Disambiguating Adaptive Preferences

Abstract

AbstractWho should we trust to determine whether disability is disadvantageous? Pervasive mistrust of already underrepresented groups constitutes a serious epistemic injustice. Yet individuals routinely adapt to deprivation and claim to be satisfied. If we take such ‘adaptive preferences’ at face value, then injustice and oppression may not be recognised or rectified. Thus, we must achieve a balance between taking individuals’ preferences and self-assessment as definitive and ignoring them entirely. Current accounts of adaptive preferences also suffer from ambiguity: are they an unreliable guide to individuals’ interests or just policy? We should distinguish between those unreliable in the former sense (‘well-being adaptive preferences), and the latter (‘justice adaptive preferences’). Individuals’ preferences may be adaptive in one sense but not the other. Using my framework to determine when this is so avoids the blanket exclusion of individuals’ voices based on their unreliability in some narrower domain, allowing for greater inclusion and better-informed policy.