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?

LOL, fair enough - fwiw, I often see the same problem. I just don't have productivity as a benchmark around here :)

Not strictly, but you can be found to have violated some of our disability legislation if there's any conflict between your use and another, lets say more deserving party.

It's generally policed socially. Plenty will cause more of a legal issue pointing it out, than using htem does. My comment was about the complaints in creating the toilets - where there are already male/female stall toilets. For instance, my office has one. We have never, in over 20 years (i've not been here the entire time) required one for any disabled person. The cost was still required (and for good reason, i'm just delineating between complaining that disabled people get their own toilets or whatever and a purely economical one).

We have never, in over 20 years (i've not been here the entire time) required one for any disabled person. — AmadeusD

Given that one in six folk have a disability, your organisation might do well to reconsider it's clientele and hiring strategy. Or is your accessible toilet at the top of the stairs?

But here's the reason your contributions are unproductive: they express personal opinions and anecdotes.

The three most common impairment types New Zealanders experienced were mobility (13 percent), hearing (9 percent) and agility (7 percent). — Appendix: disabled people population and life outcome statistics

Is disability a social construction? Is there a coherent way to define disability at all? — Banno

In the UK there is this definition which seems relevant:

6 Disability
(1) A person (P) has a disability if—

(a) P has a physical or mental impairment, and

(b) the impairment has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on P's ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities. — Equality Act 2010

Although this looks like it has a formal diagnostic element ('impairment') and a functional element, apparently it doesn't in law. A diagnosis isn't necessary although some diagnoses are automatically sufficient. All you really need to show is that there is something about you can name or describe (an 'impairment') that means you are not able to carry out day-to-day activities that most people can manage without much difficulty.

This definition is neutral in terms of the social and medical model. It does require us to come up with a standard of 'normal', but that normality could be in medical terms (P is disabled because of atypical brain function which prevents him doing day-to-day activities) or social (P is disabled because he is in a minority whose day-to-day needs are different and not adapted for by the majority). Where a minority congregate and become the majority, who is disabled and who is not may switch, according to a social conception. At Autscape, neurotypicals can feel very uncomfortable and struggle to integrate in the group.

Regarding the tension between medical and social models, it seems to me the main relevance of the distinction is in deciding what to do about a disability. Sometimes it's better to locate the problem within the disabled individual (medical model) where a relatively simple 'fix' is the best support, e.g. prosthetic limbs, which enables the person to carry out their day-to-day activities. Even then there may be elements of social disability remaining, perhaps the patronising attitudes of others result in the disabled person not developing the skills needed for the day-to-day activities as quickly as they might. The social model is especially necessary for those with invisible disabilities that do not have medical diagnoses, such as autism, where the diagnosis is based on a set of behaviours. On a medical conception, one could suggest that autism is a made-up thing, and as it doesn't really exist, autistic people are delusional and should just snap out of it. Autistic people typically are disabled - there are things they want to do, that most others can do easily, but can't, for example, go to a noisy pub or bar; or wash up before cooking dinner; or change classrooms unexpectedly, etc. The medical model (locating the problem within the autistic person) is useless - there is no pill that autistic people can take, trying harder only works for a limited time before burnout, cognitive behavioural therapy is worse than useless because it teaches them that they can change their abilities by changing their beliefs, and self-hatred results when this fails. The cure for autistic disability is environmental modification - quiet social spaces, avoiding sudden unexpected changes, setting up systems and routines for every task, answering questions with the detail required, and so on.

If a fish jumps out of the water and land on the path and starts exhibiting challenging behaviour, the medical model would have us fit it with artificial lungs and a trolley at great taxpayer expense. Proponents of the social model will pop it back in the water where it is not disabled.

Hard to figure out what you're talking about.

I gave you a fact. Suggesting we 'reconsider' our clientele is bizarre.

The link does not help, either. I am aware of those statistics (roughly). I suggest the lack of productivity around anecdotes and opinions in your approach. That's fine. But it's not my issue.

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

Thanks. I sincerely believe this to be a reality that gives one a unique perspective on ability, as taken with a broad perspective.

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. — Banno

Are you a proponent of virtue ethics? Your conceptualization of enlightenment ethical systems feels spot on to me, and I have been struggling to find a solution. Increasingly, I think virtue ethics allows for the nimbleness to make better ethical decisions in our age of rapid social transformation.

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. — Banno

I'm buying.

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. — Banno

Both of these look like excellent places to start. Thanks!