Discapacidad e Igualdad

STEVEN R.
SMITH
University of Wales, Newport
Equality, identity and the Disability Rights

Movement: from policy to practice and from Kant to
Nietzsche in more than one uneasy move
Abstract
Consistent with Social Work Codes of Ethics and mainstream social
policy objectives, the Disability Rights Movement (DRM) promotes the
universal values of equal rights and individual autonomy, drawing
heavily from Kantian philosophy. However, an anti-universalized Nietz-
schean perspective is also promoted via the social model of disability,
challenging the political orthodoxy of rights-based social movements,
and the aspirations of social workers to empower disabled people. I
argue that these Kantian and Nietzschean strands within the DRM,
whilst incommensurable, permit a radical assertion of disability-
identity. That is, without conceding to value-relativism and postmodern
particularlism, and allowing a celebration of difference through estab-
lishing reciprocal social relations.
Key words: equality, philosophy, politics, reciprocity, social inclusion,
social movements
The social model of disability and conceptions of

social inequality, rights and identity
The Disability Rights Movement (DRM) has had considerable polit-

ical success promoting the social model of disability based on
principles that contrast with the medical model found within
traditional social policies and practices (Swain, French, and Cameron,
2003; Oliver and Barnes, 1998). Rather than viewing disabled people
as medically and/or socially deficient as the latter has tended, it has
become an integral part of mainstream policy and practice to incorpo-
rate the social model and remedy systemic institutional inadequacies
Copyright 2005 Critical Social Policy Ltd 02610183 85 Vol. 25(4): 554576; 057060
554 SAGE PUBLICATIONS (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 10.1177/0261018305057060
S M I T H E Q U A L I T Y, I D E N T I T Y A N D T H E D R M 555
that fail to include disabled people. These inadequacies exhibit in

various social, political and economic institutions, such as labour
markets, educational and training facilities, housing and health
provision, transport, and other public and private services. Conse-
quently, political campaigns have been vigorously implemented by
the DRM promoting equal rights to access, offered as an alternative
to special needs provision delivered via welfare state or charity-based
services (Oliver and Barnes, 1998; Barton, 1996; Barnes, 1991).
Despite initial resistance, governments internationally have responded
by introducing rafts of legislation reflecting this social model of
disability, and outlawing what are generally regarded as unjustifiable
forms of institutional discrimination.
However, although significant advances have been made promot-
ing the social model of disability, members of the DRM are keen to
remind policy-makers and practitioners that progress is at best patchy
(Swain et al., 2003; Oliver, 1996; Morris, 1991). Some limitations
concern the slow process of changing a physical environment that
previously only catered for the needs of non-disabled people. Never-
theless, there are other limitations relating to value-based landscapes
shaping how disabled people are viewed by non-disabled people,
which further reinforce social exclusion practices (Barton, 1996;
Liachowitz, 1988). Consequently, the DRM focuses not only on issues
of inaccessibility and social inequality, but also on questions concern-
ing the negative social construction of individual and group identity
(Hughes and Lewis, 1998; Saraga, 1998; Liachowitz, 1988). For
example, the medicalized assumption that the experience of impair-
ment is a tragic personal loss is wholeheartedly rejected by the DRM:
. . . for many disabled people, the tragedy view of disability is in
itself disabling. It denies the experience of a disabling society, their
enjoyment of life, and even their identity and self-awareness as
disabled people (Swain et al., 2003: 71).
However, the political and philosophical question for the DRM is
how to fully embrace existing identities given the presence of
disabling social structures? The point being that positive self-
awareness is worked out within a disabling environment according to
the DRM, and so to some extent at least is informed by that
environment. Consequently, the correlate of the latters radical trans-
formation is that the former identities will change in response. So,
disabled people have often spoken of how their outsider or excluded
556 CRITICAL SOCIAL POLICY 25(4)
condition liberates them from pervading norms, profoundly inform-

ing and enriching their lives. According to one disabled woman:
If we can appreciate that to be an outsider is a gift, we will find that we
are disabled only in the eyes of other people, and insofar as we choose to
emulate and pursue societys standards and seek its approval . . . Once
we cease to judge ourselves by societys narrow standards we can cease to
judge everything and everyone by those same limitations. When we no
longer feel comfortable identifying with the aspirations of the normal
majority we can transform the imposed role of outsider into the life-
enhancing and liberated state of an independent thinking, constantly
doubting Outsider who never needs to fight the physical condition but
who embraces it. And by doing so ceases to be disabled by it. (cited in
Morris, 1991: 187)
In other words, for the DRM, there is a complex interface between
providing a critique of existing social structures that fail to include
disabled people, but simultaneously promoting a radicalized assertion
of disabled peoples other-like and excluded identities that are in part
shaped through a political and personal engagement with these social
structures. It is my contention that these political aspirations pull in
opposite directions, reflecting a philosophical tension within the
DRM that draws from two distinct and incommensurable traditions
of thought. On the one hand, the DRM (alongside other rights-based
movements and Social Work Codes of Ethics that purport to
empower people) appeals to the universal and Kantian values of
equal rights and individual autonomy, providing a robust political
platform for challenging existing institutional practices. On the other
hand, an anti-universalized Nietzschean view of values is also pro-
moted within the DRM that challenges both the political orthodoxy
of rights-based social movements, and the aim of social workers to
empower disabled people. I argue that this tension within the DRM
must be more openly acknowledged to understand better its recom-
mendations for policy and broader political demands.
Kantian ethics: conceptions of needs, rights and

citizenship in policy and practice
Interpretations of Immanuel Kants political and ethical philosophy

often recommend that social and political institutions establish indi-
vidual rights to autonomy, affording equal respect for persons as
agents or choosers (Louden, 2000; Kaufman, 1999). However, these

interpretations have also led to conflicting recommendations concern-
ing policy and practice. For example, some commentators justify the
state meeting peoples needs using Kantian arguments. State inter-
vention is seen as a prerequisite for exercising individual autonomy
i.e. underpinning the individuals ability to formulate and implement
life-plans free from exploitation and coercion within an uncon-
strained market (Hill, 2002; Van Den Linden, 1988). In contrast,
other Kantian commentators argue that guaranteeing rights to exer-
cise autonomy is classically liberal in its orientation, as possessing
these rights implies that individuals should take responsibility for
meeting their own needs thereby blocking justifications for state
intervention (Nozick, 1974; Hayek, 1993).
In regard to welfare practice such as social work, Kantian ethics
have often provided the philosophical basis for respecting the clients
rights to autonomy and choice found within various professional codes
of practice (Banks, 2001: 2430; Hugman and Smith, 1995: 367).
However, again there is considerable dispute as to how these rights are
substantially interpreted. Some commentators amalgamate Kantian
ethics and utilitarian commitments to increasing welfare, arguing
that commitments to the former lead to the latter (Banks, 2001:
345). Whereas for others, this hybrid ethical solution to practice,
glosses over conflicts between Kantian ethics, establishing individual
autonomy as an end in itself, as distinct from utilitarian ethics that
promote autonomy merely as a means to enhancing happiness or well-
being (Banks, 2001: 35).1
How then are the above debates reflected in the Disability Rights
Movements political campaign and its promotion of equality,
rights and the social model of disability-identity? A move often
made by the DRM is to promote individual rights to choice-making
as a separate moral category to meeting individual needs. For exam-
ple, spokespersons for the DRM assert that meeting special needs in
policy and practice often overrides disabled peoples capacity for
making choices (Oliver and Barnes, 1998; Oliver, 1996; Morris,
1991). Substantial conceptions of need are defined by non-disabled
professionals who exert power over disabled people by imposing state-
driven categories of need on their clients. Therefore, the states
meeting of individual needs, whilst it may appear benign, undermines
a disabled persons autonomy and right to self-determination. Accord-
ing to Michael Oliver:
Professionalised service provision within a needs-based system of welfare

has added to existing forms of discrimination . . . based upon invasions
of privacy as well as creating a language of paternalism which can only
enhance discriminatory practices . . . institutional discrimination is
embedded in the work of welfare institutions when they deny disabled
people the right to live autonomously. (Oliver, 1996: 757)
The link Oliver makes between a disabled persons right to live
autonomously and anti-paternalism in some ways is very audibly
Kantian. Kant was deeply antagonistic toward paternalistic policies
that ground morality (and subsequent social relations) in pre-
determined values, such as well-being or happiness (Kaufman, 1999:
389). Instead, he argued that morality must be founded on the
human will. Briefly put, the will is undetermined and therefore free
which then provides the foundation for any subsequent moral values
to be freely chosen by individuals (Kant, 1997: 13; also see Kant,
1997: 10506, 1993: 504).
However, as already highlighted, Kants philosophical commit-
ment to autonomy and free-will can be interpreted in various ways,
particularly in respect to state re-distributive policies. For example, a
Kantian ethic might consistently advocate meeting needs via state
provision, if (and only if) representatives of the state can show they
first respect rights to individual autonomy and self-determination.
Here, the right to define ones own needs could be promoted (rather
than having needs defined by social workers), before these needs are
then met by the state. Indeed, this is allowed in Olivers position
above, despite his initial anti-state-meeting-needs polemic: It is
nonetheless right to appropriate welfare services to meet their own
self-defined needs that disabled people are demanding, [but] not to
have their needs defined and met by others (Oliver, 1996: 7). It is
from this latter position that active as opposed to passive concep-
tions of citizenship are also promoted. Passive conceptions of citizen-
ship for the DRM are rooted in traditional Fabianesque justifications
of welfare state provision, which view disabled people as dependent
recipients of pre-defined welfare services (Oliver, 1996: 6377).
Whereas, active conceptions are derived from what I have asserted are
Kantian agent-based notions of rights and equal opportunities, shap-
ing the way disabled peoples needs are defined and met. However, my
further contention is that the DRM, despite its political pretensions
to the contrary, also draws from an anti-rights and equality-based
tradition, founded on a Nietzschean anti-universalist philosophy. This

tension within the DRM, explains the political demands of the
movement that seeks both to radically assert the present identities of
disabled people, alongside the radical transformation of existing social
structures.
Nietzsche as a surprising ally to the Disability Rights

Movement
There are many aspects of Friedrich Nietzsches philosophy that seem

deeply antagonistic toward the political cause of the DRM, the latter
promoting the universal and inclusive values of individual autonomy
and equal rights, which I have argued above can be understood in
broadly Kantian terms. Universalism, which is paradigmatically
expressed in Kantian ethics, holds that there are general moral
principles applicable to all persons and accessible via reason. Human
rights declarations are typically universal as these delineate general
moral principles for all people in all circumstances, and under all
social and cultural conditions. In contrast, for Nietzsche, this
Kantian-type link between rationality and truth, and the values of
equality and rights, demands a slavish-like obedience to universal
rules that stultify individual assertiveness and capacities for self-
creation (Nietzsche, 1956: 703, 16970, 1975a: 535, 1212; also
see May, 1999: 1315; Copleston, 1994: 390406). In short, demands
for equal rights reflect a timid and emasculating morality that
mistakenly assumes that human goals and characteristics are univer-
sally attributable to a common herd (as Nietzsche calls it). To quote
Beyond Good and Evil: . . . the diminution of man [sic] to the perfect
herd animal (or, as they say, to the man of the free society) [is
the] . . . animalization of man to the pygmy animal of equal rights
and equal pretensions (Nietzsche, 1975a: 109; also see 17585).
So, how does the Disability Rights Movements political slogan
equal rights for disabled people relate to these Nietzschean claims?
First, it is important to highlight that there has been a great appeal
across all social movements for making universal rights-based claims.
Reasons for defending universal rights and their associated values are
various, but that a defence ought to be made for such principles is
often endorsed by social movements self-consciously working within
this universalist rights-based tradition. Second, the value of equality
is also readily committed to by the DRM (and other social move-

ments) as a correlate to establishing these rights. Briefly put, the
DRM commits to the value of equality, where the perceived shared
characteristics of human beings provide a template for mutual obliga-
tions that are then expressed through political practice and policy as
disabled peoples rights become fully recognized.
Despite this anti-Nietzschean emphasis on equality and rights, I
will now argue that there are some other important Nietzschean
themes reflected in the DRM that, when acknowledged alongside the
above universal rights-based claims, enable us to understand better
the above political demands of the movement. I examine these themes
under four main headings: his anti-essentialism; his critique of pity
and compassion; his critique of ideals and dualism; and his eternal
recurrence thesis as linked to notions of individual empowerment and
identity-assertion.
Philosophical essentialism, roughly speaking, claims that delimi-
tated characteristics of an object are essential and not therefore
incidental to its existence (Blackburn, 1996: 125). For example, it
might be argued that possessing a particular DNA configuration is an
essential characteristic of being human. This characteristic can be
distinguished from genetic differences between human beings relat-
ing, say, to eye or skin colour, regarded as incidental or non-essential
to being human. Unsurprisingly perhaps, there has been considerable
dispute over what constitutes essential and non-essential human
qualities. Nevertheless, that distinctions between essential and non-
essential characteristics as related to objects ought to be delimited
still has considerable intuitive appeal, and is often unquestioned by
disputants.
For Nietzsche though, accepting this essentialist assumption
involves various philosophical deceits (Nietzsche, 1975a: 1536). The
central philosophical mistake made, according to Nietzsche, is to
assume that there exists an objective essential reality accessible via
rational reflection and/or scientific method offering one truthful
explanation and/or meaning of the world, or parts of the world, we
occupy. The promise of finding this underlying meaning and explana-
tion is dismissed as a distraction from facing up to what he sees as our
completely unexplainable and meaningless existence (Copleston, 1994:
3978). For Nietzsche there is no essential reality, understood in these
terms at least; instead, humans invent meaning and purpose, derived
from particular perspectives or species of life that vary according to
each persons instinctively lived experience (Nietzsche, 1975a:

1536).
There is disagreement amongst Nietzschean scholars over the
coherence and centrality of Nietzsches perspectivism (Devigne,
1999; Appel, 1999). Nevertheless, the claim from Nietzsche at least is
that he offers a new way of understanding philosophical pursuit,
where essentialisms pretensions for truth-finding are revealed merely
as a guise for instinctive prejudicial assertions that preserve particular
prejudices. For example, in Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche claims:
Most of a philosophers conscious thinking is secretly directed and
compelled into definite channels by his instincts. Behind all logic too
and its apparent autonomy stands evaluations, in plainer terms physio-
logical demands for the preservation of a certain species of life . . . for
the most part [philosophers] are no better than cunning pleaders
for their prejudices, which they baptise truths. (Nietzsche, 1975a:
1718)
But how is this strident anti-essentialist Nietzschean theme reflected
in the DRM? The main objection of the DRM to the medical model
of disability is that it is based on an essentialist philosophy of
disability (Swain et al., 2003: 98102). The medical model associates
being disabled with fixed essential characteristics, seen via the per-
spective of non-disabled people and experts, that necessarily prelude a
life of personal loss or tragedy (Barnes, 1991: 2; Barton, 1996). As
explored above, for the DRM these essentialist interpretations of
disability effectively allow non-disabled experts to assert their preju-
dicial understanding of disability, thus ignoring the possibility of
disabled people positively endorsing their disability-identity (Swain
et al., 2003: 546). The contra Nietzscheanesque claim from the
DRM is that being disabled (understood as a personal loss or
tragedy) is not an inevitable characteristic of impairment possession,
but rather relates to cultural and social conditions and prejudices
which are not fixed or essential but are highly variable and con-
tingent. In other words, there is no one essential meaning of disability
which is fixed across time and cultural conditions, but rather a series
of perspectives on disability that variously (and often detrimentally)
affect disabled peoples lives as they relate to particular social
conditions.
The second Nietzschean theme to be explored is his critique of
pity. Nietzsche views this emotion as a drain on the energies of those
who experience it, and as condescending to those who are pitied

(Nietzsche, 1975a: 1023, 1326, 18890). Having pity produces
feelings of guilt and obligation that for him diminish the individuals
capacity for self-creation and assertiveness. Moreover, being the object
of pity denies the separateness of persons, ignoring differences in how
people respond to and experience personal suffering (Connolly, 1998).
Consequently for Nietzsche, pity wastefully compounds human suffer-
ing and suffocates the individuals ability to overcome lifes obstacles
(Connolly, 1998: 2804). For example, from The Anti-Christ:
Pity stands in antithesis to the tonic emotions which enhance the energy
of the feeling of life: it has depressive effects. One loses force when one
pities. The loss of force which life has already sustained through
suffering is increased and multiplied even further by pity . . . it gives
life itself a gloomy and questionable aspect . . . which inscribes Denial of
Life on its escutcheon. (Nietzsche, 1968: 118)
In a similar vein, the DRM has often campaigned using explicit anti-
pity slogans. For example, in the UK a demonstration by disabled
people against the BBCs Telethon charity fund-raiser, used placards
with the injunction Piss on Pity! as a basis for its campaign. The
DRM object to disability charities utilizing the emotion of pity as a
motivator for eliciting donations from the public, and which rein-
forces the portrayal of disabled people as passive and tragic victims of
impairment. The Nietzschean overtones are again clearly audible. For
the DRM generalizations are made by non-disabled people that
override the subjective interpretations of disabled people themselves
that having an impairment contributes positively to their lives (Swain
et al., 2003: 1315). The DRM acknowledges that many (but
certainly not all) impairments cause physical and even psychological
suffering, but this should not detract from the capacity disabled
people have to use this experience to their advantage in respect to
personal development and fulfilment (Morris, 1991: 18790).
The third Nietzschean theme is his anti-dualism and anti-
idealism (May, 1999: 645, 8891). For Nietzsche, the imposition of
dualities and ideals that a person is expected to live up to, leads to
what he calls bad conscience and the internalisation of man
(Nietzsche, 1956: 189230). Ideals imply the classification of oppo-
sites or dualities. For example, moral ideals manifest the duality of
good and evil, and aesthetic ideals manifest the duality of beauty and
ugliness. However, according to Nietzsche, these ideals also act as
templates for individual repression. Understandings of goodness and

beauty are derived from external sources (such as religious or cultural
institutions) but then are endorsed and internalized by individuals
who conform to the dominant norms and values associated with these
ideals. Ironically for Nietzsche, internalisation often involves con-
siderable self-discipline imposing these externally sourced values
through what he calls bad conscience, which works to diminish the
creative energies of lives unbound by conventional morality and
cultural norms (May, 1999: 645, 8891). In The Genealogy of Morals
Nietzsche states:
Bad conscience is nothing other than the instinct of freedom forced to
become latent, driven underground, and forced to vent its energy upon
itself . . . This secret violation of the self, this artists cruelty . . .
impose[s] on recalcitrant matter a form, a will, a distinction, a feeling of
contradiction and contempt. (Nietzsche, 1956: 2201)
In response, Nietzsche calls us to go beyond categories of good and
evil and beauty and ugliness as reflected in these externally invented
impersonal laws, and instead freely invent for ourselves our own value
and worth.
This Nietzschean anti-idealist and anti-dualist theme is again
reflected in the DRM. Often the DRM has emphasized the oppressive
character of non-disabled ideals and dualities that explicitly associate
less than ideal characteristics with being disabled. Idealism imposes
norms and standards that, according to the DRM, devalue a disabled
persons life, with non-disabled categories of beauty, goodness and
personal fulfilment dominating. Alternatively, the positive assertion of
disability-identity involves rejecting these non-disabled ideals, and
substituting these with self-created standards that celebrate being
abnormal (Swain et al., 2003: 713). Engaging in self-creation for
the disabled person becomes the hallmark of a liberated-life, free from
externally imposed ideals and norms (Morris, 1991: 187).
The latter creative-process directs us to the fourth and final
Nietzschean theme that can also be found (implicitly) within the
DRM, namely his thesis of eternal recurrence (Nietzsche, 1975b:
3302). Nietzsche advocates a kind of litmus-test for individual
empowerment inviting a person to positively embrace her life in its
entirety, including her suffering, as an eternal recurring event. If she
can say a joyful yes to her life being lived for eternity then she has
triumphantly overcome what, for Nietzsche, is the meaningless tragic
fate of all our circumstances and experience (Solomon, 2001: 1367).

This test puts in further context his critique of pity, as those who pity
the sufferer effectively ignore the latters capacity to be strengthened
by this most positive endorsement of a persons life.2 Having an
impairment is, in effect, eternally welcomed as a positive part of the
disabled persons identity. To summarize, this Nietzschean yes to life
for the DRM transforms and empowers a disabled persons capacity to
live life to the full, unrestricted by norms and standards defined and
imposed by non-disabled people.
From policy to practice and from Kant to Nietzsche

in more than one uneasy move
Where does the above debate take us, and why is it useful in
understanding policy and practice? More specifically, how can the
above Kantian and Nietzschean themes within the DRM, be accom-
modated for by social policy-makers and social workers in a way that
makes sense to both? There are roughly three responses to the
simultaneous promotion of these themes. First, combine elements of
Kant and Nietzsche so as to produce a coherent synthesis of both.
This can be called the eclectic response, and holds attractions for
policy-makers and practitioners alike who often seek to respond to the
demands of competing audiences.
However, there are I believe serious difficulties concerning the
philosophical and political coherence of the eclectic response. It is far
from clear, for example, how a Kantian commitment to individual
autonomy can allow for self-creation and individual empowerment
understood in broadly Nietzschean terms. Exercising individual
autonomy understood via a Kantian framework involves conforming
to moral laws based on duty-bound obligations to others, which puts
considerable moral constraints on how much power a person can have
to do or be one thing rather than another. These moral laws are,
according to Kant, self-imposed (therefore preserving individual
autonomy) but as we have seen, this is a very different conception of
self-creation and empowerment than that envisaged by Nietzsche who
tries to place the individual outside of any universal moral law for
him, exemplified in Kantian ethics. Some scholars argue that there is
a philosophical lineage traceable from Kant to Nietzsche (and later
existentialist thinkers), based on Kants Copernican Revolution,
which centralizes human perspective and individual free-will within

epistemology and ethics (Solomon, 2001; Pippin, 1991). However,
even if this argument is granted, it does not concede that Kantian and
Nietzschean conceptions of individual autonomy, self-creation and
empowerment can be conflated albeit they might be in some way
related.
Consequently, individual autonomy and empowerment can mean
very different things, but that they are often used interchangeably in
social policy and social work practice shows that much gloss is
painted over potentially highly conflicting values. Indeed, I contend
that much of the conflict between the DRM and social work
practitioners, for example, over how disabled people should be treated
can be explained in this way. So, the DRMs Nietzschean leanings are
a source of great anger often directed towards social workers, often
seen as profoundly misunderstanding disabled peoples demands and
expectations. For example, Oliver and Barnes severely critique the
pretensions of social and voluntary workers who aim to empower
disabled people:
There are numerous texts advising on how to empower . . . and
conferences where the powerful talk endlessly about how to empower
the disempowered. The contradiction in all this is that empowerment is
only something that people can do for themselves because, ultimately,
deciding to empower someone else, whether they want it or not, is the
most disempowering thing that can be done to them. (Oliver and
Barnes, 1998: 10)
In other words, empowerment is not about providing a given set of

empowerment rules to be accessed by anyone (including non-
disabled professionals) which then can be implemented accordingly.
Rather, it is about a person creating for herself a perspective on
personal empowerment, to be used against those who seek to impose
sets of rules, including (and perhaps especially) those rules that
purport to empower. As explored above, Nietzsche accuses philoso-
phers (and Kant in particular) of similar manoeuvres to the social
worker regarding the values of individual autonomy and free-will.
Kantian values seemingly lead to personal empowerment, but for
Nietzsche these are a guise to an imposition of universal values that
emasculate the individual. However, given this profoundly
Nietzschean critique, what becomes of the DRMs other political
commitments to universal values, expressed through the Kantian

endorsement of equal rights for all?
This awkward question might prompt a second response to the
Kantian and Nietzschean themes found within the DRM. Emphasiz-
ing the differences between the two themes, and maintaining that
they cannot be reconciled, exposes a deep incoherence at the heart of
the DRMs position. This can be called the incoherent incommensu-
rable response, which I argue has more philosophical plausibility than
the eclectic response above, but is inadequate for both philosophical
and political reasons.
According to Joseph Raz: A and B are incommensurate if it is
neither true that one is better than the other nor true that they are of
equal value (Raz, 1988: 332). Consequently, incommensurability
blocks trading-off values as the latter can only occur when two
values are equal but conflicting, where one value is compared against
the other to determine an appropriate balance between the two (see
example below concerning the oft-stated conflict between freedom
and equality in social policy). Alternatively, when values are not
equal but one is not better than the other, the conflict is between
incomparable values, and is therefore incommensurate. The conflict
between the Kantian and Nietzschean themes found within the DRM
might indeed be incommensurable. As already explored, a commit-
ment to a Nietzschean version of personal empowerment (involving a
rejection of externally imposed values) does not compare readily with
Kantian notions of equal rights to individual autonomy, based on a
commitment to universal moral laws. This lack of comparability is
not derived from two conflicting equal values that might be traded-off
against each other, but is based on a more foundational conflict over
attitudes to the relationship between values and persons that are
incomparable.
More specifically, trade-offs between conflicting values assume
that the relationship between conflicting values and the person
making ethical decisions is the same for each value. For example, the
values of negative freedom (or freedom from government constraint)
and certain forms of economic equality have often been traded-off
when justifying the maintenance of welfare states within a broadly
liberal or free-market economy. The latter value is achieved through a
compulsory tax system that finances a government redistribution of
resources from the better-off to the worst-off, but which necessarily
diminishes negative freedom, assuming this redistribution involves
some level of government constraint on individual behaviour and

earning power within the free-market. Those who seek to justify this
trade-off argue that despite the conflict between negative freedom and
economic equality, both should be promoted. This involves maintain-
ing a balance between them, recognizing that as the one value
diminishes it becomes increasingly difficult to compensate by the
corresponding increase of the other value, given the constant that
both values are comparable and valued in the same or a similar way
(for a further exploration of these issues see my arguments in Smith,
1998: 21445).
The point here is that without this latter assumption, measure-
ments between corresponding increases and decreases in conflicting
values are rendered impossible. This is because the judgement that
these values are equal but conflict (which allows for the trade-off)
depends upon the types of comparisons made between each value
being constant, so that an appropriate balance between these values
can be settled. Alternatively, when competing attitudes to the rela-
tionship between values and persons are at stake there are, in effect,
two different types of measure being contested. The force of this meta-
ethical conflict is that these disputing attitudes do not reflect a
conflict over equal or similarly weighted values, given that differences
over the types of measure used mean that the values promoted in each
are necessarily incomparable.
Following from the above, acknowledging this type of incommen-
surability between the Kantian and Nietzschean themes found within
the DRM could lead to the claim that its case is incoherent. Either
there is a commitment to Kantian universal moral rules and rights or
there is a commitment to a Nietzschean anti-universalist conception
of self-creation and empowerment, but there cannot be a rational
commitment to both as they are based on radically different assump-
tions concerning the relationship between values and persons. How-
ever, I believe there is another response to this conflict that is faithful
to the arguments for incommensurability, but that promotes equal
rights and social justice understood in broadly Kantian terms, along-
side a Nietzschean-type assertion of individual identity and empower-
ment for disabled people. This response does not depend on
synthesizing the two attitudes as with the eclectic response above, or
on making a trade-off between them leading to some kind of
settlement regarding a right balance between the two, rather it
asserts that recognizing this conflict as incommensurable produces
unresolvable but creative philosophical and political tensions which

should be embraced nevertheless.
First, the claim that committing to incommensurable values is
incoherent begs the question regarding the outcome of rational
deliberation concerning values we hold dear. It assumes rational
deliberation necessarily solves or addresses value-conflict through a
philosophical principle or method being applied to the conflict.
However, this assumption is controversial, as there are different
philosophical claims that can be made about the efficacy of rational
deliberation to deliver such a principle or method. Putting constraints
on rational deliberation is therefore philosophically plausible, but is
often not countenanced by theorists who argue that committing to
incommensurable values is incoherent. According to Raz:
Theories which provide general recipes for comparing values . . . begin
by establishing peoples actual judgements on the relative value of
options, and extrapolate principles which can be applied generally and
without restriction to any pair of alternatives. Unrestricted generality is
built into the theory forming process as a theoretical desideratum. The
question of incommensurability is begged without argument. (Raz,
1988: 335)
Secondly, providing philosophical solutions to value-conflict masks
the complexities of lives enmeshed in networks of competing obliga-
tions and personal aspirations, relating to, for example, career choice,
the competing demands of family and work, responsibilities to friends
and/or strangers. For those like Raz who argue that these values and
choices are incommensurable, we are left holding these conflicts in
some kind of tension. That is, recognizing their likely fluidity
regarding the choices we make, but acknowledging that the conflict is
what is at the bottom of philosophical enquiry. Further philosophical
digging is neither required nor possible to complete rational delib-
erations, or make perfect the outcomes of these conflicts. Again, to
cite Raz:
There is a strong temptation to think of incommensurability as an
imperfection, an incompleteness . . . the mistake in this thought is that
it assumes that there is a true value behind the ranking of options . . .
Values may change, but such a change is not the discovery of some
deeper truth. It is simply a change of value. Therefore, where there is
incommensurability it is the ultimate truth. There is nothing further
behind it, nor is it a sign of imperfection. (Raz, 1988: 327)
By way of conclusion, I will now explore this tension-holding in

relation to the Kantian and Nietzschean themes found within the
DRM, examining further the implications for social policy and
practice, and for some of the debates concerning the relationship
between postmodernism and social movements critiques of the
welfare state. My main conclusion being that associating social
movements with a postmodern value-relativist attitude (as some
commentators have done) although captures in part the positions
often taken, is premature given the above tensions within the DRM.
My main argument is that recognizing that the tension between
Kantian and Nietzschean themes is incommensurable, allows social
movements to sustain their critique of Fabianesque social welfare
modernist reformers in the ways explored above, at the same time
successfully preventing a postmodern collapse into value-relativism.
Conclusion postmodernism and how unresolvable

tensions can be radically creative in policy and
practice
Postmodernism comes in a multitude of guises. However, one charac-

teristic uniting postmodernist thought is its undermining of the
Enlightenment Project by the rejection of all totalizing or grand
theories, seen as misplaced attempts at discovering and imposing
order and unity through unitary explanations. For example, the
assumption that there is a morally objective standpoint accessible via
rational enquiry, such as that found in Kantian ethics explored above,
is dismissed in postmodernism. Moral objectivism is then often (but
not always)3 substituted by a commitment to value-relativism where
the moral significance of holding particular values is seen as being
entirely relative to the holder, whether conceived of individually or
in respect to particular cultures (West, 1996: 189220).
However, one problem with this line of thought is that its
critique of moral objectivism as an example of grand theorizing can be
too indiscriminate, and used as a reductio ad absurdum against those
who wield it. A radical critique must exist outside of the paradig-
matic framework being critiqued, and therefore seems to claim a
privileged position for seeing the world. Nevertheless, claiming this
privileged position is precisely what grand theorizing is being
critiqued for. The dilemma faced by postmodern value-relativists,
therefore, is that to abandon grand theorizing and moral objectivity as

its aim, risks abandoning the critique, as its method (Habermas,
1990). Nietzsche, being one of the main forerunners of postmodern
thought, faces the same dilemma in that his perspectivism explored
above could lose its critical edge through a similar collapse into value-
relativism.
However, I think it is possible to defend an alternative line that
accommodates some of the Nietzschean postmodern critique of grand
theory and ethical objectivism as being over-unifying and over-
totalizing, but at the same time does not collapse into the incoherence
of value-relativism. My main argument is that when the move is made
from emphasizing or recognizing particular differences, to celebrating
difference a basis is provided for defending substantive conceptions of
equality and rights, which can be promoted within a broadly Kantian
framework. This promotion though must fully recognize that the
Nietzschean themes also found within the DRM are incommensurable
with Kantian ethical commitments, but that this philosophical
tension provides a progressive platform for developing social policy
and social work practice.
It is important to first highlight that recommending the celebra-
tion of difference can be profoundly liberal, as well as Kantian. It
recognizes the moral significance of distinctions being made between
persons and the groups to which they belong, based on the premise
that individuals are agents with particular life-plans and cultural
backgrounds that should be respected. Therefore, the arguments
presented here are, partially, an attempt to reclaim some of the liberal
and Kantian ground from the above trends in postmodern thought,
by articulating the liberal foundation of the injunction that we should
celebrate differences. Nevertheless, I also argue that the philosophical
underpinning of the politics of difference found within the DRM
and other social movements, is correct to acknowledge the limitations
of this liberal/Kantian project. Using some of the postmodern critique
above, many within social movements have radically challenged
welfare states that, despite promoting social equality, are said to have
over-generalized about the needs of groups defined as vulnerable and
disadvantaged, and so reinforcing their social exclusion (for example
see Hughes and Lewis, 1998). Liberal universal categories of rights
and equality become externally imposed upon individuals and
groups without sufficiently acknowledging the differences between
them. For my part, acknowledging a Nietzschean commitment to
personal empowerment rejecting all universally imposed rules (how-

ever conceived) counters these over-generalizing and over-totalizing
tendencies, but itself must also be countered by the universal moral
injunction that we ought to celebrate differences.
In short, my contention is that if we commit to the injunction
that we should celebrate difference we should expect an enriching and
multi-dimensional relational experience with others a relationship
characterized by mutual advantage and reciprocation (also see my
arguments in Smith, 2001, 2002a, 2002b). I will now outline further
how this injunction can be coherently promoted as a universal value
i.e. a value that is enriching to all cultures and life-experiences not
despite our differences (as the postmodernists and Nietzsche are liable
to stress) but because of them. To recommend a celebration of
difference implies at least two things relating to the themes so far
explored. First, there is an implicit appeal to a universal moral
category, given:
(i) The celebration enjoins different individuals and groups to
positively promote not only their own difference, but also the
differences of other individuals and groups, and
(ii) That (i) cannot therefore include those individuals and groups
who refuse this enjoinment.
Second, celebrating difference is based on what is seen as the intrinsic
value of difference, given:
(iii) That the promotion of difference is regarded as a morally
preferable state of affairs to the promotion of uniformity amongst
human beings, and
(iv) That (iii) is based on reasons that can be articulated through
reference to social and political relationships understood as being
reciprocal.
Briefly put, my contention is that the Kantian and Nietzschean
themes within the DRM are best understood as a reflection of values
that are legitimately held to be incommensurable, in anticipation that
the political commitments that follow from the above injunctions will
be equal and reciprocal because of an enriching encounter with
difference.
I have argued elsewhere that, through individual or social forms,
mutual acts of giving and receiving between persons which character-
ize reciprocal relations, do not solely depend upon the production of
valuable objects which can then be used by others (Smith, 2001,

2002a, 2002b). To be sure, a central aspect of establishing reciprocal
relations concerns the value of things produced for mutual exchange,
but this value cannot be assessed independently from what I have
called the ontological stance of givers and receivers. In other words,
it is how people are with others not just what they produce for
others that defines and shapes reciprocal relations. For example, if a
person defines herself (or is defined by others) as having little or
nothing to contribute in mutual exchanges, then possibilities of both
acknowledging and developing reciprocal relations are diminished.
Whereas if a person is open to receiving a wide variety of benefits
from what another person has to offer, then reciprocal exchange is
more likely. That is, even if the giver has the same to offer in both
cases. Finally, how then does this understanding of reciprocity relate
to the arguments here concerning the incommensurability of the
Kantian and Nietzschean themes found within the DRM?
First, it can be seen how the establishment of reciprocal relations
in large part relies upon fostering an attitude of mutual self-worth
derived from a positive assessment of what the first person can offer
to the other, and what the other can contribute for the benefit of the
first person. Second, this allows for differences between individuals
to be celebrated anticipating the possibilities of increased reciprocity,
even if existing social relations might unjustly reinforce the correla-
tion between particular differences and social disadvantage. In broad
terms, this understanding of reciprocity permits philosophical space
for the moral injunction that we should celebrate differences, and
political space for disempowered groups to assert their identity on an
equal basis in the face of more dominant and oppressive constructions
of identity. More specifically, in relation to the Disability Rights
Movement, it permits a full-blooded assertion of disabled peoples
rights to equality and inclusion (reflecting the universalism of Kan-
tian ethics), at the same time promoting a highly robust assertion of
individual particularized identity for disabled people (reflecting the
perspectivism of Nietzsche).
Notes
1. It seems that the relationship between ethical principles and their

implementation is never straightforwardly delineated. I have argued
elsewhere that ethical principles at best provide only a broad framework

for evaluating policy and practice, which although may rule certain
policies and practices out, do not necessarily rule in specific recom-
mendations (Smith, 1997, 2003: 24662).
2. There is an equivocation within the eternal occurrence thesis that is
sometimes explored by Nietzschean scholars, which also relates to the
arguments presented here. Is Nietzsche claiming that suffering changes
form through embracing eternal recurrence, and consequently cannot be
called suffering any more, given it is a positive springboard to personal
empowerment? Or, for Nietzsche, does suffering remain, with the
eternal recurrence thesis prompting a new attitude to it, but without
transforming the tragic circumstances which everyone experiences?
Interestingly, the DRM has addressed a similar ambiguity regarding its
critique of the medical or tragic model of disability. The principal
objection from the DRM to the tragic or medical model of disability is
that it mistakenly associates having an impairment with suffering and
loss. This association is rejected by the DRM on the Nietzscheanesque
grounds that impairment-possession can be (and often is) life-
enhancing. However, as with Nietzsche, it is a claim that can be
interpreted two ways. That the life-enhancement derived from having
an impairment eradicates suffering so it is therefore mis-named by those
who promote the tragic model of disability. Or, that all things
considered, it is life-enhancing for that person to possess an impairment,
even though impairments can cause suffering. I have argued elsewhere
that many in the DRM promote the first interpretation whilst some
imply the second (Smith, 2001).
3. There is some dispute as to whether, or the degree to which, post-
modernism is necessarily value-relativist. For example, according to
Taylor-Gooby (1994: 385464) postmodernism inevitably collapses into
value-relativism, but because of its stress on the importance of sub-
jective and individual interpretation it then allows values associated
with the free-market and consumerism to enter through the back door.
Other commentators such as Penna and OBrien (1996: 3961)
although recognizing these dangers do not see postmodernism inevita-
bly suffering this fate and claim that elements at least of the post-
modern critique can be used to underpin radical political stances (also
see Fitzpatrick, 1996: 30320).
Acknowledgement
An earlier version of this paper was presented to the Social Policy Associa-
tion conference at the University of Nottingham in 2004. I would therefore
like to thank the participants for their comments, as well as the two
anonymous referees of this journal also for comments received. Of course, I
take full responsibility for the arguments finally presented here.
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STEVEN R.

Equality, identity and the Disability Rights

The social model of disability and conceptions of

The Disability Rights Movement (DRM) has had considerable polit-

that fail to include disabled people. These inadequacies exhibit in

condition liberates them from pervading norms, profoundly inform-

Kantian ethics: conceptions of needs, rights and

Interpretations of Immanuel Kants political and ethical philosophy

agents or choosers (Louden, 2000; Kaufman, 1999). However, these

Professionalised service provision within a needs-based system of welfare

tradition, founded on a Nietzschean anti-universalist philosophy. This

Nietzsche as a surprising ally to the Disability Rights

There are many aspects of Friedrich Nietzsches philosophy that seem

is also readily committed to by the DRM (and other social move-

each persons instinctively lived experience (Nietzsche, 1975a:

who experience it, and as condescending to those who are pitied

templates for individual repression. Understandings of goodness and

fate of all our circumstances and experience (Solomon, 2001: 1367).

From policy to practice and from Kant to Nietzsche

which centralizes human perspective and individual free-will within

In other words, empowerment is not about providing a given set of

commitments to universal values, expressed through the Kantian

some level of government constraint on individual behaviour and

unresolvable but creative philosophical and political tensions which

By way of conclusion, I will now explore this tension-holding in

Conclusion postmodernism and how unresolvable

Postmodernism comes in a multitude of guises. However, one charac-

therefore, is that to abandon grand theorizing and moral objectivity as

personal empowerment rejecting all universally imposed rules (how-

valuable objects which can then be used by others (Smith, 2001,

1. It seems that the relationship between ethical principles and their

elsewhere that ethical principles at best provide only a broad framework

Appel, F. (1999) Nietzsche Contra Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University

Van Der Linden, H. (1988) Kantian Ethics and Socialism. Cambridge:

Steven R. Smith is a reader in social policy and political philosophy at the

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