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- Title
The medical model, with a human face.
- Authors
Koon, Justis
- Abstract
In this paper, I defend a version of the medical model of disability, which defines disability as an enduring biological dysfunction that causes its bearer a significant degree of impairment. We should accept the medical model, I argue, because it succeeds in capturing our judgments about what conditions do and do not qualify as disabilities, because it offers a compelling explanation for what makes a condition count as a disability, and because it justifies why the federal government should spend hundreds of billions of dollars, annually, on aid and accommodations for disabled people. After responding to a pair of objections Elizabeth Barnes has raised against the medical model, I contrast it with Guy Kahane and Julian Savulescu's welfarist account of disability, and with Barnes's own mere-difference view. Both of these accounts face serious challenges, although elements of Barnes's view can—and, in my opinion, should—be adopted by proponents of the medical model.
- Subjects
FEDERAL government; BARNES, Elizabeth; MEDICAL model; PEOPLE with disabilities; WELFARE economics
- Publication
Philosophical Studies, 2022, Vol 179, Issue 12, p3747
- ISSN
0031-8116
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s11098-022-01843-0