Neutral Impairment, Disadvantageous Disability

Abstract

AbstractHow should impairment be understood? Both the word and its widespread definition as suboptimal functioning suggests something that warrants removal. Yet this negative account is controversial, since determining which functionings are ‘worse’ is notoriously difficult. Further, this negative conception risks undermining both the coherence of disability pride (why be proud of a deficiency?), and the possibility of solidarity (dividing the ‘genuinely’ deficient from those merely perceived as such). This has led some to abandon the disability/impairment distinction altogether. I argue that, whilst the distinction should be retained, impairment should be understood as anomalous rather than deficient functioning. On this view, impairment is a broad church, including conditions that are relatively inert or even beneficial in our current context. When understood as difference rather than defect, it becomes clear why our goal should be eliminating the capability loss associated with impairment rather than eradicating anomalous functioning itself.