A note on morality as it pertains to disability...
“Debility, like certain other bodily states, triggers the imagination, causing us to consider the fragile and contingent nature of bodily life.”[1] This quote from Julie Livingston’s work on debility notes the key role imagination can play in the way we think about our bodies and our lives. This imagination can manifest both in our personal beings and in a social moral imagination that incorporates the culture and beliefs of our society into understandings of bodily ailments, including disability. Disability can be an immensely difficult topic to handle, as it limits the control that a person can claim over their own body. In order to grasp the vast and difficult concept, the moral imagination attempts to provide moral explanations in the contexts of social, moral, and even medical means. It may not eliminate the vulnerability and suffering associated with disability, but it can place that suffering within a culturally relevant narrative that provides meaning to something that can seem so senseless.
However, this somewhat positive lens can be distorted by the idealization of the body by the very same imaginative processes.[2] The “able” body gains even more importance as a moral component of one’s whole self, casting a disabled body as a corruption to this idealized morality. Through this process the body may gain a moral persona that helps to reconcile with disability, but that moral persona becomes more and more deviant as it fails to live up to the expectations of the imagined ideal body.
By these processes, concepts of the "big man" and "uselessness" construct the Sierra Leonean image of disability as one of corrupted morality. This image is found in the quotes in my field site pages, which reflect firsthand encounters with disability stigma. Understanding this morality is key to analyzing the current situation of those with disabilities, planning and implementing further actions, and anticipating the potential effects of such actions.
[1] Livingston, Julie. 2005. Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
[2] Wendell, Susan. 1996. The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability. New York: Routledge.
However, this somewhat positive lens can be distorted by the idealization of the body by the very same imaginative processes.[2] The “able” body gains even more importance as a moral component of one’s whole self, casting a disabled body as a corruption to this idealized morality. Through this process the body may gain a moral persona that helps to reconcile with disability, but that moral persona becomes more and more deviant as it fails to live up to the expectations of the imagined ideal body.
By these processes, concepts of the "big man" and "uselessness" construct the Sierra Leonean image of disability as one of corrupted morality. This image is found in the quotes in my field site pages, which reflect firsthand encounters with disability stigma. Understanding this morality is key to analyzing the current situation of those with disabilities, planning and implementing further actions, and anticipating the potential effects of such actions.
[1] Livingston, Julie. 2005. Debility and the Moral Imagination in Botswana. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
[2] Wendell, Susan. 1996. The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability. New York: Routledge.