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- Title
Disabled - therefore, Unhealthy?
- Authors
Aas, Sean
- Abstract
This paper argues that disabled people can be healthy. I argue, first, following the well-known 'social model of disability', that we should prefer a usage of 'disabled' which does not imply any kind of impairment that is essentially inconsistent with health. This is because (a) one can be disabled only because limited by false social perception of impairment and (b) one can be, if impaired, disabled not because of the impairment but rather only because of the social response to it. Second, I argue that it is often wrong to use the term 'healthy' in a way that makes health inconsistent with any degree whatsoever of health-relevant bodily dysfunction. Whether someone is 'healthy' properly-so-called depends on standards of health presupposed in conversational context. Sometimes, I argue, these standards are or ought to be lax enough to allow some people with some health deficits still to count as 'healthy' per se. Taking inspiration from David Lewis and Mary Kate Mcgowan, I go on to argue that denying that someone is 'healthy' in a context typically succeeds in shifting going presuppositions to require standards strict enough to make that denial acceptable. And this, I conclude by arguing, often constitutes an abuse of conversational power.
- Subjects
HEALTH of people with disabilities; DISABILITIES; HEALTH; SOCIOLOGY of disability; HUMANISTIC ethics; ETHICS
- Publication
Ethical Theory & Moral Practice, 2016, Vol 19, Issue 5, p1259
- ISSN
1386-2820
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10677-016-9735-4