CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2017
| Author | Zala, Miklós István |
|---|---|
| Title | The Devout and the Disabled: Religious and Cultural Accommodation as Human Variation |
| Summary | The aim of this thesis is to show that we can identify a subset of religious and cultural accommodation cases that follow the logical structure of a particular disability model ‒ the Human Variation Model (HVM). According to this model, disadvantageous disability arises when social arrangements are tailored to the needs of individuals with typical characteristics, while people with atypical features are left out from these arrangements. Hence, those with atypical features need personalized resources tailored to them, perhaps even have their social and/or material environment changed in line with their atypical characteristics. I argue, however, that not all claims of persons with atypical characteristics merit accommodation, as it would be simply impossible to provide personalized resources for everyone or modify the environment to accommodate everyone’s needs. In other words, these human variation claimants must be “reasonably accommodated.” Nevertheless, there are some social groups whose members have a justifiable claim to receive such reasonable accommodation and religious and cultural groups will be potentially among them for two specific sociological reasons. The negative argument of the thesis highlights why we cannot use conscience, or conscientious objection as a ground to justify religious/cultural claims where it is important for the justification to accommodate claimants as members of religious/cultural groups qua groups rather than isolated individuals, that is, where the group-aspect of accommodation is essential. The upshot of this critique is that conscience is neither necessary, nor sufficient for accommodations where the group-aspect is relevant, such as human variation cases. The dissertation also responds to possible intuitive objections to the human variation argument. The first opposes the HVM on the grounds that physical disability is bad at the personal level, unlike religious conduct or a cultural practice. I will respond to this objection by criticizing the shortcomings of Guy Kahane’s and Julian Savulescu’s disability model that defends such a view. The second intuitive objection points out that there is a fundamental difference between disability and religious/cultural conduct: the former is by definition not under the control of the individual, whereas the latter is at least physically alterable by religious individuals or followers of cultural traditions. Against this objection, the thesis points out that accommodation provides autonomy to human variation claimants in order not to be deterred from making important personal choices. By examining this problem, the thesis delves into the “luck egalitarian” question – the relation of luck egalitarianism to the question of accommodation as human variation. |
| Supervisor | Moles, Andres |
| Department | Political Science PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2017/zala_miklos-istvan.pdf |
Visit the CEU Library.
© 2007-2021, Central European University