Expressed Ableism

2.1. The Communicative Interpretation

On one natural reading, the phrase “expressing or sending a message” refers to an act of communication. It refers to an intentional attempt to communicate a message or exhibit one’s attitude or belief to another party.¹⁸ So understood, what the Expressivist Argument deems objectionable about acts of selecting against disability is that people who perform these actions are purposefully trying to communicate some negative or disrespectful message about disabled people or to express their ableist attitudes or beliefs.

As an argument regarding selection against disability, the communicative version of the Expressivist Argument has a serious shortcoming. While it is plausible enough that there is a moral reason to avoid intentionally communicating an ableist attitude, belief, or message to others, this interpretation seems to have very limited applicability to the decisions in question. For it is surely rare that people making the major life-decision of selecting against disability in themselves, their children, or their patients are aiming to communicate some negative message or attitude. By and large, these choices that will have a significant life-altering impact on a person tend to be made with a focus on that impact.¹⁹ And if one’s aim is to insult or demean disabled people, there are more direct and easily accessible ways of doing so, such as uttering slurs or stating disrespectful messages outright. Thus, while it is extremely morally problematic when a person seeks to communicate ableist messages to others, it is deeply implausible that this sort of intentional communication motivates the vast majority of decisions to select against disability. Such cases would be exceedingly rare. So, the key flaw of this interpretation of the Expressivist Argument is its very limited applicability to real-world cases.²⁰

2.2. The Evidential Interpretation

A different interpretation of the Expressivist Argument treats “expressing or sending a message” as a matter of revealing or providing evidence of one’s attitudes and beliefs. The person may not intend to communicate or reveal those attitudes; indeed, they might be entirely unaware of having them. But, insofar as the action gives evidence of ableism, disabled people can reasonably object. For the purposes of evaluating this interpretation, it will help to restate the argument in less ambiguous terms:

• The Expressivist Argument (Evidential Interpretation)

• P1.

  Selecting against disability reveals that one has ableist attitudes or beliefs.

• P2.

  There is a moral reason not to perform actions that reveal that one has ableist attitudes and beliefs.

• C.  

  So, there is a moral reason not to select against disability.

By far, the most popular objection to the Expressivist Argument that appears in the literature takes aim at P1. The objection appeals to the fact that even if ableist attitudes are widespread, people sometimes have perfectly sensible, non-ableist reasons for selecting against disability.²¹ These might include concerns about the expected financial costs associated with disability (which is often due to a lack of adequate social services and supports), the desire to avoid certain emotional burdens (e.g., of having oneself or loved ones experience stigma and discrimination, of not knowing how one’s child will fare after one dies), the desire to increase the person’s expected well-being (in cases where the disability in question involves significant transition costs or worse long-term well-being prospects), external pressure to select against disability, or non-culpable ignorance about what life with a disability would involve. The Non-Ableist Motivations Objection, as we will call it, is essentially this: sometimes people have exclusively or predominantly non-ableist motivations for selecting against disability, so this action need not, and often does not, reveal ableist attitudes or beliefs.²²

While the insight behind the Non-Ableist Motivations Objection is quite plausible, there is a way of interpreting, or at least modifying, the evidential interpretation of the Expressivist Argument that circumvents this line of objection. One might understand the argument as targeting, not selection against disability in general, but only those instances of selection against disability where the act does in fact reveal ableist attitudes or messages.²³ For instance, imagine that it becomes known that a prospective parent chose to selectively abort a fetus with Down Syndrome because they regard people with such atypical physical characteristics as unattractive. Perhaps this parent worries that such a child would be hard to love or that the child would make it harder for the family to fit in at their country club. A more restricted version of the evidentialist interpretation that only applies to these sorts of cases allows for contextual variation and, unlike the communicative interpretation, is likely to apply to a significant number of real-world cases. We find no grounds for rejecting this modified understanding of the evidential interpretation’s first premise.

However, the argument faces another noteworthy objection. P2 suggests that there is a moral reason not to reveal one’s ableist attitudes and beliefs. This might seem to miss the real source of concern and instead attack a mere symptom of it.²⁴ When disability advocates raise objections to widespread practices of selecting against disability, aren’t they more troubled by the possession of ableist attitudes and beliefs rather than evidence of such attitudes? Since the evidential version of the Expressivist Argument speaks against providing evidence of one’s ableist attitudes and not against simply having such attitudes, it might seem to miss the mark.

This, however, is a bit too quick. While one important concern of disability advocates has been the existence of ableist attitudes and beliefs, caring about evidence of such attitudes does have some merit. For even if evidence of ableist attitudes qua evidence is intrinsically harmless, such evidence can have serious adverse consequences for disabled people. Contrast two hypothetical ableists. The first is a closet ableist who carefully and successfully avoids saying or doing anything that might reveal their true thoughts and feelings about disabled people. The second is an unapologetic ableist who regularly and openly displays their ableist attitudes. Both types of ableist are troubling, but the un-closeted ableist is going to make the world worse in ways that the closeted ableist will not. By revealing their attitudes to others, they can disturb and offend disabled people, weaken their sense of self-worth, and influence others to share in these attitudes, which can disadvantage disabled people in numerous concrete ways. Some scholars interested in the Expressivist Argument have been concerned about such consequences.

That said, the consequences of revealing ableist attitudes are incredibly complex—and not always negative for disabled people. Sometimes it is a good thing. When a person’s ableist attitudes or beliefs come to light, this can let disabled people know to avoid the person or to confront them. Often, people are oblivious to their own ableism and can only begin to address it once they come to recognize it as a result of others’ observations. And in some cases, revealed ableism is egregious enough to trigger needed reforms. Accordingly, even when attending to the consequences of the production of evidence, there is not always a moral reason to avoid revealing one’s ableist attitudes. In some cases, there is a strong reason to reveal them.

Ultimately, we believe the evidential interpretation of the Expressivist Argument does miss the mark. One morally problematic aspect of some acts of selecting against disability is that they spring from ableist attitudes and beliefs, which may or may not be known to others. Moreover, while evidence of ableist attitudes may have moral significance insofar as it leads to negative consequences for disabled people, the key source of moral concern is the negative consequences themselves. It seems rather contorted to place evidence of ableist attitudes at the center of a moral critique of selection against disability. In Sections 3 and 4, we develop arguments that try to get at the heart of what is morally problematic about expressed ableism.

2.3. The Social Meaning Interpretation

A third interpretation of the Expressivist Argument avoids some of the worries facing the other two interpretations by shifting attention away from the agent. It does so by viewing the action, rather than the agent, as the source of the negative or disrespectful message.

• The Expressivist Argument (Social Meaning Interpretation)

• P1.

  Selection against disability has a social meaning that is disrespectful to disabled people.

• P2.

  There is a moral reason not to perform actions that have a social meaning that is disrespectful to disabled people.

• C.  

  So, there is a moral reason not to select against disability.

The thought behind this interpretation is that an action can have a social meaning that obtains independently of the actual or even perceived intentions of the agent.²⁵ Consider some examples from contemporary American culture: displaying your extended middle finger, using a racial slur, burning the U.S. flag, drawing a swastika, stomping on a religious text, erecting a statue of someone who committed egregiously immoral acts. Arguably, these actions can be disrespectful to some parties in cases where the agent has no disrespectful or otherwise problematic attitudes. So, as we are interpreting the idea, when an action has a disrespectful social meaning, the agent’s attitudes are beside the point. We are also assuming that the existence of social meaning does not require an audience or any negative effects. Stomping on a religious text could express a disrespectful message even if done in secret. Thus, we are interested in the idea that an action might be inherently disrespectful in certain social contexts.

Obviously, one potential threat to this argument is that it is questionable whether actions can ever have disrespectful social meanings in the sense that we’ve sketched. Perhaps there is nothing inherently disrespectful in the act of extending one’s middle finger if one is merely showing off their nail polish. Perhaps the act of creating a swastika is not disrespectful when one is creating decorations to celebrate Diwali.²⁶ However, setting aside these skeptical concerns, suppose that actions can indeed have disrespectful social meanings. In that case, there is still good reason to doubt P1.

To assess P1, it is helpful to draw a distinction between direct and indirect expression. Let us say that an action directly expresses a disrespectful social meaning when it is conventionally used to purposefully communicate a disrespectful message (e.g., giving the finger to say “Fuck you”) or express a disrespectful attitude (e.g., using slurs to express contempt). In contrast, an action indirectly expresses a disrespectful social meaning when it is widely associated, in the relevant way, with other things (events, actions, people, attitudes, etc.) that are disrespectful.²⁷ For example, the mere wearing of a red “Make America Great Again” hat may be disrespectful to various groups because it is so closely associated with a politician who has said and done various things that are widely viewed as racist, sexist, ableist, xenophobic, Islamophobic, etc. Likewise, contemporary controversies in the 21^st century over White entertainers and celebrities wearing dark makeup to impersonate Black individuals are sometimes best explained in terms of indirect expression. Even if a particular individual has innocent motives, the activity indirectly expresses a disrespectful message to Black individuals due to the history of Whites using “blackface” to mock Black Americans (Zheng & Stear 2022).

With this distinction in hand, we now ask whether selecting against disability directly or indirectly expresses an ableist social meaning.²⁸ Hearkening back to our discussion of the communicative interpretation, the act of selecting for disability is clearly not a conventional means of directly expressing ableist attitudes or beliefs. Typically, people who select against disability are focused on making the right life-impacting choice, not sending negative messages to third parties. In contrast, there is at least a prima facie promising case that the act of selecting against disability indirectly expresses some ableist message. One possibility is through an association with past eugenic practices. Eli Claire (2017) devotes a substantial portion of his book Brilliant Imperfection to a discussion of how ableist attitudes have motivated both the historical programs of the U.S.’s eugenics movement—including institutionalization and forced sterilization—and current practices aimed at avoiding or, to use our terminology, selecting against disability. In light of this eugenic history, perhaps contemporary acts of selecting against disability have a social meaning that is inherently disrespectful to disabled people.²⁹

However, there are reasons to doubt whether there is a sufficiently strong and widely recognized association between current acts of selecting against disability and the eugenic past. Most people are simply uninformed about the history of disability and the multitude of ways in which disabled people have been subjected to forced sterilization and abstinence, infanticide, and genocide. People cannot associate selecting against disability with a past that is unknown to them. Additionally, as many critics of the eugenics-based critique have rightfully observed, there are several morally relevant differences between top-down, coercive eugenic programs that are explicitly grounded in ableist rationales and voluntary decisions by individuals to select against disability that are not always motivated by ableism (See, e.g., Buchanan et al. 2000: ch. 2; Agar 2004: 3–6; Wilkinson 2010: sec. 6.1; Shakespeare 2014: 115–18). These differences may serve to weaken the association between the two phenomena.

Alternatively, selection against disability might indirectly express an ableist social meaning through an association with ableist oppression more generally. If it is widely known that disabled people are devalued, stigmatized, and excluded from various forms of social participation, is it possible that acts of selecting against disability carry a disrespectful social meaning in virtue of their association with those oppressive practices? Our own sense is that there is not a sufficiently strong connection here either. Recall that social meaning is thought to attach to the action itself and not depend on the attitudes of the agent. Thus, when someone makes a vulgar gesture or displays some offensive symbol, our concern is not entirely dissolved by saying, “Oh, but the person actually had innocent motives and does not have any disrespectful attitudes.” The fact that so many scholars have responded to the Expressivist Argument with essentially that very response—that selecting against disability often results from innocent, non-ableist motives—provides some evidence that the act doesn’t have a robust social meaning. Therefore, in line with conclusions defended by Jamie Lindemann Nelson and others (Nelson 2000a; DeGrazia 2012: 104–5; Perez Gomez 2020: 75–78), we are inclined to reject the first premise of the social meaning interpretation.

P2 states that there is a moral reason not to perform actions with a social meaning that is disrespectful to disabled people. If actions can indeed have social meanings in the specified sense, we are inclined to accept P2, though only because actions that are inherently disrespectful toward some group (particularly one that is systematically oppressed) tend to spring from problematic motives or have negative consequences for members of that group. Yet, if there are cases where an inherently disrespectful action foreseeably would have no negative consequences and would not be motivated by problematic attitudes or beliefs, it is not obvious that there is a moral reason to avoid it. Consider this case:

In a city-wide blackout during the dead of winter, a woman is forced to start disassembling pieces of furniture to burn for warmth. In the days that follow, she burns some financial documents, clothes, and (with regret) all of her books, including a Christian Bible and a Quran.

Even if the burning of religious texts has a social meaning that is inherently disrespectful of some individuals (though we are not sure about this), it is not clear that the individual in this case has a moral reason to avoid the action (cf. Eidelson 2015: 74, 88). If anything, the key reason to avoid performing such an act is that it would spring from morally problematic attitudes or that it is likely to cause negative consequences for others. So, as it was with the evidential interpretation, we find ourselves inclined to shift attention in two distinct directions: toward attitudes and toward consequences.

In the remainder of this essay, we will explore two arguments that address these concerns directly while avoiding the theoretically complicated and controversial concept of social meaning. The Expressive Harms Argument defends the claim that there is a moral reason to avoid selection against disability insofar as it is likely to give rise to what we will call “expressive harms.” The Ableist Motivation Argument challenges acts of selection insofar as they stem from ableist attitudes and beliefs. These arguments draw elements from our discussion of the three interpretations of the Expressivist Argument, but they are formulated in a way that circumvents the key objections facing them. They also avoid the need to stake a claim on the complicated issue of what it is for an action to “express” a message or attitude. The first argument is only concerned with perceived expression of ableist attitudes (and so makes space for differing viewpoints on the issue). The second makes no use of the idea of expression.

Some may wish to classify the Expressive Harms and Ableist Motivation Arguments as interpretations or variants of the Expressivist Argument.³⁰ While we have no deep disagreement with that framing, we will avoid it mainly to avoid confusion with the interpretations of the Expressivist Argument examined above and to move beyond the unhelpfully vague “expresses or sends a message” locution. We favor adopting clearer and less ambiguous language.³¹ That said, we take the following arguments to capture key concerns that have motivated discussions of the Expressivist Argument.

3.1. Expressive Harms of Selecting against Disability

We begin by briefly assessing the first premise of the argument. P1 suggests, in part, that some acts of selecting against disability are perceived to reveal or communicate ableism. This should be relatively uncontroversial given that the whole literature on the Expressivist Argument originated from criticisms made by disabled people.³⁴ Of course, the perception of ableism can vary depending on the type of selection. While some forms of selection against disability are less well-known or are less commonly framed as acts of selection and have not been widely viewed as expressing ableism, other forms have sparked serious controversy. Routine selective abortion for disability and the often celebrated use of cochlear implants on very young children are prime examples. Also, some forms of selection are more easily perceived as a rejection of disabled people, whereas others may seem to target only the trait. Someone who uses preimplantation genetic diagnosis to screen out embryos with disabling traits can be more easily perceived as revealing an ableist attitude than a pregnant woman who takes folic acid to prevent spina bifida (Asch & Wasserman 2005: 194–97; Asch & Geller 1996: 339; Nelson 2000b: 220–23; Brock 2009: 259–63; Wilson 2017: 149–52). Yet, even if there is some variation in the perception of ableist attitudes, the fact remains that certain acts of selecting against disability have this result.

P1 also implies that the perception of ableist attitudes or messages sometimes gives rise to negative consequences for disabled people. This claim is quite plausible and supported by a great deal of empirical research. Public stigma and perceived discrimination have been shown to have a significant negative effect on both mental and physical health.³⁵ It can engender or reinforce self-stigma, which across multiple disability populations has been shown to lead to decrements in hope and self-esteem, loneliness and social withdrawal, and even suicide (e.g., Campbell 2009b; Livingston & Boyd 2010; Brouard 2006). It leads to “label avoidance,” wherein individuals avoid specific types of services (e.g., social services, medical treatment, accommodations) due to a fear of being labeled or stereotyped.³⁶ Public stigma has also been shown to lead to discrimination against disabled individuals in healthcare, criminal justice, housing, employment, and education (Jones & Corrigan 2014: 19–20). Of course, the nature, severity, and likelihood of expressive harms will vary considerably based on a range of circumstantial factors.³⁷

3.2. Is Contributing to Expressive Harms Morally Problematic?

We turn now to the more controversial premise of the Expressive Harms Argument. P2 asserts that there is a moral reason to avoid actions that are likely to cause expressive harms—that is, negative consequences resulting from the perception that the act reveals or communicates ableist beliefs or attitudes. P2 conforms to a more general principle that there is a moral reason to avoid acts that are likely to lead to negative consequences. Arguably, we have even stronger moral reason to avoid producing negative consequences for persons or groups already experiencing an unfair share of negative consequences as the subjects of systematic oppression. There is some question about precisely why this is. Perhaps the oppressive background directly amplifies the magnitude of the harm or wrongfulness. Perhaps it amplifies our reason to avoid such consequences because it exacerbates a historical disparity or is likely to cause worse instrumental effects.³⁸ In any case, it seems plausible that the historical and current stigmatization and oppression of a group makes it morally worse to subject its members to expressive harms. In this domain, there might even be increasing marginal disutility: the more oppression, stigmatization, discrimination, and disrespect some group has already faced, the worse it is to contribute to it further.

There are at least two lines of objection to P2 that merit consideration. The first objection claims that there is a morally relevant difference between expressive harms resulting from accurate or reasonable perceptions and those resulting from inaccurate or unreasonable perceptions. There is only reason to avoid expressive harms of the former type. For, the thought goes, one has no reason to curb one’s own behavior just to prevent other people from reaching unreasonable or false views. Notice that this objection, if it has merit, need not lead to a complete abandonment of the Expressive Harms Argument. It just calls for a modified version that is restricted to cases in which expressive harms result from accurate or reasonable perceptions. Given the prevalence of ableist attitudes in our society, the argument in that revised form would still apply to many instances of selection against disability (cf. Kaposy 2018: ch. 6).

While there is room for disagreement on this issue, our own view is that there is always a moral reason to avoid bringing about negative consequences for others—including those that result from other people’s moral or epistemic errors. As noted above, arguably one has a moral reason not to use words that may be confused for racial slurs, even if there is no meaningful connection between them. Likewise, there is a moral reason to avoid saying or doing things that might trigger unreasonable beliefs or reactions in other people when those beliefs or reactions will produce overall negative consequences for others.

It may seem undesirable that one’s actions are constrained by others’ epistemic errors, but we should keep three points in mind. First, to say that there is reason to avoid acting in ways that will cause others to form false or unjustified beliefs leading to negative consequences is not in any way to condone or validate such beliefs. Rather, it is to take the negative consequences seriously. Second, our view leaves open the possibility that there is a stronger moral reason to avoid expressive harms resulting from accurate or reasonable perceptions than those resulting from inaccurate or unreasonable ones.³⁹ Third, even if there is some reason to avoid an action on these grounds, one may still have an all-things-considered reason to perform it.

A second objection to P2 pertains to the magnitude of negative consequences. When a large number of people choose to select against disability, this can contribute to the perception of widespread ableist attitudes and lead to substantial negative consequences for disabled people. For example, it is often reported that a high percentage of prospective parents who receive a diagnosis for Down Syndrome choose to selectively abort.⁴⁰ For many observers (including people with Down Syndrome and their loved ones), this is a striking fact that highlights just how strong and widespread some forms of anti-disability bias are. However, one might question whether there is a non-negligible moral reason to avoid contributing to this general trend. For even in cases where a particular act of selection against disability is likely to lead to negative consequences on balance, those consequences will typically be extremely minor and arguably negligible. It might be thought, then, that the consequences of individual acts of selection against disability are generally too minor to support a reasonable moral challenge.

This objection raises a puzzling issue in ethical theory regarding individual responsibility for collective harms. Intuitively, it is morally troubling to contribute to massive harms like a polluted environment, the perpetuation of cruel factory farming practices or exploitative working conditions, or the stigmatization of some social group. And yet, these problems are often the result of a very large collection of individual actions, none of which, taken individually, makes a significant causal difference to the outcome. If a single act in that collection were not performed, this would make virtually no difference to the existence or magnitude of the resulting collective harm. This has been called the “inefficacy problem” (Nefsky 2019). The problem, in essence, is: how can it be morally problematic for a person to contribute to a massive harm if their contribution makes virtually no difference? While this is no place to try to solve this puzzle, we will simply sketch three possible lines of response and leave it open what solution is preferable.

A first response is to accept the objection as grounds for rejecting P2, maintaining that there is not a moral reason to avoid making a minor contribution to the systematic oppression of disabled people precisely because the contribution would be minor. This is one solution to the inefficacy problem, though it does little to address our “inchoate sense of unease” about being a member of a larger group of individuals who together cause massive harm (Kutz 2000: 176).

A different sort of response defends P2 by arguing that such contributions very well might make a significant difference. We see at least two ways to argue this point. First, a single act of perceived ableism might have a significant and lasting impact on some particular disabled person(s). Consider our opening story from Rebecca Cokley. A single comment from that anesthesiologist left such a deep, disturbing impression on her that she discussed it years later when writing about ableism. It may have been traumatizing for her. That is not an insignificant, trivial consequence. Or take the case of Deborah Kent, a magazine editor and children’s book author who has been blind since birth. In her essay “Somewhere a Mockingbird” (2000), Kent discussed her surprise and dismay upon learning that her husband and parents were worried at the prospect of her future child being blind. She perceived this to reveal a negative attitude or message about blindness and, ultimately, her and her life. She tells the story of when they discovered that their first-born child was not in fact blind: “‘She can see!’ Dick exulted. He rushed to the phone and called my parents with the news. I listened quietly to their celebrations. I don’t know if anyone noticed that I had very little to say.” When her husband reminisces about the day of that discovery, Kent tells us, she still feels “a twinge of the old pain, and for a few moments I am very much alone again” (Kent 2000: 62). This is not a trivial, negligible impact. Acts of selecting against disability can function in the same way. Insofar as selecting against disability may have this kind of expressive effect on a small number of individuals or even a single person, this arguably provides a significant moral reason to avoid it.

A second version of this kind of response to the inefficacy problem appeals to expected disutility, which is a function of the probability and severity of possible negative consequences. Even when an action will probably have only a minimal impact, it might carry a small chance of having a much larger impact and this could constitute a reason to avoid it. There is at least some chance that a seemingly minor expression of ableism could “go viral” and reach a much wider audience, doing far-reaching damage. In this way, an action that is perceived to reveal or communicate ableist attitudes could make a very significant contribution to negative consequences for disabled people—for example, by reinforcing such attitudes in others, which can have serious repercussions for disabled people. Even if there is only a slim chance that an action would have such effects, this might generate a significant moral reason to avoid it.

A final option is to grant that individual contributions to the negative consequences facing disabled people are typically minor and make no significant causal difference to the harms of widespread ableism, and yet maintain that there is still a moral reason to avoid them. Here, one can appeal to non-consequentialist considerations. It may be morally problematic to be complicit in the generation or perpetuation of collective harms, even when one’s contribution is miniscule. Perhaps we have a significant moral reason not to be “part of the problem”—even a causally insignificant part.

3.3. Summary

Our assessment of the Expressive Harms Argument is somewhat mixed. We have claimed that P1 is plausible and have entertained two objections to P2. The first objection denies that there is a reason to avoid expressive harms based on inaccurate or unreasonable perceptions of ableist attitudes. We maintain that there is a reason to avoid contributing to such expressive harms, though this may be overridden by other considerations. The second objection denies that we have a moral reason to avoid individual actions of selection since they tend to make only minor contributions toward negative consequences affecting disabled people. We have offered some potentially promising responses.

Granted, there is an important limitation of the Expressive Harms Argument. If someone selecting against disability can manage to avoid or undermine the perception that would lead to expressive harms, the argument has nothing to say against it. But that is to be expected from a consequence-based argument that is homing in on our reason to avoid contributing to such consequences.

4.1. Disrespectful Attitudes

The first premise of the Ableist Motivation Argument draws directly from our working definition of an ableist attitude, so we will treat P1 as a conceptual truth. While it may not require defense, it deserves further explanation and clarification. What does disrespect toward disabled people involve? In Section 1, we provided a list of beliefs, attitudes, and dispositions that are arguably ableist, which somewhat sharpens our picture of such disrespect. Still, what is it about these things that makes them disrespectful? This is a deep and complex subject, so we will have to settle for a few vague and preliminary remarks. As a very rough first approximation, the relevant type of disrespect seems to be disrespecting persons as such, which involves regarding or treating them in inappropriate ways in light of their nature as persons.⁴⁴ In many contemporary societies, it is widely recognized that human beings have a certain “moral status” or “moral standing” or “dignity,” and equally so.⁴⁵ This equal moral status does not vary according to one’s sex, race, socio-economic status, talents, character, etc. It requires that we acknowledge a person’s full and equal moral status, respect their rights, have some level of concern for their well-being, not use them as mere means to achieve our own ends, and so on. Ableism, as we understand it, involves a failure to regard disabled people in this way on account of their disability.

Another important clarification is that disrespect is a matter of degree. Some attitudes are more ableist than others. This can be due to the intrinsic qualities of a belief or attitude. For instance, all else being equal, outright hostility or hatred toward disabled people is far more disrespectful than a slight bias favoring the non-disabled. The belief that disabled people do not have lives worth living is more disrespectful than the belief that being disabled is always harmful to some extent. Furthermore, the degree of an attitude’s disrespectfulness can also vary based on a wide range of circumstantial factors. Take some ableist attitude X. The following are increasingly disrespectful ways in which a person, S, might hold that attitude:

• S is non-culpably unaware that S has X.

• S is culpably unaware that S has X.

• S is aware of having X but non-culpably unaware that X is ableist.

• S is aware of having X and culpably unaware that X is ableist.

• S is aware of having X and that X is ableist, but has a second-order desire to not have X.

• S is aware of having X and that X is ableist, and has a second-order desire to have X.

As this progression illustrates, the degree to which an attitude is disrespectful toward disabled people will depend on a complex range of factors, including the particular way in which it is held. Instances of ableism must be assessed on a case by case, context by context basis.

While there are some clear and uncontroversial instances of ableism, there will also be much disagreement and debate about whether certain attitudes, beliefs, or dispositions qualify as ableist and, if so, to what degree and why. Consider two sites of contention. First, it might be questioned whether a descriptive or empirical belief can be ableist if it was formed in response to the best available evidence. For a person with limited knowledge of the ways in which social environments can hinder disabled people’s flourishing, it might be perfectly justified to accept the so-called “medical model” of disability, which treats impairment as their primary source of disadvantage. Or suppose that a person’s main source of information about disability comes from portrayals in film. Such a person might think that becoming disabled will ruin a person’s life unless some enlightened non-disabled person comes along to help them “overcome” their disability and appreciate life, or (drawing on the trope of the disabled villain) that disabled people are bitter and disposed to engage in evil, vengeful actions. It is at least debatable whether such beliefs should be regarded as ableist when held for these reasons. Second, some scholars contend that it is possible to endorse the prevention of disability without disrespecting disabled people. The thought goes: we are only devaluing disability traits, not the persons who have them (Brock 2005; Buchanan et al. 2000: 278–79. See also Shakespeare 2013: 106–8.). The suggestion that the endorsement or promotion of selection against disability is not ableist has been met with resistance from some disability scholars and advocates (see, in particular, Kittay 2019: ch. 5). Indeed, many disabled people find it difficult to make a clean distinction between selecting against the trait vs. the individual—since many strongly identify with their condition and see it as an integral part of who they are.⁴⁶

We believe that such controversies over what qualifies as ableist are to be expected, if not welcomed, in light of the fact that the concept of ableism (on our characterization) is complex and has several normative components (disrespect, injustice, oppression, disadvantage). Even if one concedes the truth of P1, there remains much work to be done in clarifying the concept and determining whether and how it applies in specific cases.

4.2. Is Acting on Ableist Attitudes Morally Problematic?

We turn now to the second premise, which states: “There is a moral reason not to perform an action when it would be motivated by attitudes or beliefs that are disrespectful to members of a systematically oppressed group.” It may be tempting to think that P2 is also a conceptual truth. After all, if disrespectful attitudes involve a failure to recognize that certain people have full and equal moral status, arguably there is a moral reason not to have such attitudes. However, even if this is the case, it is not obvious that this entails anything about the actions flowing from such disrespectful attitudes.

This suggests an important objection to P2. Recall that the evidential interpretation of the Expressivist Argument was criticized for focusing on a symptom (evidence of having ableist attitudes) rather than the real cause of concern (having ableist attitudes). A similar charge can be leveled here.⁴⁷ The Ableist Motivation Argument might be attacking a symptom (acting from ableist attitudes) rather than the real source of concern (having ableist attitudes). Such attitudes and beliefs can exist without being expressed in word or deed, and it might be thought that merely possessing such attitudes is just as morally disturbing as possessing and acting upon them. Perhaps the focus on action is a red herring. It might be argued that once we set aside the concern with negative consequences, our focus should shift to the attitudes themselves and away from the act of selection.

Before addressing this objection, it is worth noting that the Ableist Motivation Argument is perfectly compatible with thinking that there is a moral reason not to have ableist beliefs and attitudes (cf. Basu 2019 on “doxastic wronging”). The argument is simply silent about attitude-related reasons. But it does posit action-related reasons. The ultimate question raised by the objection is this: even if it is morally problematic to have ableist attitudes and beliefs, is there a moral reason not to perform actions motivated by them if doing so will not yield any negative consequences for disabled people?

While we cannot fully explore this objection here, we will sketch two potentially promising ways of arguing that we do have a moral reason to avoid actions motivated by ableist attitudes. The first starts from the claim that having ableist attitudes and beliefs is morally problematic, in part, because such attitudes are inherently disrespectful to disabled people. This could be true even if these attitudes and beliefs are kept hidden and have no causal influence on the world. Ableist actions, because they spring from such attitudes, inherit the same moral flaw (cf. Eidelson 2019: 1617–18). Such actions constitute a wronging of disabled people, irrespective of whether they are aware of it or are in any way causally impacted. For example, people with highly stigmatized visible disabilities like dwarfism often have strangers photograph them without their permission. Whenever someone takes a photo of a person with dwarfism without their consent and then shares it with others for the purpose of ridicule, that person is wronged, even if the action had no significant impact on their life because they were unaware that the picture was taken or have become emotionally numb to the experience. The acts of taking the photo, sharing it, and laughing about it all seem to be themselves disrespectful. Arguably, one has a moral reason to avoid actions that disrespect disabled people in such a fashion.

A second response draws on the general intuition that acting on disrespectful attitudes goes beyond, and is worse than, merely having them. Contrary to what may be implied in the Sermon on the Mount, committing adultery “in one’s heart” does not seem nearly as bad as engaging in actual adultery or even unsuccessfully attempting to do so.⁴⁸ Similarly, it seems worse to act on ableist attitudes since that involves taking an additional volitional step beyond the mere possession of the attitudes. Some have thought that voluntary choice involves some sort of endorsement of one’s action or the motives underlying it (cf. Korsgaard 1996: 122; Buss 1999). But even if there is not outright endorsement, one is typically failing to reject, and sufficiently distance oneself from, their ableist attitudes when they act on them. If either of the above responses can be successfully developed and defended, this would provide a satisfying rejoinder to the present objection.

A second objection to P2 claims that the fact that one has ableist attitudes and beliefs may constitute a moral reason to select against disability. After all, if you have deep-seated ableist bias, perhaps it is best that you avoid the situation where you or your loved one becomes or remains disabled. A disabled person with ableist attitudes might have incredibly low self-esteem and engage in self-harm. An ableist parent might fail dismally in their parental or caretaking duties.

We agree that there will be some cases like this where one’s ableist attitudes persist and damage one’s relationship with oneself or others. However, we cannot always know in advance which cases those are. Having disability enter one’s life is often a transformative experience, and it can be difficult, if not impossible, to predict what that transformation of one’s identity or values will involve (Paul 2016). Furthermore, the introduction of disability in a person’s life can dismantle, weaken, or at least unsettle ableist prejudice. It is more difficult to maintain anti-disability bias when you or your loved one is disabled. So, while there might be cases where an individual’s ableism is so deeply rooted and unlikely to change that it gives them reason to select against disability, there are many more cases where it is perfectly possible that their ableist attitudes will dissolve.

More importantly, even if it could be established that a person’s ableism provides a moral reason to select against disability, it would be a reason grounded in consequences. Acting for that reason would spring from a desire to avoid certain negative consequences for oneself and others. Recognizing a consequence-based reason of this sort is perfectly compatible with accepting the Ableist Motivation Argument. The argument simply posits a moral reason not to select against disability when it would be motivated by ableist attitudes, which is perfectly compatible with there being other reasons for (or against) selecting against disability. So, this objection fails.