{"title":"Take Pity: What Disability Rights Can Learn from Religious Charity.","authors":"Harold Braswell","doi":"10.1093/jmp/jhac017","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Disability rights advocates have traditionally denigrated charity as politically counterproductive and inherently demeaning. This article argues that this perspective mischaracterizes charity of a religious kind. Religious charity, I argue, must be understood immanently, through an exploration of the virtues cultivated in particular religious organizations. I consider two Catholic charities: L'Arche, a community for intellectually disabled people, and the end-of-life care facility Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home. At each organization, individual acts of charity are emblematic of an underlying virtue that I call caritas or charity-love. This transforms them into gestures that advance goals that are consonant with those of the disability rights movement. In the case of Our Lady, this is even true of pity, perhaps the most despised emotion of the disability rights tradition. But while disability rights advocates have characterized pity as essentially devaluing disabled people, at Our Lady, it is an emotion that freely circulates, undoing hierarchical distinctions between ability and disability, and even human and divine. This redefined notion of pity-which I term misericordia-can, I conclude provide a new foundation for disability politics, one that radicalizes the goals of the disability rights movement, while also positing objectives that go beyond legal compliance.</p>","PeriodicalId":47377,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.3000,"publicationDate":"2022-11-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Medicine and Philosophy","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jhac017","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q3","JCRName":"ETHICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Disability rights advocates have traditionally denigrated charity as politically counterproductive and inherently demeaning. This article argues that this perspective mischaracterizes charity of a religious kind. Religious charity, I argue, must be understood immanently, through an exploration of the virtues cultivated in particular religious organizations. I consider two Catholic charities: L'Arche, a community for intellectually disabled people, and the end-of-life care facility Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home. At each organization, individual acts of charity are emblematic of an underlying virtue that I call caritas or charity-love. This transforms them into gestures that advance goals that are consonant with those of the disability rights movement. In the case of Our Lady, this is even true of pity, perhaps the most despised emotion of the disability rights tradition. But while disability rights advocates have characterized pity as essentially devaluing disabled people, at Our Lady, it is an emotion that freely circulates, undoing hierarchical distinctions between ability and disability, and even human and divine. This redefined notion of pity-which I term misericordia-can, I conclude provide a new foundation for disability politics, one that radicalizes the goals of the disability rights movement, while also positing objectives that go beyond legal compliance.
残疾人权利倡导者传统上诋毁慈善事业,认为它在政治上适得其反,而且本身就是一种贬低。本文认为,这种观点错误地描述了一种宗教性质的慈善。我认为,宗教慈善必须通过对特定宗教组织所培养的美德的探索,才能从本质上理解。我考虑了两个天主教慈善机构:智障人士社区L'Arche和临终关怀机构Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home。在每个组织中,个人的慈善行为都象征着一种潜在的美德,我称之为caritas或charity-love。这将它们转化为推进目标的姿态,这些目标与残疾人权利运动的目标一致。在圣母的例子中,怜悯甚至是真实的,也许是残疾人权利传统中最受鄙视的情感。但是,尽管残疾人权利倡导者将怜悯描述为本质上贬低残疾人,但在圣母教堂,它是一种自由流通的情感,消除了能力与残疾之间,甚至人与神之间的等级区别。我认为,这种重新定义的怜悯概念——我称之为“misericordia”——可以为残疾人政治提供新的基础,使残疾人权利运动的目标变得激进,同时也确立了超越法律遵从的目标。
期刊介绍:
This bimonthly publication explores the shared themes and concerns of philosophy and the medical sciences. Central issues in medical research and practice have important philosophical dimensions, for, in treating disease and promoting health, medicine involves presuppositions about human goals and values. Conversely, the concerns of philosophy often significantly relate to those of medicine, as philosophers seek to understand the nature of medical knowledge and the human condition in the modern world. In addition, recent developments in medical technology and treatment create moral problems that raise important philosophical questions. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy aims to provide an ongoing forum for the discussion of such themes and issues.