Social Justice and Its Outcomes for the Disabled - Term Paper Example

? Social Justice and its Outcomes for the Disabled: Totara Park Riding BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE Social Justice and its Outcomes for theDisabled: Totara Park Riding “I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do” (Edward Hale, 1902). Introduction Social justice theory affirms that all individuals in society are entitled to recognition of their personal rights and liberties. John Rawls, a notable social theorist, argued that rights were a sacred and inviolable guarantee afforded to everyone in society, never to be curtailed or suppressed even in favor of securing the needs of the broader majority (Rawls, 2005). Flynn (1995) supports this viewpoint, offering that social justice ensures political, economic, and social equality; an unalienable promise of civil human morality and ethics. Not all in society, however, prescribe to the social contract, believing that rights guarantees are not necessarily applicable to all members of society in certain scenarios. There are those who argue in favor of utilitarianism, using teleological value systems that counter individualized rights security when the outcome is ensuring utility for the broader social population. Those who do not prescribe to the social contract and securing liberties of all citizens conflict the process of establishing social justice for all members in society. No more apparent is this confliction than with the disadvantaged in society, those who maintain medical and cognitive disabilities and require special consideration. This narrative will describe a personal experience in a social justice project consisting of work at the Totara Park Riding for the Disabled, a charitable program maintaining therapeutic, cognitive, social and physical health imperatives for those with autism, muscular dystrophy and a variety of other disabilities. The implications for failing to recognize the essentials of securing social justice for the disadvantage are discussed. Totara Park Riding This charity was established in 1977, providing multiple therapies and social learning skills to the disabled. My activities at the centre included, but were not limited to, teaching disabled children how to ride a horse, leading a horse when a child has mounted, walking alongside the horse and more mundane tasks such as feeding and grooming the ponies at the centre. Disabled children at Totara Park Riding not only learn to ride as a means of improving their physical fitness and stamina, but also more importantly develop increased self-esteem, self-discipline and the social skills needed to communicate effectively with others. The program is designed to facilitate more effective functioning in society as it pertains to mobility and social relationship development. Social Justice in the Totara Park Riding Experience Fortunately for the disabled learners during the social justice project, volunteers and managers of the program maintained very strict adherence to social justice principles and values as it relates to securing the liberties and rights of the disabled. The organizers and their legitimate desire to assist individuals with significant disabilities and social dysfunction created a culture of nurturing and protectionism for those in the program. The dysfunctions pertaining to those who do not prescribe to social justice concepts conflicted the process of establishing social justice for the program recipients. Program directors and volunteers were greatly concerned about the stereotypes and prejudices in society that exist as it relates to those with severe cognitive and physical disabilities. Because the broad majority of these individuals maintained disabilities that required mentoring or routine clinical assistance, political actors in society and those with more teleological viewpoints considered the disabled to be significant risks to society when attempting to establish independence and non-governance in their lifestyles. Thus, the program maintained keen awareness that the rights of the disabled were being infringed upon by those who adhered to utilitarianism values. Utilitarianism seeks to maximize utility for the majority, with utility being defined as maximization of personal happiness and satisfaction. Utilitarians believe that so long as the ends justify the means in an action or belief, it is satisfactory as long as maximized utility is achieved (Hooker, 2011; Kagan, 1991). There are significant social stigmas attached to the disabled in society, with general beliefs supporting that individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities are feeble, too inter-dependent on government programs and economic assistance, and are unable to maintain quality relationships with the advantaged. It was discovered during this short social justice project that many of the participants in the program hailed from environments where prejudicial attitudes limited the scope by which the disabled were predicted to have independent lifestyles. A variety of these learners’ caregivers or parental authorities had been confronted by social workers or political actors attempting to mandate that restrictions be placed on future independent living expectations, suggesting institutionalization or attempting to coerce long-term caregiver commitment to sustain governorship over the individuals well into adulthood. These determinations were built on pre-existing stereotypes, with efforts looking toward finding legislative precedents to justify their position about the potential risks of allowing the individuals to live independently in society. These situations that sought to impose injustice on the program recipients served as the most significant driver for why caregivers or parental authorities were seeking assistance in developing more appropriate social learning and therapeutic support. Frustrations stemming from those charged with long-term care related to perceived immoral or unethical coercion from multiple actors in society frustrated the process of trying to develop more functional skills with the disabled program recipients. In fact, a personal discussion with one caregiver indicated that efforts to promote more social justice through legitimate political channels continued to meet with resistance. Negotiated campaigning to improve civil rights for the disabled met with a variety of statesmen indicating that rights guarantees were only applicable to those who were functional and independent in society, suggesting that arguments against institutionalization for the severely-disabled were completely relative. Moral relativists, in society, hold true that there is no singular concept of moral and ethical programming that should be applied in all situations, thus believing that there is no legitimate justification for imposing a single moral imperative (Blackford, 2010; Swoyer, 2003). Because there are certain laws that restrict or forbid independence in society for the disabled, the statesmen objections were that arguments in favor of advancing civil liberties for the disabled were morally and ethically-based, not legitimized by actual legislation. In essence, the advocates for advancing rights of the disadvantaged were meeting with resistance and a great deal of emotional dissonance, as these actors did not see the moral constructs of the argument nor see their validity with such a strong prejudice about the relevance of the rule of law. Promoting more governmental and societal support for the disabled maintained significant barriers, with moral relativism the argument against caregiver and advocate positions. Hume (2002, p.552), a utilitarianist, sternly argues: “In all considerations of morality, this circumstance of public utility is ever essentially in view; and whenever disputes develop, concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means, be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true interests of mankind”. The injustices occurring with the program recipients was founded on using legal precedent as a means to mask existing social prejudices about this disadvantaged group without overtly stating that stereotypes and lack of knowledge about the tangible realities of the disabled were driving this decision-making toward coercing institutionalization. The main problem in these barriers from society and politicians is that it cannot be effectively explained to the program recipients due to their level of cognitive and developmental maturity. The majority of these individuals cannot serve as advocates for their own social justice needs, which further conflicts advancements in providing new legislation that guarantees the civil rights of this group. Thus, such descriptions were comparable to discussions with primary school-aged youths, leading to ineffective reactions about how they feel regarding the moral and ethical imperatives of institutionalization or having to succumb to long-term caregiver support rather than independence long into adulthood. My own personal role in facilitating these discussions occurred mostly with caregivers and parental authorities in a social and interpersonal context, which facilitated my knowledge of the social injustice. The majority of activities with the disabled program participants were program-related (e.g. the tangible carrying-out of program concepts) which limited the scope of in-depth examination of social injustice issues with the recipients. Many of these individuals simply did not maintain the cognitive growth required to address these issues from a research-oriented lens. However, social justice theory is also concerned with contractarianism, a belief that individuals, as a product of moral value systems, will abide by social contracts that bring mutual gain. Contractarianism asserts that members of society will inherently consider the needs of others and develop moral and ethical contracts due to the potential backlash of social audiences observing behavior and the stigma they will carry from social judgment (Silvers and Francis, 2012; Stanford University, 2012). Many of the individuals encountered during the program seemed to understand this phenomenon when it comes to society and statesmen being concerned about their image and reputation when failing to abide by universal rights guarantees. Thus, some recruited media or other publicity mediums to try to bring perceived immoral non-compliance to the social contract between the disabled and those who should be supporting civil rights. By bringing more attention to the problem with social injustice for the program recipients and others in similar disadvantaged positions, they were attempting to drive further advocacy or better legislation through attempts to tarnish the reputation of those who were creating barriers to improving the social standing of the disabled or cognitively impaired. Seeing that the main purpose of the Totara Park Riding experience was to not only assist the disadvantaged, but also to observe justice issues with a research or observational lens, I was able to make appropriate comparisons to social justice theory and try to determine how this applied to the program recipients. My own experience with disability involved my maternal aunt who was institutionalized by my grandparents because she was born with Down’s Syndrome. I personally feel that having a disability is not something to be ashamed about and wanted to focus my social justice project on eliminating some of the barriers that disabled children face in their daily lives. The injustices experienced by my aunt were, to someone who prescribes to total justice related to civil liberties, dreadful. Thus, the motivations for the Totara Park Riding experience were duplicitous, but I was ever-careful not to introduce too much personal bias into the examination of the types of social injustice that were being experienced by the program recipients. Broader Implications of Social Injustice The social prejudices, fears and stereotypes associated with physically and cognitively disabled individuals in society have many different implications to society. The deontological view of rights, as it relates to those especially in the medical profession, is that there must be a genuine commitment to respecting others and, first, doing no harms (Mack, 1998). In certain scenarios involving whether to institutionalize or habilitate the disadvantaged and disabled, politicians and other social actors rely on the professional assessment and opinion of reputable and qualified professionals in health services. Thus, it is absolutely imperative that these individuals remove pre-existing prejudices and stereotypes in the evaluation process before providing a professional diagnosis of the ability of a disabled person to maintain their social independence. However, in discussion with one caregiver charged with supporting a disabled program recipient, there was evidence of such biases even in the medical field where practicing physicians and counselors were somewhat illogically suggesting future institutionalization upon entering adulthood for those with higher order physical or mental impairments. In one circumstance, the individual was not even put through intelligence testing or observed in social scenarios, with these clinical and professional judgments stemming from very brief examinations and interventions with the program recipient. Even in the family structure, blood relatives with very little experience caring for or socializing with the disabled youth were attempting to coerce consideration toward long-term institutionalization for their disabled relative. This tends to illustrate that the caregiver or parent of the individual maintains no legitimate network either from the medical field or through familial structures about the moral and ethical implications of simply dismissing their civil rights. Attempts by the caregiver to justify that such rights should be assured met with considerable resistance and dismissal through multiple channels, with very little consideration given to the emotional well-being of the disabled individual. In a variety of ways, there was significance social dissonance occurring that could easily reject the psychological needs that would ultimately surface from the disabled individual in this argument about independence versus institutionalization. It was mentioned previously about the motivations for why individuals are willing to accept and abide by certain social contracts, under the theory of contractarianism. The largest motivator to adhere to these contracts is based on the potential of carrying social stigma and moral judgment for not recognizing rather universal human rights. However, in this case, there was virtually no risk from other members of society for wearing these stigmas since the majority in society believe that independence represented a risk to majority society. Because there is no concern with moral accountability from peers and general society, it simply becomes easy to dismiss the needs of the disabled. This has serious implications as it relates to moral and ethical programming in society, especially as it relates to how the rest of the developed world would look at a rather hypocritical view of sustaining universal human rights. Most in society, it would seem, have a teleological view of rights guarantees where so long as utility is maximized, the means to achieve it can be forgiven or disregarded. The experience at Totara Park Riding absolutely opened my eyes to the various conflicts and arguments about securing the short- and long-term rights of the disabled. Even though the program participants did not maintain appropriate and mature conversational skills to justify their emotional reactions to injustices, the network of advocates and caregivers provided valuable information about the realities (and alleged hypocrisies) of regular social injustice occurring with the physical and cognitively disabled in today’s society. Conclusion Social injustice takes many forms, founded largely on prejudices, lack of understanding, and stereotypes about the functionality and relevancy of the disabled to broader society. It is clear that many people in this national culture support the concept of contractarianism where moral and ethical decision-making is largely determined by the level of social judgment they receive when determining what is supposedly best for those with disabilities. This society maintains much more utilitarian values, believing that minimizing perceived risks of allowing independence rather than institutionalization maximizes utility and thus the means to this end are justified in this fashion. If the individuals maintained better cognitive and conversational abilities, they could serve as advocates for their own position, which might generate more empathy and social judgment for those who wish to curtail the rights of the individual. The Totara Park Riding experience helped me understand the genuine plight of the disabled and was a valuable experience for understanding their genuine role in society. References Blackford, Russell. (2010). Book Review: Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape, Journal of Evolution and Technology, 21(2), pp.53-62. Flynn, J.P. (1995). Social Justice in Social Agencies, in Edwards, R.L. (ed.) Encyclopedia of Social Work (19th ed.). Hooker, Brad. (2011). The Demandingness Objection, in Chappell, T. The Problem of Moral Demandingness: New Philosophical Essays. Palgrave-MacMillan. Hume, David. (2002), An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, in Schneewind, J.B. Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant. Cambridge University Press. Kagan, Shelly. (1991), The Limits of Morality. Clarendon Press. Mack, Eric. (1998), Deontic Restrictions are not Agent-Relative Restrictions, Social Philosophy & Policy, 15(1). Rawls, John. (2005). A Theory of Justice. (Revised Edition). Universal Law Publishing Co. Silvers, Anita and Francis, Leslie P. (2005). Justice through Trust: Disability and the Outlier Problem in Social Contract Theory, Ethics, 116(1), pp.40-75. Stanford University. (2012). Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Retrieved September 11, 2012 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/contractarianism/ Swoyer, Chris. (2003). Relativism, Section 1.2, Stanford University. Retrieved September 11, 2012 from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/relativism/#1.2 Read More