Arguing about Disability: Philosophical Perspectives

233 Pages·2008·2.11 MB·English

by  Kristjana Kristiansen

Arguing about Disability
Disability is a thorny and muddled concept – especially in the field of disability
studies – and social accounts contest with more traditional biologically based
approaches in highly politicised debates. Sustained theoretical scrutiny has
sometimes been lost among the controversy, and philosophical issues have often
been overlooked in favour of the sociological. Arguing about Disability fills that
gap by offering analysis and debate concerning the moral nature of institutions,
policy and practice and their significance for disabled people and society.
This pioneering collection is divided into three parts covering definitions
and theories of disability, disabled people in society and applied ethics. Each
contributor – drawn from a wide range of academic backgrounds including
disability studies, sociology, psychology, education, philosophy, law and health
science – uses a philosophical framework to explore a central issue in disability
studies. The issues discussed include personhood, disability as a phenomenon,
social justice, discrimination and inclusion.
Providing an overview of the intersection of disability studies and philosophical
ethics, Arguing about Disability is a truly interdisciplinary undertaking. It will be
invaluable for all academics and students with an interest in disability studies or
applied philosophy, as well as disability activists.
Kristjana Kristiansen is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway.
Simo Vehmas is Professor at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland.
Tom Shakespeare is Research Fellow at the Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences
Research Institute (PEALS), Newcastle University, UK.

Arguing about Disability
Philosophical perspectives
Edited by Kristjana Kristiansen,
Simo Vehmas and Tom Shakespeare
First published 2009
by Routledge
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© 2009 selection and editorial matter, Kristjana Kristiansen, Simo Vehmas
and Tom Shakespeare; individual chapters, the contributors
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Arguing about disability: philosophical perspectives/edited by Kristjana
Kristiansen, Simo Vehmas and Tom Shakespeare.
p. cm.
1. Disability studies. 2. Sociology of disability. 3. People with
disabilities – Social conditions. I. Kristiansen, Kristjana. II. Vehmas, Simo.
III. Shakespeare, Tom, 1996–
HV1568.2.A74 2008
305.9’08 – dc22
2008009464
ISBN 0-203-89157-0 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 10: 0-415-45595-2 (hbk)
ISBN 10: 0-203-89157-0 (ebk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-45595-4 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-89157-5 (ebk)
Contents
Notes on contributors vii
Introduction: the unavoidable alliance of
disability studies and philosophy 1
SIMO VEHMAS, KRISTJANA KRISTIANSEN AND TOM SHAKESPEARE
PART I
Metaphysics 13
1 Social justice and disability: competing interpretations
of the medical and social models 15
STEVEN R. SMITH
 2  Definitions of disability: ethical and other values  30
STEVEN D. EDWARDS
3 The ontology of disability and impairment: a discussion
of the natural and social features 42
SIMO VEHMAS AND PEKKA MäKELä
4 Disability and the thinking body 57
JACKIE LEACH SCULLY
PART II
Political philosophy 75
5 Personhood and the social inclusion of people with disabilities:
a recognition-theoretical approach 77
HEIKKI IKäHEIMO
6 Disability and freedom 93
RICHARD HULL
7 Disability, non-talent and distributive justice  105
JEROME E. BICKENBACH
vi Contents
8 Gender, disability and personal identity: moral and
political problems in community thinking 124
TUIJA TAKALA
PART III
Ethics 135
9 Cochlear implants, linguistic rights and ‘open future’ arguments 137
PATRICK KERMIT
10  The moral contestedness of selecting ‘deaf embryos’  154
MATTI HäYRY
11 The role of medical experts in shaping disability law 169
LINDSEY BROWN
12 Prenatal screening for Down syndrome: why we shouldn’t? 185
BERgE SOLBERg
13 Biopolitics and bare life: does the impaired body
provide contemporary examples of homo sacer? 203
DONNA REEVE
Index 219
Contributors
Jerome E. Bickenbach is Professor of Philosophy and Law at Queen’s Univer-
sity, Canada, and consultant for the World Health Organisation. His research
interests include disability conceptualisation, ethics and political theory, espe-
cially theories of distributive justice.
Lindsey Brown is a researcher in Public Health Ethics at the Ethox Centre, Uni-
versity of Oxford, UK. Her training has been in law and she explores eth-
ics through socio-legal and empirical research. Her research interests include
health-care law, disability rights and bioethics.
Steven D. Edwards is Professor in the Department of Philosophy, History and
Law, School of Health Science, Swansea University, Wales. His main research
interests fall within the field of philosophy of health care, philosophy of mind
and relativism.
Matti Häyry is Professor of Bioethics and Philosophy of Law at the University
of Manchester, UK. He is the President of the International Association of
Bioethics, and his research interests include moral theory and the ethics of
genetics.
Richard Hull is Lecturer in Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Bioethi-
cal Research and Analysis at the National University of Ireland, galway. His
research interests include moral philosophy, political theory and bioethics.
Heikki Ikäheimo is a research fellow in philosophy at Macquarie University,
Australia. His main fields of interest are recognition, personhood, social ontol-
ogy and Hegel’s theory of subjectivity.
Patrick Kermit is a doctoral research fellow at the Norwegian University of
Science and Technology (NTNU). He has a degree in philosophy and is also
a sign-language interpreter. In his PhD project he analyses different ethical
aspects related to paediatric cochlear implantation.
Kristjana Kristiansen is an Associate Professor at the Norwegian University
of Science and Technology, Department of Social Work and Health Science.
Her educational background is in psychology with a doctoral degree in public
viii Notes on contributors
health. Her research interests are in disability studies, mental health and quali-
tative methodologies.
Pekka Mäkelä is a researcher in the Department of Social and Moral Philosophy
at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research focuses on collective moral
responsibility and the metaphysics of social reality.
Donna Reeve is a PhD student at Lancaster University, UK. She has an MA in
disability studies, and her research interests include disability theory and post-
structuralism with an emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to disability.
Jackie Leach Scully is Senior Lecturer in the School of geography, Politics and
Sociology, Newcastle University, UK. Her training is in neuroscience and in
philosophy. Her current research interests include disability and bioethics, the
phenomenology of disability and the limits to moral imagination.
Tom Shakespeare is a social scientist with an interest in bioethics. His books
include Disability Rights and Wrongs and Genetic Politics: From Eugenics to
Genome. He has been involved in the UK disability movement for twenty years.
Steven R. Smith is Professor of Political Philosophy and Social Policy at the Uni-
versity of Wales, Newport, and is a founding member of the Newport Social
Ethics Research group (SERg). His research interests include the philoso-
phies of disability, social justice and egalitarianism.
Berge Solberg is Associate Professor at the Norwegian University of Science
and Technology, Department of Social Work and Health Science. His research
interests are primarily in bioethics, especially prenatal diagnosis, the ethics of
pre-implantation genetic diagnosis and the ethics of genetic databases.
Tuija Takala is Senior Lecturer in Bioethics and Moral Philosophy at the Univer-
sity of Manchester, UK, and Adjunct Professor of Practical Philosophy at the
University of Helsinki, Finland. Her background is in philosophy, but she has
also studied medical ethics and law. Her research interests include the more
theoretical and conceptual issues of bioethics, such as notions of autonomy
and identity.
Simo Vehmas is Professor of Special Education at the University of Jyväskylä,
Finland. His training is in both special education and philosophy, and his
research interests include disability theory and the ethics of disability.
Introduction
The unavoidable alliance of disability
studies and philosophy
Simo Vehmas, Kristjana Kristiansen
and Tom Shakespeare
This book is about philosophers encountering disability and disability scholars
from various disciplines encountering philosophy. The aim of this collection is
quite straightforward: to provide: (1) theoretical tools for the conceptualisation of
disability; and (2) well-argued and well-grounded views on definitional and nor-
mative issues for professionals and policy-makers. What makes this book novel
is its focus on disability as a philosophical issue. Disability studies scholarship
thus far has been mostly empirical in nature and rooted largely in sociological
frameworks. Despite the in-built tendency to theorise disability in the social sci-
entific framework, ‘the development of social theory about disability is still in its
infancy’, as Carol Thomas (1999: 29) asserted almost ten years ago, an assess-
ment which unfortunately still applies.
Philosophers, for their part, have usually been interested in disability in relation
to major issues such as abortion, euthanasia and justice (e.g., Buchanan et al. 2000;
Harris 1993; Kuhse and Singer 1985; Veatch 1986), but their work rarely manages
to take into account larger contextual factors (social, cultural, political) that play
a major part in people’s disablement and which are substantial elements in the
formation of the phenomenon of disability. Fortunately, philosophical contribu-
tions sensitive to the complexity of disability have begun to emerge, but mostly
these contributions are focused on certain philosophical terrains, mainly ethics
and political philosophy (e.g. MacIntyre 1999; Parens and Asch 2000; Nussbaum
2006; Scully 2008; Silvers et al. 1998; Wendell 1996).
Roughly speaking, it appears that while disability studies research has pro-
duced a highly useful reconceptualising of disability as a social phenomenon, and
has produced useful empirical analyses, it lacks essential dimensions of theoreti-
cal scrutiny necessary to do justice to the complexity of the phenomenon. Philoso-
phers, on the other hand, have traditionally been sloppy in doing their homework
regarding the empirical realities and facts about disability, and have tended to
treat disability in a stereotypical manner (Silvers 1998; Wasserman 2001). Yet,
the conceptual and analytic rigour typical of philosophy seems to be exactly what
the theoretical development of the disability research field needs. This book aims
to fill this gap, providing both descriptive and normative dimensions of disability,
from various theoretical and practical perspectives. We hope that the chapters in