Liberalism and the New Politics of Disability

SUMMARY

• The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) and the UN Disability Convention (CRPD) emerged from a broader social vision than the neoliberal politics of the day.
• For political philosophers, the recognition of disability, especially cognitive impairment, entails a revision of Rawlsian liberalism to incorporate something more bodily, social and relational.
• When equality legislation is under fire as ‘woke’, it is worth revisiting and the broader vision associated with the Act and UN Convention.
• We should retrieve the sense of political hope that animated the campaign and examine what community and the common good mean to us now.

It is thirty years since the enactment of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA), followed fifteen years later by the UN Disability Convention (CRPD). The DDA itself is not overtly utopian. The result of decades of campaigning by disabled people, the inclusion of disability rights in the anti-discrimination fold nevertheless announced a broader social vision than the neoliberal politics of the day. The new ‘social model of disability’ entailed a fundamental critique of industrial capitalism. It was not impairment that was disabling but the social response to it. The call was to a radical reimagining of community and the common good.

At the philosophical edge of disability

Thirty years on, many will be less sanguine about the prospect of sustainable social transformation. Current debates about benefit cuts, assisted dying, the policy response to Covid, the shortcomings of mental health services and the special educational needs system ensure that disability retains political saliency. Yet the consideration of these issues invariably appears devoid of philosophical or political vision.

The DDA was greeted by lawyers as a new paradigm of equality law in a positive accent. Here was equality legislation that went further than the negative right to freedom from discrimination. Beyond the law, the DDA presaged a broader philosophical position that goes to the heart of post-liberal politics. For political philosophers, the recognition of disability, especially cognitive impairment, entails a revision of Rawlsian liberalism to incorporate something more bodily, social and relational.

A new politics of disability

In the CRPD the UN aimed to combine rights-based legalism with broader humanistic and democratic aspirations. At the substantive level, the CRPD evoked an understanding of the human person that transcended the rationalistic conception associated with Rawlsian liberalism. At the procedural level, it aimed to generalise the disability movement’s slogan of ‘nothing about us without us’. Universalism, rather than the rights of a discrete and insular minority, was the pervading ideology.

At a moment when talk of Postliberalism grows ever more fevered, it is worth revisiting the DDA and the broader vision associated with it and the CRPD. When equality legislation is under fire as ‘woke’, the rights of minorities seen as self-serving and pitched against the common good, that fleeting moment of hope for something better still holds out the prospect of illumination.

Reinvigorating the liberal tradition

One way of accessing that illumination is to show how disability rights sought to nuance classical liberalism. Four re-emphases warrant attention, derived in turn from philosophical idealism, English political pluralism, civic humanism, and pragmatist democracy.

Philosophical idealism is most apparent in the hypothesis of the active and ethical state as facilitator of an environment in which all, including disabled people, can flourish. Central to its critique of liberal individualism is a positive conception of liberty that finds expression in the common good. In the disability context, the state must take positive steps to facilitate the inclusion of disabled people in political and social life.

This positive evaluation of the state, however, need not negate other forms of civic association. In the tradition of English political pluralism emphasis falls on the prior existence of intermediate institutions. Instead of a society composed of satellites orbiting a centralised state, the aspiration is for a ‘community of communities’. The disability movement’s slogan of ‘nothing about us without us’ expresses the democratic texture of such a pluralist state.

The connotations of ‘humanism’ are varied, but there is consensus in the recognition that there is enough in common to transcend the variations expressed by cultural and social difference. Such a view lies at the heart of the disability movement’s attempts to acknowledge the primacy of bodily experience and so undermine the pretensions of cognitive ability as the essence of the human person.

It is also from this humanistic foundation that the true meaning of the rule of law emerges as a political idea that entails the exercise of practical wisdom. The dethroning of legalism from its position of pre-eminence within contemporary liberalism leads to a jurisprudence based on political pragmatism. The implication is that democracy should not be viewed merely as a form of government but rather as a shared way of life transmitted through daily practice and civic education.

Light community and thin cultural ties

The real test of this new disability politics is its ability to shore up the crumbling edifice of contemporary liberalism. The chief stumbling block is the meaning of community and the common good.

For some, the idea of ‘thick cultural coherence’ holds enduring attraction, insisting on the need for homogenizing social bonds as the basis of sustainable community founded upon a perception of the common good imposed from on high. An alternative view recognises ‘thin’ cultural ties as sufficient for the achievement of ‘light community’.

Thin culture and light community are more readily conceivable in a political environment where the state, far from being authoritarian, is working in partnership with communities, so that the common good emerges as the result of democratic practice. Such a vision is informed by the practical experience arising from new forms of active citizenship, not least that of disabled people.

A legacy of political hope

There is a time for talk and a time for action. Yet talking is itself an essential preliminary to cooperative action. Better ways of talking, better conversations, are the pathway to more sustainable and meaningful outcomes. The democratic challenge, and the challenge facing liberalism, is in facilitating an environment in which conversations can be made rich, inclusive and participatory.

To recall the DDA thirty years on is to do more than celebrate a successful legislative campaign. It is instead to retrieve the sense of political hope that animated that campaign and that invested it with universal significance. In dark times that is a legacy to nurture.