Disability is, by definition, a relationship between a person and their ability to perform some action; disabilities are thus not intrinsic. Instead, they are relative to a person's physical context - if they have a means for doing the action, they aren't disabled anymore. If you look around, you'll find that we all have technological aids to help us do things we couldn't do on our own.

In Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law, Martha C. Nussbaum writes:

[A] handicap does not exist simply “by nature,” if that means independently of human action. We might say that an impairment in some area or areas of human functioning may exist without human intervention, but it only becomes a handicap when society treats it in certain ways. Human beings are in general disabled: mortal, weak-eyed, weak-kneed, with terrible backs and necks, short memories, and so forth. But when a majority (or the most powerful group) has such disabilities, society will adjust itself to cater for them.

Thus we do not find staircases built with step levels so high that only the giants of Brobdingnag can climb them, nor do we find our orchestras playing instruments at frequencies inaudible to the human ear and audible only to dog ears. Even when a particular achievement is possible for some humans with great difficulty and extensive training, we typically do not demand it of all “normal” citizens. Thus we do not design the world so that only those who can run a mile in four minutes can manage to get to work. We develop prostheses — cars, trains, buses — to help us cover a mile in under four minutes.

The problem of many people in our society is that their disabilities have not been catered for, because their impairments are atypical and perceived as “abnormal.” There is no intrinsic “natural” difference between a person who uses a wheelchair to move at the same speed as a person walking or running and a person who uses a car to accomplish something of which her own legs are incapable. In each case, human ingenuity is supplying something that the body of the individual does not. The difference is that cars are typical and wheelchairs are atypical. Our society caters for the one, and, until recently, has neglected the other. ...

Put it that way and it does not sound very nice: why should mere atypicality give one a life of hardship? Typically, however, “normals” think of themselves as perfectly in order, and of people with unusual disabilities as the only ones with flaws: they are the bad apples in the lot, the spoiled food amid the healthy food. What does one do with spoiled food? Put it to the side (or throw it out), lest it contaminate the good. And the peculiar reluctance of most modern societies to tolerate the presence of people with disabilities ‘ especially mental disabilities ‘ in schools and public places betrays this same uneasy sense that their very presence will spoil the lives of others. The fact that our own lives are also frail and disabled lives is thus the more effectively screened from view. Politician Jenny Morris, a wheelchairuser, aptly refers to these policies as “tyrannies of perfection.”

I think that this passage brings up some very interesting issues because it seems to be more common to view a disability as a function of who someone is as a human being rather than as a function of their relationship to their environment. If we recognize disabilities as being the latter, however, then we also recognize that being “disabled” is dependent upon how that relationship is structured: do we make sure that people have the help needed to act in their environment or do we allow them to founder?

I say “we” because none of the things we use to better navigate our environment were created by lone individuals. We all work together to help each other overcome the “disabilities” perceived as “normal,” but not those disabilities shared by a minority of fellow human beings. Is this appropriate?

There is certainly something to be said for the idea that more of society’s resources will be placed in the service of those problems facing a majority of citizens rather than those facing just a small minority. On the other hand, when this disparity leads to unjust disparities in economic or social opportunities, something has to be done to rectify matters. This is made difficult by the perception that there is something “wrong” with those suffering from disabilities and that, in turn, might be alleviated by explanations like the above which help reveal that we all share “disabilities” in more ways than we may realize.

 

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