Abstract
In this chapter I explore two main concepts. First, I ask how, if at all, health differs from disability. I argue that health and disability, when properly regarded, can be viewed similarly and that people with disabilities are rightly regarded as having a decrement in health. Second, I ask precisely what it is that we mean when we talk about disability. I explore the origins of the social model of disability and argue that while not without political usefulness, it is an incorrect way of viewing disability. Instead, I suggest that the interactional model of disability is a more accurate conceptualization of the experience of disability.
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- 1.
- 2.
Jerome Bickenbach, “Disability, ‘Being Unhealthy’, and Rights to Health,” Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics 41, no. 4 (2013): 821. (Bickenbach 2013)
- 3.
Ibid. (Bickenbach 2013)
- 4.
Ibid. (Bickenbach 2013)
- 5.
Ibid. (Bickenbach 2013)
- 6.
Ibid., 825. (Bickenbach 2013)
- 7.
Ibid. (Bickenbach 2013)
- 8.
Ibid., 826. (Bickenbach 2013)
- 9.
- 10.
Ibid. (Shakespeare forthcoming 2016)
- 11.
Ibid. (Shakespeare forthcoming 2016)
- 12.
Ibid. (Shakespeare forthcoming 2016)
- 13.
Ibid. (Shakespeare forthcoming 2016)
- 14.
Ibid. (Shakespeare forthcoming 2016)
- 15.
Ibid. (Shakespeare forthcoming 2016)
- 16.
Ibid. (Shakespeare forthcoming 2016)
- 17.
Jerome Bickenbach et al. “Models of Disablement, Universalism, and the International Classification of Impairments, Disabilities and Handicaps,” Social Science and Medicine 48, no. 1 (1999): 1173 (Bickenbach et al. 1999); Jerome Bickenbach, Physical Disability and Social Policy (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993), 12–15. (Bickenbach 1993)
- 18.
Marcia Rioux, “Disability: The Place of Judgement in a World of Fact,” Journal of Intellectual Disability Research 41, no. 2 (1997): 102. (Rioux 1997)
- 19.
Michael Oliver, Understanding Disability: From Theory to Practice (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 1996), 32. (Oliver 1996)
- 20.
The distinction has been acknowledged to originate from a distinction made by the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation in the Fundament Principles in a document released in 1976.
- 21.
Shakespeare, Rights and Wrongs, 34. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 22.
Ibid., 34. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 23.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 24.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 25.
Ibid., 50. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 26.
Even though this claim was made by one of the original theorists behind the social model, Michael Oliver, it still holds weight in my opinion. See Oliver, Understanding Disability, 31. (Oliver 1996)
- 27.
Ibid., 43. (Oliver 1996)
- 28.
Shakespeare, Rights and Wrongs, 29. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 29.
Ibid. 30. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 30.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 31.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 32.
Jerome E. Bickenbach, “Measuring Health: The Disability Critique Revisited,” (paper presented at the Third Annual International Conference on Ethical issues in the Measurement of Health and the Global Burden of Disease at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, April 24–25, 2008). (Bickenbach 2008)
- 33.
Ibid. (Bickenbach 2008)
- 34.
This example is adapted from one of G. A Cohen’s originally given in a different context in “On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice,” Ethics 99, no. 4 (1989): 919. (Cohen 1989)
- 35.
For more on this distinction that I did not elaborate on here as it seemed somewhat periphery, see Cohen’s example in “On the Currency of Egalitarian Justice.”
- 36.
Shakespeare, Rights and Wrongs, 35. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 37.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 38.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 39.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 40.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 41.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 42.
Ibid., 36. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 43.
Ibid. (Shakespeare 2006)
- 44.
Simo Vehmas, “Philosophy and Science: The Axes of Evil in Disability Studies,” Journal of Medical Ethics, 34, no. 1 (2008): 21, 22. (Vehmas 2008)
- 45.
- 46.
Vehmas, Axes of Evil, 22. (Vehmas 2008)
- 47.
Vehmas and Makela, Ontology of Impairment, 47. (Vehmas and Makela 2008)
- 48.
Vehmas, Axes of Evil, 22. (Vehmas 2008)
- 49.
Ibid., 23. (Vehmas 2008)
- 50.
Ibid. (Vehmas 2008)
- 51.
Ibid. (Vehmas 2008)
- 52.
Ibid., 21. (Vehmas 2008)
- 53.
Michael Oliver, “Disability Rights and Wrongs?,” Disability & Society, 22, no. 2 (2007): 233. (Oliver 2007)
- 54.
Ibid., 232. (Oliver 2007)
- 55.
Ibid., 232. (Oliver 2007)
- 56.
Rioux, World of Fact, 109. (Rioux 1997)
- 57.
Ibid. (Rioux 1997)
- 58.
It is important to comment briefly on this example. I owe my gratitude to an anonymous reviewer at Medicine, Health Care, and Philosophy, who astutely highlighted this point. This example might not be fitting as it essentially involves a fantasy figure, and a discussion of the ontology of Santa can be unclear. While I concede that a discussion of the ‘real’ ontology of Santa Claus would be unclear, the example is primarily about the type of question one is asking. The fact that Santa Claus is a fantasy figure does not impact the type of question being asked about him. It will of course, affect the answer we give. However, the main purpose of this article is to explore how the type of the question we are asking about disability has framed our discussions. Even if we cannot discuss a real ontology of Santa Claus, the types of initial questions we ask to discover that Santa Claus is a fantasy figure are metaphysical in nature. We can modify this example to not include a fantasy figure however. Take the example of a fatal illness. Imagine a young child were to overhear parents and a physician discussing a parent’s cancer. The child, concerned about her parent, asks what cancer is. Here we have the question: “What is cancer?” The parents’ response, not wanting to upset their child, is a lie. They do not tell the child that cancer is a disease involving unregulated cell growth. They do this because they are concerned about a different thing than what cancer is metaphysically. They are concerned about the uncomfortable implications associated with answering the question by focusing on the ontological aspect of the query. Conversely, physicians are concerned about discovering the reality about cancer. They are focused on metaphysical questions about what cancer is when they ask “What is cancer?” They ignore uncomfortable implications associated with categorizing it as a harmful unregulated growth of cells. They do this because they realize that despite these potentially uncomfortable implications, knowledge about the true nature of cancer will benefit individuals greatly.
- 59.
Similar to the above note, we can remove this example from the realm of fantasy. We can instead, modify it to acknowledge that while it might not be the correct time to tell a child that her parent is dying in a hospital, or at such a young age if the parent will live until the child will be more mature and more capable of understanding the gravity of the situation, that at a particular point one will do further harm to a child by avoiding the uncomfortable implications associated with the reality of the situation.
- 60.
Oliver, Rights and Wrongs, 230. (Oliver 2007)
- 61.
Ibid. (Oliver 2007)
- 62.
Colin Barnes, another founder of the social model, makes similar ad hominem arguments against a collection of essays edited in part by Shakespeare in: Colin Barnes, Review of Arguing About Disability: Philosophical Perspectives, ed. Kristjana Kristiansen, Simo Vehmas, and Tom Shakespeare, Disability & Society, 25, no. 2 (2010): 123 (Barnes 2010). He suggests that the collection, due to it originating from a philosophical perspective, employed difficult, opaque language, and ultimately, advanced nothing of worth for the policy world.
Bibliography
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Vehmas, Simo, and Pekka Makela. “The Ontology of Disability & Impairment: A Discussion of the Natural and Social Features.” In Arguing about Disability: Philosophical Perspectives, edited by Kristjana Kristiansen, Simo Vehmas, and Tom Shakespeare, 42–56. London: Routledge, 2008.
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Riddle, C.A. (2017). Disability and Health. In: Human Rights, Disability, and Capabilities. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59993-3_3
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