Why we do not need a ‘stronger’ social model of disability

Abstract

Recent calls to amend the social model of disability to articulate and defend a broader set of rights for people with disabilities should be met with critical reflection. For example, Berghs et al. suggest a move to a ‘stronger’ social model - one that acts as a response to the threats against disabled people’s human rights. While the article brings to the forefront the many violations of human rights present in the lives of people with disabilities, it nonetheless mischaracterizes the solution. While people with disabilities do face tremendous injustices, many of which can rightly be thought of as violations of human rights, the proper target of our concern should be on how we conceptualize the notions of equality and justice to inform sound policy, and not on how we model the experience of disability. I suggest these arguments put the cart before the horse.

Keywords:

• social model
• definition
• human rights
• interactional
• justice

Introduction

Berghs et al. (2019) support the claim that a model of disability ‘should be a means to change society (and its collective values), in addition to upholding the human dignity of disabled people’s lives in every aspect of society’ (1037). They do so by demonstrating first, the historical successes of the social model with respect to engaging in emancipatory scholarship and policy change, and second, the desire of politically and socially active disabled people to continue to improve the material lives of people with disabilities. More concretely, Berghs et al. (2019) focus on the denial of fundamental human rights for people with disabilities and suggest that a social model more aligned with an agenda for change – a more active social model – be implemented and adopted that is more able to reflect fundamental values fought hardly for that are reflected in many national and international documents, laws, and monitoring tools. In other words still, while the social model may have been fundamental in getting people with disabilities recognized in an importantly more robust manner than mere medical or individualized conceptions of disability or impairment, it may very well be time to transition to a model more capable of defending and implementing these rights, rather than merely providing a grounds for their consideration. Berghs et al. (2019) call this model a ‘stronger’ social model: a social model of human rights.

While Berghs et al. have adopted a unique perspective on the question or debate concerning models of disability, their call to revise the social model of disability is not new. Responses to critiques of the social model have often been formulated around a defense of the ontological commitments of it, while expanding or moving forward with political, moral, or legal rights to be secured for people with disabilities. My brief argument sets out to demonstrate that such a move is problematic. I suggest that to model one’s ontological commitments alongside their political, is to put the cart before the horse.

Modeling disability

The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) (1976) argued convincingly and forcefully against the medicalized understanding of the experience of disability reflected through a medical model. Importantly however, as Berghs et al. (2019) concede, even UPIAS’s seminal work was first and foremost, about the manner in which ‘disability is understood’ (1035). Later however, they question, alongside Levitt (2017), whether the current adaptation of the social model is ‘fit for the purpose’ (1036), where purpose is meant to be interpreted as the securing of human rights and the fighting against the rolling back of the welfare state that negatively affects many people with disabilities. Put succinctly, Berghs et al. run two arguments together. First, there is the matter of understanding disability. Second, there is the matter of justifying, and enforcing or ensuring, rights for disabled people. Calls for a stronger social model conflate these two distinct purposes and commit those making such endorsements to tie political or justice-based valuations to ontological ones about the experience of disability.

Berghs et al. (2019) argue for a model of disability to change ‘society to become more inclusive’ (1037). Even though Berghs et al. (2019) rightly identify how the human rights of people with disabilities are being ‘denied and eroded by society’ (1037) and that what is at stake is very fundamental (indeed they call these failings ‘very basic, [or] the right to live and have a dignified life as a human being’ (1037)), they acknowledge quite explicitly that what they are discussing is ‘a matter of justice’ (Berghs et al. 2019, 1037).

What does it mean for one to acknowledge that the call for a stronger social model revolves around fundamental or basic matters of justice? What does it mean to not critique the ontology of a model of disability, but instead, its political usefulness? I suggest it implies a failure to recognize that these justice-based obligations that we are so clearly failing to assure for people with disabilities are matters to be assured after we correctly model the experience of disability. In other words still, the purpose of a model of disability is what UPIAS suggested: to understand the experience of disability. A model is designed to clarify an experience or phenomenon, and in the context of disability, an accurate model of disability is one that most aptly characterizes what it is like to live with a disability. The valuable shift from the medical model to the social model surely had the incidental benefit of empowering and mobilizing many people with disabilities, but it was a far superior model because it more accurately reflected the experience of disability itself. A focus solely on medical or individual features of the experience of disability was harmful because it was incorrect – it failed to model the actual experience of disability. What emerged from a shift to the social model of disability was an acknowledgement of a much more robust set of circumstances that impact the lives of people with disabilities; a shift was made from solely medical influences on the experience of disability, to the social, political, legal, and attitudinal experiences that so dramatically affect the lived experiences of people with disabilities. The reason the social model is a better model of disability is not because of its political commitments, but because of its ontological ones. In other words, the social model of disability is superior to the medical model because it more accurately corresponds to reality – it has a more sound ontological foundation. To deny this shift is of political import would be churlish, but one must acknowledge that it is of political import because its ontology was better, not because it smuggled matters of justice into its model.

Indeed, a model is determined as more or less true or valuable on the basis of its correspondence to defensible or sound premises, not desirable ones. A model or ‘account of disability should not factor in political or sociological factors’ (Riddle, 2013, 28), and ‘the aim of any model of disability, properly conceived, involves articulating the origin of disadvantage that may or may not emerge from disability’ (Riddle 2020, 229). Making what Vehmas and Watson (2014) call ‘hidden ethical judgements’ (640) involves the smuggling in of normative judgments, implicitly, and without justification, instead of simply relying upon facts and commitments further down the ontological ladder (Vehmas 2008).

Disability justice

If the goal of modeling an experience is to accurately reflect its reality, then the goal of justice, properly conceived, picks up where the modeling of an experience ends. Justice-based discourse includes both a scope, and a currency question. More pointedly, when asking questions about justice and human rights, one asks first, whether the agent in question resides within the scope of things to whom we have these obligations, and second, what those obligations look like given our answer to the first question. One begins to see quite quickly how justice-based discourse is reliant upon an accurate modeling of the experiences of those it seeks to promote justice for. These enterprises are practically, intimately entwined, but importantly, conceptually distinct. Without a clear understanding of what the experience of disability entails, it is difficult to conceptualize what just institutions would look like to support disability justice, and even more difficult to implement, monitor, and enforce those institutional structures to support the promotion of the rights of people with disabilities. If one insists on running arguments of justice alongside questions concerning the ontology of disability, one risks obfuscating fundamental issues and experiences. If one is truly interested in the assuring of rights, the promoting of equality, and the formulating of just institutions, one needs to secure accurate answers to the question of the experience of disability, prior to engaging with justice-based concerns. Indeed, the inclusion of justice-based concerns at the lower level of the ontological ladder, while undoubtedly good-natured in design, makes it more difficult for those attempting to account for the experiences and injustices present in the lives of people with disabilities.

Asking those engaged in justice-based discourse to work with a model of disability that has built-in normative judgements is like asking a chef to prepare a meal with ingredients that are already seasoned or combined into a meal itself. Surely a chef is better situated to make a delicious dish with raw ingredients, unadulterated by a vision or design imposed upon them from another. In an analogous manner, policy-makers or those engaged in discussions of justice or rights are more likely to arrange just institutional practices if they are working with uncoloured or unbiased models of disability. In one instance, one is confined to the restrictions imposed upon them by others, and in the other instance, one is free to work with foundational materials that aren’t confused or complicated by the work of those that came before.

Of course, the parsing of the ontological and the political here relies upon an actual benevolent agent to do the policy work. One can see the desire to run the ontological alongside the political for fear of others failing to do adequate work on securing the rights of people with disabilities (as has long been the case). That said, one only risks policies being even more harmful to people with disabilities if the modeling is confusing the ontological with the political.

Concluding remarks

While clearly good-spirited, recent calls to adjust or strengthen the social model seem to be misguided. Placing an emphasis on the manner in which one wants disability to be modeled or conceptualized fails at the intended task of articulating the actual experience of disability. Models of disability should not contain implicit normative evaluations and instead, should rely upon an unwavering dedication to get the ontology of disability correct. Therefore, we do not need a stronger social model of disability, we need a more robust conception of justice.