Disability Studies Conference, Lancaster 2628 July 2004 Normative ethics and nonnormative embodiment

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Disability Studies Conference, Lancaster 26-28
July 2004Normative ethics and non-normative
embodiment

• Jackie Leach Scully
• Unit for Ethics in the Biosciences, University of
  Basel, Switzerland, and Policy, Ethics and Life
  Sciences Research Institute, University of
  Newcastle, United Kingdom

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• Why is embodiment ethically important?
• Moral codes regulate interactions between
  embodied persons
• Moral concern arises from sense of
  vulnerabilities resulting from embodiment
• Traditional ethics ignores embodiment as source
  of moral insight
• Feminist ethics ? gendered embodiment

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Non-normative embodiment

• Little account of ethically relevant aspects of
  bodily variation, esp impairment non-normative
  embodiment, even though
• - Beliefs about normative embodiment determine
  (medical and other) interventions thought
  appropriate
• -Beliefs about normative embodiment determine
• moral significance of anomalous bodies

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Theories of embodiment

• Biological
• Social
• Symbolic (language)
• Narrative/life course
• Phenomenological
• Psychoanalytic

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Theories of embodiment

• Biomedical
• molecular genetics
• derive embodiment from biological material
• deviations from biomedical standard as pathology
• Social constructionist
• social, historical, political aspects of
  embodiment
• loss of anatomical/physiological limits
• Both
• Lack adequate description of bodys ethical
  significance
• Lack conceptual resources for engaging with
  non-normative embodiment

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Does having/being a non-normative embodiment
modify ethical evaluations of individuals or
groups?

• Embodiment affects
• Kinds of experience (some unique to particular
  embodiment)
• Meaning of common/universal experience

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Non-normative embodiment affects moral evaluation

• Through political/ideological awareness
• Standpoint epistemology
• Eg in disability, consciousness of social
  exclusion
• Ethical prioritising of inclusiveness

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Non-normative embodiment affects moral evaluation

• Through local and interpersonal contexts
• Theoretical approach through habitus
• System of perceptions/ understandings/
  assumptions/classifications/ judgements etc
• Often not accessible to rationality
• How does prevailing habitus inform moral sense
  about non-normative embodiment?
• Eg Deaf culture preference for hearing
  impaired/hearing baby

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Non-normative embodiment affects moral evaluation

• Through relationship between body and thought
• Hexis embodiment of system of predispositions
• Pre-reflective knowledge bodily practices
  structure possibilities of thinking
• Cognitive science -- perceptual and motor
  knowledge affect mental concepts and forms of
  reasoning, eg metaphors

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Ethical importance of non-normative
understandings ethical concepts

• Feminist theorists argue that experience of
  gendered difference ? distinctive interpretation
  of concepts eg intimacy, detachment, connection
• Affect key concepts in ethical theory, esp
  traditional theories of justice, eg autonomy,
  independence

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Ethical importance of non-normative
understandings just representation

• If differential embodiment modifies moral
  perception, particularities of body/experience
  affect claim that some person can represent
  others in negotiations about justice
• Details of embodied subjectivity, as perceived by
  those directly concerned, essential to improve
  fairness of political and policy decisions

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Ethical importance of non-normative
understandings recognition of marginality

• Recognition of marginalised aspects of identity
  as worthy of consideration, not subjugated or
  disruptive
• ?Strong ethical imperative for collection of
  empirical data on phenomenology of disabled
  experience and effect on aspects of moral
  understanding.