Honestly, when I speak to friends in the wider disability community, the horror in which the Peter Singer viewpoint is taken (and I accept that the perception *might* be worse than what Singer is – I think – trying to say about his views on personhood and suffering; I’m not entirely sure) and the perception that Singer is a founding philosophical father to the EA movement means that EA is very much tainted by that. Nathan has picked up on some of this in his comment.
So the empathy point that Nathan makes does overwhelm, and that’s not even before you enter the discussion that medical models of DALY or QALY etc. are rejected by many in the disability community in favour of social models (or more complex. Cf Tom Shakespeare).
I don’t have super good advice here, perhaps to the extent you may not share Singer’s views on disability, you may want to strongly let disability people you talk with know, as from my conversations that viewpoint taints everything.
You may also try and have some disability people chat on podcasts, or take more seriously their views in discussion. For instance, I’ve not seen an EA discussion paper around the social model of disability.
Still, overall better comms would not be harmful at worst neutral, and increasing empathy, same.
Honestly, when I speak to friends in the wider disability community, the horror in which the Peter Singer viewpoint is taken (and I accept that the perception *might* be worse than what Singer is – I think – trying to say about his views on personhood and suffering; I’m not entirely sure) and the perception that Singer is a founding philosophical father to the EA movement means that EA is very much tainted by that. Nathan has picked up on some of this in his comment.
So the empathy point that Nathan makes does overwhelm, and that’s not even before you enter the discussion that medical models of DALY or QALY etc. are rejected by many in the disability community in favour of social models (or more complex. Cf Tom Shakespeare).
I don’t have super good advice here, perhaps to the extent you may not share Singer’s views on disability, you may want to strongly let disability people you talk with know, as from my conversations that viewpoint taints everything.
You may also try and have some disability people chat on podcasts, or take more seriously their views in discussion. For instance, I’ve not seen an EA discussion paper around the social model of disability.
Still, overall better comms would not be harmful at worst neutral, and increasing empathy, same.