I did not realize that the United Nations is negotiating an international convention to define and protect the rights of disabled persons around the world. Thomas Schindlmayr’s op-ed in today’s International Herald Tribune brought this to my attention.  He makes a variety of valuable points: that disabled people can contribute much to society; that developing accommodations to bring more disabled people into the work force is not terribly expensive; and that the new convention will not place undue burdens on governments with limited resources.

      While I agree with all of this, I am a bit uncomfortable because, as I have long argued (especially in the last chapter of Aidan’s Way), we should not have to justify the value of disabled persons in utilitarian terms.  That is, instead of demonstrating value based on the positive effects a disabled individual has on others, we should simply recognize the value of the disabled person in and of himself.  My worry is that if we get into the consequentialist game – accepting some standard of sufficient positive effect as the basis for defining "value" – some individuals will invariably fall below the threshold and, perhaps, be deemed less valuable.

    Schindlmayr understands this when he says: "In fact, the single most effective measure –
changing perceptions toward persons with disabilities – costs virtually
nothing and would make a huge difference."  But we need to push further on what those perception are.  Disabled people are not only productive and positively effective, they are, by their very presence and nothing more, integral members of the human family.   Even those most profoundly disabled individuals, like my Aidan, have as much value and meaning as the most "productive" person.

     I have often cited Chuang Tzu’s notion of everything "moving as one and the same" in Way to bolster my anti-utilitarian position.  I am happy to say I have found more help in the Lieh Tzu:

However, although the shapes and energies of things differ, they are equal by nature, none can take the place of another, all are born perfect in themselves, each is alloted all its needs. (99).

     All are born perfect in themselves.  Their worth is not gauged by their effects on society.  Let’s put that in the preamble of the new international convention on disabilites.