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Ethics of Non-Normative Embodiment: Exploring the Moral Significance and Implications

This conference will engage in a critical examination of non-normative embodiment and its ethical importance. We will explore how moral codes regulate interactions between embodied persons and the moral concern that arises from vulnerabilities resulting from embodiment. Traditional ethics often overlooks embodiment as a source of moral insight, while feminist ethics highlights the significance of gendered embodiment. Additionally, there will be discussions on the lack of ethical resources for engaging with non-normative embodiment and how having a non-normative embodiment modifies ethical evaluations of individuals or groups. We will also investigate the influence of non-normative embodiment on the meaning of common experiences and the moral evaluation of individuals through political, interpersonal, and habitus contexts. Moreover, the conference will address the ethical implications of non-normative understandings, including the impact on ethical concepts, just representation, and the recognition of marginality.

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Ethics of Non-Normative Embodiment: Exploring the Moral Significance and Implications

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  1. Disability Studies Conference, Lancaster 26-28 July 2004Normative ethics and non-normative embodiment Jackie Leach Scully Unit for Ethics in the Biosciences, University of Basel, Switzerland, and Policy, Ethics and Life Sciences Research Institute, University of Newcastle, United Kingdom

  2. Why is embodiment ethically important? • Moral codes regulate interactions between embodied persons • Moral concern arises from sense of vulnerabilities resulting from embodiment • Traditional ethics ignores embodiment as source of moral insight • Feminist ethics  gendered embodiment

  3. Non-normative embodiment • Little account of ethically relevant aspects of bodily variation, esp impairment = non-normative embodiment, even though - Beliefs about normative embodiment determine (medical and other) interventions thought appropriate -Beliefs about normative embodiment determine moral significance of anomalous bodies

  4. Theories of embodiment • Biological • Social • Symbolic (language) • Narrative/life course • Phenomenological • Psychoanalytic

  5. Theories of embodiment Biomedical • molecular genetics • derive embodiment from biological material • deviations from biomedical standard as pathology Social constructionist • social, historical, political aspects of embodiment • loss of anatomical/physiological limits Both • Lack adequate description of body’s ethical significance • Lack conceptual resources for engaging with non-normative embodiment

  6. Does having/being a non-normative embodiment modify ethical evaluations of individuals or groups? Embodiment affects • Kinds of experience (some unique to particular embodiment) • Meaning of common/universal experience

  7. Non-normative embodiment affects moral evaluation… Through political/ideological awareness • Standpoint epistemology • Eg in disability, consciousness of social exclusion • Ethical prioritising of inclusiveness

  8. Non-normative embodiment affects moral evaluation… Through local and interpersonal contexts Theoretical approach through habitus • System of perceptions/ understandings/ assumptions/classifications/ judgements etc • Often not accessible to rationality • How does prevailing habitus inform moral sense about non-normative embodiment? • Eg Deaf culture + preference for hearing impaired/hearing baby

  9. Non-normative embodiment affects moral evaluation… Through relationship between body and thought Hexis = embodiment of system of predispositions • Pre-reflective knowledge – bodily practices structure possibilities of thinking • Cognitive science -- perceptual and motor knowledge affect mental concepts and forms of reasoning, eg metaphors

  10. Ethical importance of non-normative understandings: ethical concepts • Feminist theorists argue that experience of gendered difference  distinctive interpretation of concepts eg intimacy, detachment, connection • Affect key concepts in ethical theory, esp traditional theories of justice, eg autonomy, independence

  11. Ethical importance of non-normative understandings: just representation • If differential embodiment modifies moral perception, particularities of body/experience affect claim that some person can represent others in negotiations about justice • Details of embodied subjectivity, as perceived by those directly concerned, essential to improve fairness of political and policy decisions

  12. Ethical importance of non-normative understandings: recognition of marginality • Recognition of marginalised aspects of identity as worthy of consideration, not subjugated or disruptive Strong ethical imperative for collection of empirical data on phenomenology of disabled experience and effect on aspects of moral understanding.

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