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The Picture Theory of Disability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2023

Steven J. Firth
Steven J. Firth*
Affiliation:
Department of Social and Moral Philosophy, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland
*
Email: shedlock2000@gmail.com
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Abstract

The leading models of disability struggle to fully encompass all aspects of “disability.” This difficulty arises, the author argues, because the models fundamentally misunderstand the nature of disability. Current theoretical approaches to disability can be understood as “nounal,” in that they understand disability as a thing that is caused or embodied. In contrast, this paper presents an adverbial perspective on disability, which shows that disability is experienced as a personally irremediable impediment to daily-living tasks or goals-like-ours. The picture theory of disability technically constitutes a species of relational approach because its analysis references the interplay between an individual and their environment; it differs from other relational accounts, however, by interpreting disability as a certain kind of negative experience—rather than a function of that relationship. This purely descriptive theory makes no normative claims about disability and operates as both a mechanism for the evaluation of the experience of disability and a heuristic device for the proper interpretation of disability. When disability is reframed in this way, the theory offers a particularist perspective which shows if, when, where, and how disability is experienced.

Keywords

disability theorydisabilitydisability studieshealthcarebioethics
Type
Research Article
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 33 , Issue 2 , April 2024 , pp. 198 - 216
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

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91. While some of the motivation to act in this scenario would have been from politeness, something must have triggered the need for a polite inquiry—likely the presumption of the difficulty and assumed goal of entry. While they may have extended the same courtesy to someone who was lost, there would have been no need to have ‘resolved’ the entrance issue.

92. See note 1, Firth 2015.

93. I use this term loosely; it does not relate to the Husserlian movement.

94. See note 5, Savulescu, Kahane, 2011.

95. It is possible to extrapolate generalised and broad-spectrum ameliorations from those case in which a similar adjustment has been made for multiple persons with a certain set of experiences of disability. In as much, it is possible for the theory to advocate for something like ‘chirping crosswalks’ by noting that such a modification has improved the experiences of many elderly, blind, or other cross-walk users.

96. See note 5, Savulescu, Kahane 2011, at 43. Emphasis mine.