Post by Admin on Jan 11, 2022 18:49:56 GMT
Why We Need a Neurodiverse Philosophy of Autistic Happiness
A neurotypical framework for the “good human life” dismisses the testimonies of autistic people.
By Liam G. Bach -January 11, 2022
www.madinamerica.com/2022/01/need-neurodiverse-philosophy-autistic-happiness/
Autism has been historically construed as being mutually exclusive with happiness and success. Philosophers and researchers Robert Chapman and Havi Carel bring the paradox of autistic thriving to light and reevaluate what it means to experience the “good human life.”
Chapman and Carel unpack the types of injustices that people with autism face—primarily how people with autism have their intelligence or autonomy discounted in social and medical interactions. Then they look at “Autism’s Catch-22,” wherein people with autism are expected to fall in line with a prototypical view of autistic struggling, and if they don’t, they are seen as “not autistic.” With all this in mind, the authors aim to find ways to reframe autism and autistic thriving so that the injustices they face can be remedied.
“Importantly, autism slightly differs from many cases of disability insofar as autistic people do tend to have low levels of wellbeing,” Chapman and Carel write.
“Specific disabilities are associated with low wellbeing if they are associated with high levels of stigma or greatly impaired functioning. With this in mind, it’s vital to consider that how autistic voices have consistently argued that any impediment to autistic wellbeing and functioning is best understood in terms of social barriers, marginalization, stigma, and exclusion. For instance, Milton and Sims found that a key reason autistic people attributed to hindering their wellbeing was barriers to belonging, rather than simply their being autistic.”
Neurodiversity, Epistemic Injustice, and the Good Human Life
December 2021
Project: Health and Wellbeing for a Neurodiverse Age
www.researchgate.net/publication/357174375_Neurodiversity_Epistemic_Injustice_and_the_Good_Human_Life
Abstract
Autism has typically been framed as inherently harmful and at odds with both subjective happiness and objective flourishing. In recent decades, however, the view of autism as inherently harmful has been challenged by neurodiversity proponents, who draw on social and relational models of disability to reframe the harm autistic people face as arising out of the interaction between being autistic and disabling environments. Here we build on the neurodiversity perspective by arguing that autistic thriving has been rendered both invisible and unthinkable by interlocking forms of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. We argue that mainstream conceptions of the good life have excluded autistic manifestations of happiness and flourishing. This leads to a catch-22-like paradoxical situation whereby one can be recognised as autistic or as thriving, but not both. We then propose four ameliorative strategies that support moving towards broader conceptions of the good human life which allow us to recognise not just autistic, but other neurodivergent ways, of living a good human life.
A neurotypical framework for the “good human life” dismisses the testimonies of autistic people.
By Liam G. Bach -January 11, 2022
www.madinamerica.com/2022/01/need-neurodiverse-philosophy-autistic-happiness/
Autism has been historically construed as being mutually exclusive with happiness and success. Philosophers and researchers Robert Chapman and Havi Carel bring the paradox of autistic thriving to light and reevaluate what it means to experience the “good human life.”
Chapman and Carel unpack the types of injustices that people with autism face—primarily how people with autism have their intelligence or autonomy discounted in social and medical interactions. Then they look at “Autism’s Catch-22,” wherein people with autism are expected to fall in line with a prototypical view of autistic struggling, and if they don’t, they are seen as “not autistic.” With all this in mind, the authors aim to find ways to reframe autism and autistic thriving so that the injustices they face can be remedied.
“Importantly, autism slightly differs from many cases of disability insofar as autistic people do tend to have low levels of wellbeing,” Chapman and Carel write.
“Specific disabilities are associated with low wellbeing if they are associated with high levels of stigma or greatly impaired functioning. With this in mind, it’s vital to consider that how autistic voices have consistently argued that any impediment to autistic wellbeing and functioning is best understood in terms of social barriers, marginalization, stigma, and exclusion. For instance, Milton and Sims found that a key reason autistic people attributed to hindering their wellbeing was barriers to belonging, rather than simply their being autistic.”
Neurodiversity, Epistemic Injustice, and the Good Human Life
December 2021
Project: Health and Wellbeing for a Neurodiverse Age
www.researchgate.net/publication/357174375_Neurodiversity_Epistemic_Injustice_and_the_Good_Human_Life
Abstract
Autism has typically been framed as inherently harmful and at odds with both subjective happiness and objective flourishing. In recent decades, however, the view of autism as inherently harmful has been challenged by neurodiversity proponents, who draw on social and relational models of disability to reframe the harm autistic people face as arising out of the interaction between being autistic and disabling environments. Here we build on the neurodiversity perspective by arguing that autistic thriving has been rendered both invisible and unthinkable by interlocking forms of testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. We argue that mainstream conceptions of the good life have excluded autistic manifestations of happiness and flourishing. This leads to a catch-22-like paradoxical situation whereby one can be recognised as autistic or as thriving, but not both. We then propose four ameliorative strategies that support moving towards broader conceptions of the good human life which allow us to recognise not just autistic, but other neurodivergent ways, of living a good human life.