RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Moving through capacity space: mapping disability and enhancement
JF Journal of Medical Ethics
JO J Med Ethics
FD BMJ Publishing Group Ltd and Institute of Medical Ethics
SP 748
OP 755
DO 10.1136/medethics-2019-105732
VO 47
IS 11
A1 Nicholas Greig Evans
A1 Joel Michael Reynolds
A1 Kaylee R Johnson
YR 2021
UL http://jme.bmj.com/content/47/11/748.abstract
AB In this paper, we highlight some problems for accounts of disability and enhancement that have not been sufficiently addressed in the literature. The reason, we contend, is that contemporary debates that seek to define, characterise or explain the normative valence of disability and enhancement do not pay sufficient attention to (1) a wide range of cases, and (2) the transition between one state and another. In section one, we provide seven cases that might count as disability or enhancement. We explain why (with the exception of the first two, which lay the groundwork for the others) each case might count, and on what basis, and why it is been neglected. Each case is explained as a transition in what we call capacity space. We then argue that no definition of disability or enhancement addresses all of these cases, except for strict welfarist accounts of disability that do not rely on a depiction of any particular capacity. We argue further, however, that this is a serious deficiency of welfarist conceptions of disability. We then address objections to our account.