Might they be in a society of gingerphobes? — bert1

Ahh, that's an awkward one though because it has to assume the social model. In that society, we wouldn't put an amputee in the same category as a ginge, still.

A peg leg makes a lot more sense than installing foot-high platforms alongside all pavements for amputees to rest their stumps on. — bert1

100%. This is good, clear indication of what I mean in some significant way.

Ahh, that's an awkward one though because it has to assume the social model. In that society, we wouldn't put an amputee in the same category as a ginge, still. — AmadeusD

Maybe, but not if we're gingerphobic. We know, because everyone knows, that gingers are a bit lacking, bless them. Unfortunate genetics. Medical model.

Lacking what is my point? Its not ability-driven. It would be a purely social lack (i.e lack of social inclusion) which we don't consider a disability, even in the most staunchy leftist, rights-based thinking i know of.

Lacking what is my point? — AmadeusD

They lack social acceptability.

"We have the right not to be reminded of the ugly sides of life" is the usually unspoken stance underlying this topic.

Sometimes, this stance is even fully verbalized. I remember reading a story where a woman didn't want an autistic (IIRC) relative of her husband to be around her children, calling that relative "an abomination in the eyes of God". Or another one where parents were campaigning against a student with some obvious deformity attending the same school as their children, claiming that their children should not have to be "exposed to this".

What has changed from, say, 50 and more years ago, is that now people with various forms of deformity or disability are now more allowed to live among the abled than they were in the past, where they were often confined to various institutions or private care. So now more people who hold such stances as the parents mentioned above have cause to also utter those stances (not to mention that there are now communication platforms that didn't exist back then).

, I think 's account is correct - the term "neurodivergent" is broader.

I've found myself less and less dialectical of late. It arises out of my theological bent, where I feel the need to leave science in the lab and religion in the chapel, without any real need to figure out how they can mesh to a higher truth, but instead to give them each their time. It's like visiting divorced parents. You care for them both, you visit them both, but you don't put them in the same room. — Hanover

I've some sympathy for such a view, although I would phrase it quite differently. Scientists and philosophers are engaged in quite different tasks, so we might consider the terms they use as being from distinct language games.

But on the other hand, what is true for the one should also be true for the other. There ought be a way to interpret the work of scientists in philosophical terms, and vice versa, salva veritate.

And we might now agree that here is more here than just maximising happiness?

I've met that dog, too. My salutations.

To make my view explicit, I think the parents are correct in seeking to maximise the opportunities of their child, bit misjudged in denying the implant. The implant increases the available opportunities.

We should acknowledge that there is not always one correct decision. deontological and utilitarian ethics tend to treat ethical decision making as if it were algorithmic, as if there were a black box into which we feed the facts and out of which comes the one true answer. This is how rationality has often been understood... since what folk now sometimes pejoratively call the enlightenment. I think it fundamentally flawed. We very rarely face situations were one alternative stands out as the best; and yet we must nevertheless act. This is recognised in the ad hoc approach of virtue ethics, of which the capabilities approach is an instance.

My friend could not ascertain what the child wanted. — Jeremy Murray

I worked in this area. Given the uncertainty and the imperative to act, I would have looked for ways to begin integration while monitoring the result, modifying the process as things proceeded and within whatever budget was available. The process is ad hoc, and one would expect few people to be entirely happy with it. I'd sell this as heading in a direction rather than seeking to achieve an outcome, as making things better when we can't make things perfect.

I have much the same response to whining about the cost of accessible toilets. Fit one accessible ungendered toilet in instead of two small gendered toilets. The cost is comparable.

That is, think it through.

Invisible disabilities require wider compassion. Difficult, not impossible.

Perhaps start with The Ethics Centre's Big Thinker: Martha Nussbaum. Take a look also at The necessity of Nussbaum. Take a direction from the papers and books mentioned therein. Women philosophers seem to have a way of keeping ethics real, gritty and visceral.

They lack social acceptability.

"We have the right not to be reminded of the ugly sides of life" is the usually unspoken stance underlying this topic. — baker

Right, ok, I get that. I suggest this isn't a disability and should never be considered one. Social acceptability hinges on essentially infinite different factors and often has nothing whatsoever to do with actual ability - its just a feelies thing. That's not to dismiss isolation and ostracization. I've experienced enough. But its like calling harsh words "violence". It just violates the intension of the word.

More recent work has centred on the presumption that disability is inherently a bad thing. 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. It’s in this area that perhaps the most interesting recent work in the philosophy of disability is continuing. — Banno

Really. Interesting. I would say it is inherently negative for obvious reasons ('dis-'). How does the term translate into other languages? I imagine there's a variety of terms that have no negative elements.

Personally, if I was blind I would not be too pleased with people calling me 'disabled'. I would simply, if necessary, to be referred to as being 'blind'.

I have much the same response to whining about the cost of accessible toilets. Fit one accessible ungendered toilet in instead of two small gendered toilets. The cost is comparable. — Banno

I think, from my perspective, is that the whining tends to come from the issue of increased costs for little outcome (meaning, cost x to include an accessible toilet which can only be used by the access-challenged where there exists standard toilets. I think that's a reasonable whine, tbh, and your position is the solution. Although, that then runs into the male/female toilets thing but wrong thread.

I haven't been replying to you, . Doing so didn't look productive.

Is it illegal in NZ for folk without a disability to use a disabled toilet? That would be odd. How is it policed?