how ubiquitous and indelible the idea of deficit is? — Banno

The idea of deficits is entirely foreign in systems that place infinite value on human life, with such designations only existing in purely pragmatic contexts, as in, I am wholly insufficient to play short stop for the Yankees, but of exact worth to all others in all ways moral.

Joshs

↪Moliere

I'm suggesting that "disability" is largely a social construct based around socially enforced expectations of what an adult ought do — Moliere

Is medical disease also a social construct? If not, how do we draw the line between social construction and empirical fact?

frank

↪Hanover

My story was about how accommodations for the disabled come into existence. If you want to change the world, pay attention to how the world works. Philosophical finger wagging doesn't motivate. Money does. That sort of thing. But you glanced at my post from 10 feet away, saw the word "white" and reacted to that. That is a subplot to my story of how the world works.

L'éléphant

Is there a defensibly “normal” human body? — Banno

The study of human anatomy is where to start. If you're missing an appendix since birth, that's not normal. But getting your appendix removed later on doesn't cause any anomaly in bodily functions. In the end, you'd be missing an appendix but that's because you had it removed.

Banno

↪frank

Was his request unreasonable?

He saved staff time by improving communication at the shift change.

Banno

The study of human anatomy is where to start. — L'éléphant

SO a statistical average? And that provides an ought here?

Are you sure that's a good argument? How do we go from "you don't have a hand" to "You ought have a hand"?

frank

Was his request unreasonable? — Banno

I don't know. The day staff may have forgotten to explain how he wants his food tray arranged because they were busy doing CPR down the hall. The library may have put off installing a ramp because the roof fell in on the philosophy section. What's reasonable?

He saved staff time by improving communication at the shift change — Banno

The point was to increase staff time at shift change.

L'éléphant

SO a statistical average? And that provides an ought here?

Are you sure that's a good argument? How do we go from "you don't have a hand" to "You ought have a hand"? — Banno

Pardon me, but I didn't think you meant morally when you asked that question.

And why is the word normal in quotes? Is this a bad thing now to have normal standards? I think the anatomists speak without invoking the moral ought. If you were told that this baby has a tail, and according to the normal human anatomy, having a tail is an anomaly, why is that a moral/ought stance? I'd say, the doctor would probably tell the parents to get the tail removed. But then if the parents elected not to have it removed, then it should be respected.

Banno

The point was to increase staff time at shift change. — frank

In order to save them having to come back when the poor bugger couldn't eat. Call me picky, but being able to eat seems important to patient wellbeing.

frank

In order to save them having to come back when the poor bugger couldn't eat. Call me picky, but being able to eat seems important to patient wellbeing. — Banno

True, but I think he'd be able to eat, though he might end up with mashed potatoes on his hands.

Banno

Pardon me, but I didn't think you meant morally when you asked that question. — L'éléphant

The presumption that a disability is a deficit does exactly that, no? Perhaps not moral - although there are those who say disability is caused by the sins of the parents - but it's at least evaluative. This is the experience of folk with disabilities.

Banno

...but I think he'd be able to eat, though he might end up with mashed potatoes on his hands. — frank

Two things. Why should it be you making that judgement rather than him? For you to decide that him getting in a mess is OK? And what hospital is this, so I can avoid it. Sounds like the staff morale is shite.

Added: AS in, this seems not to be an issue of disability, but of hospital management.

Jamal

So it’s not their body that is disabling so much as its interaction with its environment. — Banno

the social model; the view that disability is largely created by architectural barriers, institutional practices, and social attitudes that fail to accommodate human variation. — Banno

That rather than being inherently negative, having a disability is just one more way of being a human, not inherently a disadvantage or a negative, but treated as such by many in the community. — Banno

I see a parallel in depression. A person with depression, it could be argued, is not incapacitated by a biomedical abnormality but by a disconnect between themselves and the social world. Depression is the lived form of the contradiction between human needs (for meaning, purpose, agency, etc.) and a society of alienation and domination. This contradictory interaction is constitutive of the personal "condition".

But I don't think this is a "social construct" model. The latter is too ontologically dualist, whereas this view is relational. So maybe it fits disability.

frank

Why should it be you making that judgement rather than him? For you to decide that him getting in a mess is OK? — Banno

It's a matter of dignity, isn't it?

Jamal

But I don't think this is a "social construct" model. The latter is too ontologically dualist, whereas this view is relational. So maybe it fits disability. — Jamal

I just did some light googling and inevitably it turns out there's a lot of work been done around this, all of which I'm ignorant of. For example, there have already been proposed social-relational models of disability, and maybe that's close to what I was getting at (though no doubt mostly without my Adornian dialectical framing).

Banno

↪frank

Seems simple enough. For the staff, one grumpy patient. For the man, yet another trip to an unfamiliar space full of people who will not listen. The cumulative effect of emotional micro trauma, of having to repeat the same thing over an over. It's a common grievance for folk with disabilities.

frank

Seems simple enough. For the staff, one grumpy patient. For the man, yet another trip to an unfamiliar space full of people who will not listen. The cumulative effect of emotional micro trauma, of having to repeat the same thing over an over. It's a common grievance for folk with disabilities. — Banno

I understand that. I was just playing around with all the different fictions people want to read into my posts rather than just read what I said.

Banno

↪Jamal

There's a huge body of critical theory relating to disability. "Crip theory" in particular.

Given the response to the pretty modest proposals in the OP, the audience here might be a bit too... shocked for a productive discussion.

Banno

↪frank

Fair. We don't have your background.

Jamal

↪Banno

Interesting. It might even be interesting to see if crip theory and some kind of Aristotelianism might be reconciled, though on the face of it that seems a bit mad.

Banno

↪Jamal

A bit of a stretch, maybe. But there is a respect for persons in, say Nussbaum and Witt, both classists, that is not found in what passes for Aristotelianism in the forum; and there might be some overlap. Witt is pretty wild in some regards.

I ran it through ChatGPT just to get an outline

4. Where links could be drawn
Relational flourishing:
Witt’s Aristotelianism already sees flourishing as dependent on social structures and relationships.
Crip theory critiques which structures are assumed “normal” or beneficial. One could interpret Crip theory as offering a critical corrective to Aristotelian flourishing: some “social goods” may harm disabled or neurodivergent people.
Negative capability / non-identical:
Crip theory, influenced by Adorno, highlights that some embodied or cognitive realities resist assimilation into normative categories.
Aristotelianism could, in principle, incorporate this: flourishing might include non-normative capacities as ethically and socially valuable.
Virtue as adaptation vs critique:
Crip theory emphasizes structural change to enable flourishing rather than asking individuals to conform to pre-existing norms.
This can be mapped to Aristotelian virtue ethics if virtues are reconceived not just as personal excellences but as capacities enabled by just social institutions.
5. Key tension
Aristotelianism tends to prescribe a “function” as a normative guide.
Crip theory tends to deconstruct normative function, especially when it enforces ableist or exclusionary ideals.
So the link is subtle: Witt’s Aristotelianism gives a framework for evaluating flourishing relationally, while Crip theory radicalizes the very assumptions about what counts as “flourishing” or “capacity.” The two could enter dialogue if you reconceive Aristotelian function in pluralistic or critical terms.

That second tension, the deconstruction of normativity, is something I have time for, and outside of Aristotelian thinking.

Moliere

Is medical disease also a social construct? If not, how do we draw the line between social construction and empirical fact? — Joshs

In making the distinction between disability and impairment I'm putting the social construct on the side of disability, and the body/mind on the side of impairment.

Here the relationship between doctor-patient is social, and the disease is bodily(or mental, since I see no reason to differentiate between the body and the mind when it comes to a medical model).

I can imagine a person saying they'd rather stay at home than go to the doctor to get antibiotics. That is, they don't want the cure. That one can refuse a cure is part of our social world of the medical model.

So, yes, in part medical disease is also a social construct -- and I'd try to parse it similarly to how I'm trying to parse disability now.

And I'd say both can be investigated empirically as witnessed by our current medical practices.

So we might say a person is impaired from using their legs after some tragic accident, and is disabled because we think of human bodies in terms of norms which include things like the use of legs -- norms which show up in architecture and all the various tools we utilize; in short the entire social-economic environment is reflected by these norms of the body.

Moliere

One way to differentiate between the medical and the social is to first set out what the medical model entails.

Roughly speaking: the medical model entails a doctor who knows about disease and a patient with a condition that needs a cure. Furthermore we generally operate under the notion of informed consent such that the patient's autonomy is respected even though they are in a weaker position with respect to knowledge.

With disability I can imagine people wanting this model in some cases. Nothing wrong with that as long as the patient is truly consenting -- i.e. isn't doing it just because everyone is telling them that they need to be cured when they are content as they are.

So insofar that we're not talking about disability in terms of a disease that needs curing with the assistance of a knower who will help the ignorant through the process of curing the disease I suppose then we're talking about disability in terms other-than-medical, other-than-disease. We might term this remainder, whatever it is, the social aspect of disability.

The state is not a doctor, and the social body can accommodate different bodies. And people ought not to have to prostrate themselves to gain pity and sympathy in order just to exist.

Disability

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