Abstract
Recent discussions surrounding the conceptualising of disability has resulted in a stalemate between British sociologists and philosophers. The stagnation of theorizing that has occurred threatens not only academic pursuits and the advancement of theoretical interpretations within the Disability Studies community, but also how we educate and advocate politically, legally, and socially. More pointedly, many activists and theorists in the UK appear to believe the British social model is the only effective means of understanding and advocating on behalf of people with disabilities. This model, largely reliant upon materialist research traditions, contends that disability is a form of social oppression and hence, is a phenomenon that should be conceptualised in social terms. Individual properties such as impairments are disregarded as they are viewed to be unimportant in the analysis of the social causes of disability. Concurrently, many bioethicists and philosophers have embraced what Tom Shakespeare has classified as an ‘Interactional Approach’ to disability—that “the experience of a disabled person results from the relationship between factors intrinsic to the individual, and the extrinsic factors arising from the wider context in which she finds herself”. I intend to demonstrate that the benefits of the British social model are now outweighed by its burdens. I suggest, as Jerome Bickenbach has, that while it may be somewhat churlish to critique the social model in light of its political success, taken literally, it implies that people with disabilities require no additional health resources by virtue of their impairments. Despite the eloquent arguments that have preceded me by interactional theorists, none have been accepted as evidence of fallacious reasoning by British social model theorists. This article is an attempt to clarify why it is that the types of arguments British social model theorists have been offering are misguided. I suggest that the British social model, unlike an interactional approach, is unable to provide a realistic account of the experience of disability, and subsequently, unable to be properly utilized to ensure justice for people with disabilities.
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Notes
Shakespeare (2006).
Rioux (1997).
Oliver (1996).
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.
Shakespeare (2006).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
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 (1996).
Ibid.
Shakespeare (2006).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Bickenbach (2008).
Ibid.
This example is adapted from one of G. A Cohen’s originally given in a different context in Cohen (1989).
For more on this distinction that I did not elaborate on here as it seemed somewhat periphery, see Cohen’s example in the above note 19.
Shakespeare (2006).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Vehmas (2008).
Vehmas and Makela (2008).
Vehmas (2008).
Vehmas and Makela (2008).
Vehmas (2008).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Oliver (2007).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Rioux (1997).
Ibid.
It is important to comment briefly on this example. I owe my gratitude to an anonymous reviewer 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.
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.
Oliver (2007).
Ibid.
Colin Barnes, another founder of the social model, makes similar ad hominem arguments against a collection of essays edited in part by Shakespeare in 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.
References
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Bickenbach, Jerome. 1993. Physical disability and social policy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Bickenbach, Jerome E. 2008. Measuring health: The disability critique revisited. Paper presented at the 3rd annual international conference on ethical issues in the measurement of health and the global burden of disease at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, April 24–25, 2008.
Bickenbach, Jerome, et al. 1999. Models of disablement, Universalism, and the international classification of impairments, disabilities and handicaps. Social Science and Medicine 48(1): 1173–1187.
Cohen, G.A. 1989. On the currency of egalitarian justice. Ethics 99(4): 906–944.
Oliver, Michael. 1996. Understanding disability: From theory to practice. New York: Saint Martin’s Press.
Oliver, Michael. 2007. Disability rights and wrongs? Disability & Society 22(2): 233.
Rioux, Marcia. 1997. Disability: The place of judgement in a World of fact. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research 41(2): 102–111.
Shakespeare, Tom. 2006. Disability rights and wrongs. New York: Routledge.
Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation. 1976. Fundament principles of disability. London: Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation.
Vehmas, Simo. 2008. Philosophy and science: The axis of evil in disability studies. Journal of Medical Ethics 34(1): 21–23.
Vehmas, Simo, and Pekka Makela. 2008. The ontology of disability and impairment: A discussion of the natural and social features. In Arguing about disability: Philosophical perspectives, eds. Kristiansen, K., Vehmas, S., and Shakespeare, T. London: Routledge.
World Health Organization. 1980. International classification of impairments, disabilities and handicaps. Geneva: World Health Organization.
World Health Organization. 2001. International classification of functioning, disability and health. Geneva: World Health Organization.
Acknowledgments
For their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this article I would like to thank Frank Gairdner, James Stuckey, and Christine Sypnowich. I am also grateful to the editorial staff and the two anonymous referees for their thorough and thoughtful suggestions.
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Riddle, C.A. Defining disability: metaphysical not political. Med Health Care and Philos 16, 377–384 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-012-9405-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-012-9405-9