Mere Difference without Arbitrariness: A Normative Model of Disability

Rach Cosker-Rowland (University of Leeds)

Join Zoom meeting:

https://monash.zoom.us/j/86351045263?pwd=1gHMLhmDnXiFJIV0Jl8s6GxhgBgylb.1 

Meeting ID: 863 5104 5263 // Passcode: 184791

Abstract: According to Barnes’ solidarity model of disability, S is physically disabled in C iff S is in some bodily state X and the rules for solidarity employed by the disability rights movement classify X in C as among the conditions the movement is seeking to promote justice for. This model is attractive because: (i) it does not imply that being disabled is other things equal bad; (ii) it gives disabled people’s testimony significant weight in determining what it is to be disabled, and (iii) it avoids counter-examples to alternative models. However, many have argued that the solidarity model is objectionably arbitrary due to its reliance on the rules employed by the current disability rights movement. This paper proposes a normative model of disability that it argues can preserve attractions (i-iii) and avoid the arbitrariness problem. On the normative model, S is disabled in C iff S has X and the rules for treating people as disabled that we morally ought to accept and use in normal conditions hold that someone with X in C is to be treated as disabled. This paper also raises new problems for other recent accounts of disability which it argues that the normative model avoids.