Confessions of a bitter cripple (2015)
politicalphilosopher.net
politicalphilosopher.net
Surely it's easier to argue that we should have no people without legs rather than no people with legs
But that's not the question at hand. Maybe there's a benefit to diversity of perspectives. In which case the question should be is society better for having 1% (or 10% or 0.001%, anything above 0%) of the population disabled?
& there's the "everyone has different disabilities", some extreme would say I shouldn't've been born because I was diagnosed with ADHD. & the slippery slope of racial eugenics
Which all gets to this premise: we shouldn't be trying to create a world with a population of 10 billion clones
Now whether the natural diversity ratio is too high or too low, I'll reserve comment
I have never heard anyone be this reductionistic and be serious. that's not at all what the conversation is about.
> Maybe there's a benefit to diversity of perspectives. In which case the question should be is society better for having 1% (or 10% or 0.001%, anything above 0%) of the population disabled?
Pretty much all the elderly are disabled. I guess you're using disabled to refer to the young ones? Not all of us have been disabled since birth, either, there's accidents and diseases.
No, I think the question isn't "are we good for society?" The question is "are we allowed to exist, and can we have rights?"
I'm disabled. I'm extremely talented, I can still work, and I've contributed a lot at work, but I might not be able to keep my job in another five years. I'm still happy to have been born.
My mom was disabled (with a different disorder than me), and my grandfather too (with multiple things.) We'd have been euthanized in Nazi Germany for sure.
Are ethicists okay with me having bio-kids, who might possibly inherit my bad genes? I don't give a shit. Come at me, try and stop me. If I have to fight an ableist world to thrive and reproduce, that just makes me stronger than the abled people who can afford to be lazy.
I sympathize though. I never wanted to have children because of the inevitable hardships they’ll face in a post-climate catastrophe world. I now find myself pushed by the inertia of life, and beginning to prepare to have kids. There’s some part of me that won’t respond to the rational arguments. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be for people with inheritable disorders to face the choice of having children or not.
I assure you this is not the view of either Peter Singer or Jeff McMahan, who are mentioned by name in the article and whose work in this area is deep and influential. Whether this is the view of any philosopher at all I cannot say, but I doubt it.
Mozart was deaf and five of his six siblings died young. He was constantly I'll, couldn't figure out how to manage money, was physically deformed and died at the of 35.
https://www.grunge.com/194140/the-tragic-real-life-story-of-...
You have no doubt heard of Stephen Hawking, one of the great minds of our era and seriously physically disabled.
A controversial bit of trivia is that Ashkenazi Jews win a relatively high percentage of Nobel prizes. They also are a population that sees a lot of genetic disorders and no one knows how to really sort out if or how those two things are related.
Genius is defined in part by simply being different. Being different is often reviled.
What is a bad thing in some situations can be a good thing in others. Evolution sorts "good" adaptations from "bad" based on who survives long enough to pass on their genes and this is why Sickle Cell Anemia is common in some populations: It confers a survival advantage to the population as a whole for the gene to proliferate (though it's better for the individual to have only one copy, not two).
There is no clear bright line between disability and "normal people." We all tend to see a loss of various abilities as we age and some studies suggest that most people (around 60 percent) struggle with some ordinary tasks while two thirds of them actively eschew the label disabled.
Are you sure you aren't getting him mixed up with Beethoven?
I have bad knees. It would be better if I had good knees or if my parents had taken a test for bad knees (which exists in this hypothetical but not reality) and aborted babies with bad knees so they could have a child with good knees. If I could get my knees fixed I would. My life is nonetheless valuable and productive and killing me would be bad.
None of those statements are in conflict.
Improvement is change, yes. But that doesn't mean it's bad. Giving everyone infrared vision might be considered destroying non-infrared vision people and their culture but it's a positive overall (so many less burns!).
That is, there are those with a disability and everyone else is just "not disabled yet".
The same sorts of utilitarian arguments that have us euthanising the disabled would also dictate that the world would be better off without the elderly, injured veterans and workers and everyone else subject to the whims of time and fortune. They're breathing valuable air that could go to the young and healthy.
Trust your anger is dubious advice. If you apply the necessary disclaimers, it's fine, but, again, I don't get the sense that the author is balanced in this area.
It doesn't matter how right you are when you're hurting yourself. You're the only one who lives your life, the only one experiencing your feelings. The worse you feel, the worse you feel, and that's it. It can be helpful to let negative emotions drive you, but if you don't walk a razor's edge, those negative emotions will consume the things that make the effort worthwhile.
Life is a gift. Hardships are interference. At times, you have to deal with interference to get back to enjoying the gift. Maybe you're dealing with the interference on behalf of someone else so that they can better enjoy life - noble, for sure. But, the interference can be so ubiquitous that we center our lives around the interference, and here is where we lose the plot. Perspective allows you to see which interferences you need to deal with and which you can look through. Imo we're not really evolved to deal with the world we've built for ourselves, so it takes a good deal of reflection to gain a working perspective. Without that reflection, life can seem like a train of tragedies.
More of a rant than I meant, but take care of yourself. Take care of how you feel and see the world. No one can do it for you, and you're the one who has to feel the way you feel.
> "I have sat in philosophy seminars where it was asserted that I should be left to die on a desert island if the choice was between saving me and saving an arbitrary non-disabled person"
I would compare this to situations where you are choosing a person with high IQ vs low IQ, or to choosing someone very attractive vs very ugly. The way I see it is these choices are completely rational and not a moral judgement on the people themselves.
I'm not angry because some people are more attractive, smarter or more charismatic than me and therefore have more access to opportunities. That is just the way humans work.
Interestingly, anger and bitterness is also the same reaction that men who are "incels" or who become disillusioned with women tend to have. Though they are shunned for this, whereas I doubt people will be shunning the author for their point of view. Perhaps this type of reaction is the generic reaction people have when they are rejected or shunned from society in some way.
To me, it sounds like the author is angry that people perceive disabled people as being worth less than able people.
I see this as being in line with the experience of incels because their perceived worth is so low that no woman wants to be with them.
I wonder how the experience of these disabled incels compare to people who are incels for other reasons.
You might have unexamined biases and assumptions about the nature of reality.
You might also be a little falling into the is/ought fallacy.
The decision you find easy, rational and ethical, is only so if you have one of a few particular views of human value and you hold it strongly/dogmatically and in your supreme surety have no scruples in executing that position on actual people.
Unexamined and implicit beliefs make life easier for normative people but they are not often intellectually rigorous.
> Is a person on the spectrum or with aspergers or with asthma more worthy of immediate death alone on an island compared to a "typical" person?
That is a nuanced question that I don't have an answer for. I would tend towards saying no though.
> The decision you find easy, rational and ethical, is only so if you have one of a few particular views of human value and you hold it strongly/dogmatically and in your supreme surety have no scruples in executing that position on actual people
I wrote my comment based on conventional societal views and under the assumption that all else equal, these are the rational choices.
I probably tend to align to societal views on this topic, but my comment was not really supposed to be a personal take.
I mean, it apparently is an easy choice since it's not your ass on the line
I've said that I tend to align with societal views, and my use of "rational" is in relation to what our society tends to value.
> I mean, it apparently is an easy choice since it's not your ass on the line
If you don't think it's an easy choice, I'd like to hear your reasoning for choosing a less intelligent/attractive/abled person given all else is equal in the desert island situation.
That's not an unexamined or implicit belief, and intellectual rigour is in this case only relevant when applying it.
Where is the is/ought fallacy in that reasoning?
I think there are two defining aspect to that "bitterness place" we associate with "incel philosophy."
One is intense philosophical rationalising of negative feelings. Hence incel "theories" with Chads, Statcies... latching on to OKcupid blogs and the typically bitter spins on sex statistics. It tends to resolve to very nihilistic worldviews. Incels are really just one famous subset of internet bitterness philosophies. There are many, and they often drift to recurring "bad old ideas."
I think that's the vibe you're picking up. The author is clearly philosophically oriented, and navigating her experiences this way. Since she seems to be in a bad place emotionally, her takes on philosophy have this ring.
The second aspect is a, partly imagined, negative "conversation" with society. Feel rejected by women, hate women, hated by women, rejected by society, reject society... People don't enjoy bitter company, and lack of company is embittering. Mutual shunning and conflict, most of it in one head.
I don't get this part at all. She's not rejecting society back, but is feeling somewhat rejected. She also seems quite self aware. "Try to channel my emotions into better philosophy," implies that previous philosophy wasn't.
Personally, I think people mistake what philosophy is. It's not usually a pursuit of truth. There is no "truth" about the worth of a person, society or whatnot. Philosophy (the ones she's engaging in) is about rhetorical frames, perspectives, ways of thinking. It's art. Philosophies are relevant sometimes sense, but rarely "true."
Peter Singers' utilitarianism (I suspect he's her main culprit) is dehumanising to everyone, if you think of it as applying personally to you. Earlier iterations (eg Bentham) have even resulted in nightmarishly dehumanising prison systems, factories and such. OTOH, it's also very affirming of altruism and has had positive result in this regard.
The way people feel about Singer tends to be closely related to their emotional state. One essay can be a call for some awful eugenicist nightmare or benevolent mutual love... depending on the readers' mindset and which threads they stretch to their "logical" conclusions.
Better to spend energy on the actual decisions people face.
for example only today in learned that 200sqm feed a human while the global mean agricultural land is 2000sqm per human. now what are the remaining 1800sqm used for, today? and back to ethics: why do humans still starve? who benefits from people starving or living in absolute peverty? which priorities do we need, as a species to change that? or what are the dsm.diagnostic criteria for people shrugging absolute pverty or starvation off as "such is the world?" that is an ethical questions to solve, imnsho.
This article was written in 2015, when this kind of dilemma (who would you save) was purely theoretical.
Fast-forward to 2020/2021, and it became real: we had to decide how to allocate scarce, life-saving resources -- COVID-19 vaccines -- and we decided to distribute them to the elder and most vulnerable first.
I hope this decision -- replicated in most countries around the world -- will put an end to this attempt to calculate the value of human lives.
The whole "lockdowns for everybody or grandpa might kick it" became a farce 6 months in, too. Why not just isolate the elderly and vulnerable then?
And there actually were unofficial DNR orders in the NHS, for example, and likely around the world, with people on Reddit supporting them.
Perhaps I'm overly pessimistic.
Vaccine distribution was given to those most likely to suffer negative effects. If covid struck entirely randomly there's no reason to prioritise it on the elderly and vulnerable, you'd look at maximising QALYS instead.
The result?
Hunger Games: Food Delivery Company Giving Vaccines Only to Best Gig Workers
As COVID deaths in Colombia reach an all-time high and a third wave of infections has left hospital systems on the verge of collapse, the massive delivery company Rappi said it would offer vaccines to its employees.
The catch: the delivery workers will have to compete against each other to prove they are the hardest workers to win just a handful of jabs.
Juan Sebastián Rozo, Rappi’s director of public affairs, announced this week during a local radio interview that the company will give vaccines to the five percent of its delivery workers who “deliver the most orders, spend the most time logged into the app and because of that are the most exposed.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkbqdg/hunger-games-food-del...
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In other words: between a 20-years-old who works full-time and a 40-years-old who works part-time, the Rappi would give the jab to the 20-years-old.
So... don't take compassion for granted.
What gets me personally is the hypocrisy around it. "Don't worry, you're just as good as everyone else", "you can do it", "you can fix it".
But you know they don't mean it. So why say it? Ever think it makes the person feel worse rather than better? Probably makes you feel better, I guess that's enough of a reason to sugarcoat the truth.
Certainly not hypocrisy. It's platitudes. Polite, positive things you can say when you can't think of anything better.
>Ever think it makes the person feel worse rather than better?
What statements would make them feel better?
>Probably makes you feel better, I guess that's enough of a reason to sugarcoat the truth.
If anything, it allows them to avoid feeling worse. And why should they not be allowed to do that in a presumably casual conversation?
It does require a cold distancing to arrive at conclusions like that. Some people find it hard to betray their own internal moral intuitions. I think that that is a symptom of the radical subjectivism/individualism that is dominant in Western thought. The question then is, do you value your individual, subjective intuitions, or do you value objective, disembodied concepts? For example, some of the conclusions that Peter Singer has reached are controversial, but his lines of thinking are arguably consistent, insofar as his ultimate aim is toward a system that respects all sentient beings’ interests judiciously, and does not prioritize the interests of any individual.
The thesis of her tirade, the desert island and taking the "more capable" person, really left a lot of details out. It appears poised to support her argument rather than pose an interesting question. She claims she can find counter-examples, which she never mentions, and then continues on her tirade. This seems like an underhanded way to guilt anyone who might question her.
Here's an example where it becomes more interesting. Suppose you're on a desert island and you have 3 people. You, a disabled person, and an able-bodied person. Which do you choose to take?
Her implication is that you should take the disabled person. But in reality the _rational_ argument can go either way. I'm shocked that she missed this but also unsurprised. That is, rational philosophy is perfectly capable of addressing her argument without the need to inject several new variables that provide no value.
If you need someone to lift heavy things, and the disabled person does not have arms (or use of their arms), do they provide positive utility that enhances your survival? No. I think any rational actor can see this. In this case, it makes sense to take the able-bodied person. Ethically and morally questionable but certainly rational.
If you need someone to distill water, and the disabled person is a scientist, it would make sense to take the disabled person. You can make up for their shortcomings and the net utility is positive for your survival. Again, ethically and morally questionable but certainly rational.
I browsed the author's Google scholar page and am left unimpressed at the quality and depth of her papers. The URL of the website tells me all I need to know. I am unsure what the author is chasing but we can be certain it's not philosophy.
> And these things weren’t said as the conclusions of careful, extended argument. They were casual assertions. They were the kind of thing you skip over without pause because it’s the uncontroversial part of your talk.
Did I miss her refuting her own initial assertion later in the article? Are you teasing out or interpreting between the line the position you assert that she espouse because you got it from somewhere later in the article?
In reality, the person that gets saved is always the person that the savers want to save. From situation to situation there are a huge number of variables affecting what the savers' desire is. These situations are often unrelated to a person's disability status, and usually have a lot more to do with how much the saver likes the savee.
I'm physically disabled, and some big determining factors as to whether I will be helped or not are: how much I am liked by that person, if I can satisfy their religious or political ideology, if I can give them a way to help me that brings meaning to their lives, and if they can make themselves look like a good person to their peers.
The point of the exercise is to try to figure out which variables are most valued in theory.
When you're disabled you must come to terms with this reality and accept it quickly. You cannot waste time with theory. Theory will lead to your death. You must be practical and efficient to survive.
You can't just dismiss theory.
But you can accept it and design systems with that in mind.
So I guess I do like theory. But I think having conversations about how to force humans to behave differently is a waste of precious resources.
Human nature is to help disabled people when there is a surplus of resources, and to not help when there's not enough. So I think talking about what should happen during times of scarcity is not a good use of resources, because disabled people will always be abandoned when the resources do not exist to care for them. Nothing can change that.
Better to focus on building systems that reduce the severity and duration of bad times so they are short lived and prosperous times are longer lived.