This is uncomplicated, but some contend that they would not arrange the procedure for any young deaf children they had, which is more complicated. — Jeremy Murray

A counterpoint to consider. I met a gentleman who was deaf from birth, now in his middle years. His parent refused to provide any remediation, including contact with other deaf people, in the belief that this would build his ability to adapt to "normal" hearing society and so position him well for a good life. However the result was that although he could not fit in well with the hearing, he also could not fit in with the deaf community, and so found himself isolated.

The attempt by his parents to maximise his opportunity had the exact opposite result.

There are situations that do not have an unambiguously clear response, situations in which we cannot know hat it is best to do and must muddle through. Seems to me that the best answer in such situations might be to maximise the available alternatives. Hence neither refusing a cochlear implant nor refusing participation in deaf culture would be appropriate.

This sits well with Nussbaum’s capabilities approach, providing the capacities that enable multiple forms of human flourishing.

The sociology professor appears to have privileged the supposed internal coherence of a schizophrenics self-talk over the social function of language. Internal coherence is not sufficient for social or communicative normality in the practical sense that matters for care, welfare, and interpersonal life. Again, your brother's capabilities are limited by his illness.

Mental illness and invisible disabilities do fit in to the social model, and can be dealt with using the capabilities approach. As for cost, I'll point again to the study that showed a multiplier effect of 2.25 for the NDIS scheme. Having folk with disabilities, indeed all folk, participate as fully as there capabilities will permit has a benefit to us all, even in dry economic terms.

A counterpoint to consider. I met a gentleman who was deaf from birth, now in his middle years. His parent refused to provide any remediation, including contact with other deaf people, in the belief that this would build his ability to adapt to "normal" hearing society and so position him well for a good life. However the result was that although he could not fit in well with the hearing, he also could not fit in with the deaf community, and so found himself isolated.

The attempt by his parents to maximise his opportunity had the exact opposite result. — Banno

I know of a person exactly like this, and it was and remains tragic just due to his social isolation. He did go on to get a cochlear implant, but he still has significant limitations understanding, likely from the limited language skills he obtained prior to receiving it.

The question of the cochlear implant raises is another one as well, which is whether one ought provide a cochlear implant if available. To do so requires a belief that normalization is better than allowing the person remain within the close knit and proud sub-culture the deaf have created. That is, it touches upon your question about whether being normal is the goal. It seems intuitive though to increase one's ability to interact with the world by providing hearing where it was previously lacking. The final rule therefore likely being that one ought do what increases the overall happiness of the individual even if it means tacitly admitting their former state was wanting from the state you are moving them to.

In any event, I draw a rigid distinction between ability and worth, with infinite worth taken as a given, undiminishable and not measurable by ability. That is, to suggest the worth of the deaf person has increased when he has been given the ability to hear is offensive. His worth is not to be measured in terms of the things he can do.

The final rule therefore likely being that one ought do what increases the overall happiness of the individual even if it means tacitly admitting their former state was wanting from the state you are moving them to. — Hanover

Ok. Good reasoning.

Perhaps look again at the capabilities of the individual - how are they to be maximised? Seems to be by participating as much as possible in both hearing and deaf communities. SO implant the device, and maintain contact with the deaf community.

Notice the absence here of "tacitly admitting their former state was wanting" ? instead we look towards maximising benefit - but not in terms of happiness so much as of capability. It's not worth that has increased, but capacity - they can do more things.

Really, it is an Aristotelian ethic. I find that quite curious.

Notice the absence here of "tacitly admitting their former state was wanting" ? instead we look towards maximising benefit - but not in terms of happiness so much as of capability. It's not worth that has increased, but capacity - they can do more things — Banno

But how would you justify a cochlear implant in someone feeling full fulfillment within the deaf community, having no desire to leave its comfort? Would you feel justified in insisting upon it even should the person feel overall greater unhappiness for having been pulled into the general world of the hearing?

Measuring "doing more" isn't just in counting new abilities, but in the value the person receives from them. If the person enjoyed that special comraderie of the deaf community, that thing will be lost, and it might have received great weight from him in terms of personal value not gained from hearing.

Consider SRS, for example.

But how would you justify a cochlear implant in someone feeling full fulfillment within the deaf community, having no desire to leave its comfort? — Hanover

Why would I need to?

Here's another phrase, prominent in the disability community, and promoted, if perhaps not coined by a very dear friend:

Nothing about me without me.

If they don't want an implant, I won't make 'em have one.





"Supported Residential Services"?

If they don't want an implant, I won't make 'em have one. — Banno

That is what I was agreeing with and suggesting your comments implied otherwise. You argued the maximization of happiness wasn't a proper objective but instead said maximizing benefit was the objective. While I suppose we could have talked past each other, I read "maximizing benefit" as something that could be measured by some observable criteria, whereas happiness is determined just by asking the person what makes him happy.

So, if you're saying maximizing benefit simply meaning maximizing personal preferences, then the distinction with that and happiness collapses for all practical purposes.

Forcing someone to have an operation looks to me to be very far from maximising their potential.

Here's a sample list of capabilities, from Nussbaum:

Life, Bodily Health, Bodily Integrity, Senses/Imagination/Thought, Emotions, Practical Reason, Affiliation, Other Species, Play, and Control over the Environment, ensuring basic freedoms like adequate nutrition, movement, education, love, political participation, and respect for nature and oneself.

A bit more than personal preferences.

And includes "bodily integrity".

So there is something a bit more sophisticated here than "happiness".

A bit more than personal preferences. — Banno

I'm not trying to over-simplify and can't disagree with Nussbaum's wish list of available capabilities, but I still abstract out the fundamental principle sounds something along the lines of advancing Enlightenment rights for the "pursuit of happiness."

So there is something a bit more sophisticated here than "happiness". — Banno

Happiness principles aren't unsophisticated. Given the centrality of the concept to Utilitarianism and the role it plays, 1000s of pages have been written trying to explain what happiness is.

But the quibble seems to be the way we wish to portray the same thing, less so the substance.

The driving force was disabled activists insisting that disability is not a deviation from the normal human body, but the consequence of social design. — Banno

I'm still having a hard time putting it this way. It's the same as saying that the infrastructure in place now is discriminatory towards and/or dismissive of people with disability. Or, the design itself makes them disabled.

But, to borrow a word used for workers, ergonomics is exactly the way we design things for the purpose of reducing or eliminating risk of injury based on the natural functioning of the human body.

Engineering and construction focus towards the functionality and usage by the average population. Which means the majority of the population should be able to use bridges, stairs, doors, roads, buildings, and vehicles with ease.

Engineering and construction focus towards the functionality and usage by the average population. — L'éléphant

Why? No one is ever average...

Why not accomodate the wide variety of human lives?

Too much trouble? The engineers aren't up to the challenge? :wink:

the fundamental principle sounds something along the lines of advancing Enlightenment rights for the "pursuit of happiness." — Hanover

Is this such a bad thing?

Hmm interesting thoughts. I think I stick by my initial take there, but I do see the truck in what Banno is getting at. I take it as tongue-in-cheek even if its not properly so.

I don't think it's that it's too much trouble, it's that running at the pace of the slowest drags everyone else down. Do the disabled have that right, in pursuit of their own? I don't have a position because they are in too high-a-tension to me. I am empathetic to the nth for those for whom better design would be advantageous, but I am also empathetic to the fact that those of us who do wish to 'race forward' in historical terms probably shouldn't be beholden to that framework.

This said, I actually agree with Banno on the restriction on enforced surgery. I think consent is fundamental. But this also commits one to antinatalism *shrug*. I don't, prima facie, have any discomfort with eugenics either, if pursuing 'a better life' in some Nussbaumian kind of way. The assumption on the capabilities take tends to be that "life is good". I don't really believe that, so its hard.

No one is ever average... — Banno

There is a pattern here in this thread. Rules are made up as we go.

Is this such a bad thing? — Banno

No, but I wasn't arguing it was a bad thing as much as I was saying we were agreeing with the happiness principle.

This said, I actually agree with Banno on the restriction on enforced surgery. I think consent is fundamental. — AmadeusD

All of this implies the disabilities we are referencing don't affect one's ability to give consent. Intellectual and psychiatric disabilities raise entirely different questions.

Why? No one is ever average... — Banno

If we are to consider disability a spectrum, with no one fully disabled and no one fully abled, but all of us at some point on the spectrum, then it would logically hold that we capture as many people along the line to allow them as full a life as possible, limited by our resources. That is, there is a bell curve of abilities, with most of us grouped in the middle (with me being an outliar of brilliance, a sage of the ages), and so we build a world that attempts to accomodate as much of that bell as we can, moving out to the extremes as much as we can. Those societal accomodations would flatten the curve, offering everyone closer to equal opportunity, leaving as few outside as possible.

I appreciate the generosity principle you identify in characterizing disability in terms of society's ability to accomodate as opposed to referencing the limitations inherent in the individual when compared to others, but I'd leave it at that, which is that the chararacterization is presented in order to provide respect and acceptance. If pressed though, I wouldn't be willing to then start suggesting there really aren't important physical differences that can be chararacterized as being less advantageous just because that position loses credibility in not recognizing certain truth.

Where we do agree is that human worth is not diminished by ability, and so I am in favor of doing whatever is required to keep that clarified, which includes creating a language that preserves that dignity and in modifying the landscape so that it is more universally navigable.

I am empathetic to the nth for those for whom better design would be advantageous, but I am also empathetic to the fact that those of us who do wish to 'race forward' in historical terms probably shouldn't be beholden to that framework. — AmadeusD

So survival of the fittest?

No, but I wasn't arguing it was a bad thing as much as I was saying we were agreeing with the happiness principle. — Hanover

Well, I'll say "almost" and point out that Nussbaum, perhaps the foremost ethicist here, is a classicist authority on Aristotle, so let's call it "flourishing"?

But sheers to the sentiment.

If pressed though, I wouldn't be willing to then start suggesting there really aren't important physical differences that can be chararacterized as being less advantageous just because that position loses credibility in not recognizing certain truth. — Hanover

I don't think anyone is denying that wheelchair users need a wheelchair...

In any event, I draw a rigid distinction between ability and worth, with infinite worth taken as a given, undiminishable and not measurable by ability. That is, to suggest the worth of the deaf person has increased when he has been given the ability to hear is offensive. His worth is not to be measured in terms of the things he can do. — Hanover

To be clear: You promote the adversarial approach to human interaction. How do you reconcile this with your idea of a person having "infinite worth"?

The adversarial approach to human interaction implies that other people are expendable and can be destroyed; so, obviously, it's not a reflection of the belief that they have "infinite worth".