Exploring the Moral Dimensions of the Social Model of Disability

• In Event: Practicing Disability Studies in Education, Acting Toward Social Change

Abstract

Objectives/Purposes/Perspective/Theoretical Framework

Years of debate about the epistemological and ontological status of disability have ensued since the face-off between the long dominant medical versus the insurgent social models of disability (See for example: Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2010, 2011). In the midst of this dispute, disability studies scholars have further probed the sufficiency with which the social model of disability captures or represents the experience of disability (See for example: Crow, 1996; Davis, 2002; French, 1993; Shakespeare, 2006). Perhaps the difficulty in both instances has not so much to do with how we describe or define disability as much as it has to do with understanding disability as a moral category. The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, I put forth what I believe is a convincing case that disability is indeed a moral category and propose that understanding it as such has the potential to expand the emancipatory impact of the social model. Second, I offer an exploration of three areas of moral philosophy in an effort to provide some initial context or scaffolding useful for engaging disability as a moral category.

Moral philosophy, or ethics as it is most often referred to, is a branch of philosophy encompasses an extensive array of theories and schools of thought, none of which can be covered extensively in the context of one paper. For this reason, I have selected utilitarianism, communitarianism, and the moral bases for the political philosophy known as libertarianism as the three lenses through which to explore the moral nature of disability.

At the center of communitarianism is the relationship between the individual and the community. In fact, communitarian philosophy is predicated on the recognition that individuality is a product of community relationships rather than individual traits. Put differently, communitarian philosophers question the very notions of the “individual” and “selfhood” in that each of us can only come to know ourselves through our relationships with others within the socially, culturally, and historically contingent contexts that give meaning to our choices, dispositions, proclivities, and so on. In his celebrated work, Sources of the Self, philosopher Charles Taylor (1989) prompted just such a fundamental reconstruction of our understanding of selfhood (see also: Taylor, 1991). Interestingly, Sandel’s (2009) book, The Case Against Perfection, spoke directly to the issue of modern genetic engineering, a matter of no small importance to the disability community. Does philosophical communitarianism provide us with the best moral framework for disability advocacy?

Mode of Inquiry/Data Sources/ Conclusions/Warrants for Argument/Scholarly Significance

What principles or concepts should guide our thoughts and conduct toward other sentient beings? How do we decide one course of action is better or superior to others when confronted by choices that can create agony or joyfulness and those that can promote discord or harmony? This paper draws upon major moral and political philosophers to examine three schools of moral/political thought of interest to the disability community, the promotion of inclusion/equity, and its implications for the social model of disability.

Author

• Deborah J. Gallagher, University of Northern Iowa