Expressivist Argument Research Articles

Discrimination in Abortion Law and the Message the Law is Sending: R (Crowter) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

R (Crowter) v Secretary of State for Health and Social Care involved a legal challenge to the law on abortion under the Abortion Act 1967, on the basis that the disability ground ‘expresses’ a negative message about disabled people, based on negative stereotyping, and that this expression is incompatible with Articles 8 and 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The case is significant because of the way that rights‐based arguments about abortion were framed; they were not centred on the interests or rights of the pregnant woman or the fetus, but on the rights of disabled people. This framing reflects the well‐known expressivist argument in the disability and bioethics literature. The arguments raised about a potential violation of rights due to ‘the message’ the law is sending could have far‐reaching implications, well beyond the law on abortion.

Expressed Ableism

With increased frequency, reproductive technologies are placing prospective parents in the position of choosing whether to bring a disabled child into the world. The most well-known objection to the act of “selecting against disability” is known as the Expressivist Argument. The argument claims that such acts express a negative or disrespectful message about disabled people and that one has a moral reason to avoid sending such messages. We have two primary aims in this essay. The first is to critically examine the standard Expressivist Argument, which we analyze in terms of the expression of ableist attitudes. We distinguish three interpretations of the argument and argue that each version faces serious objections. Our second aim is to articulate two closely related arguments that also pertain to expressed ableist attitudes. The Expressive Harms Argument maintains that there is a moral reason to avoid actions that give rise to the perception of ableist attitudes in cases where this is likely to have negative consequences for disabled people. The Ableist Motivation Argument speaks against selecting against disability in cases where one would be motivated by ableist attitudes. While these two arguments face various objections, we seek to establish that they are more promising than the most natural interpretations of the Expressivist Argument.

Christmas, Crescents, and Crosses: When Is Symbolic Religious Establishment Permissible?

AbstractSymbolic religious establishment (SRE), that is, the noncoercive recognition of religion by the state, has become the object of a growing debate in political philosophy. Although SRE is purely symbolic, some have argued that it can be wrong because of the message of political inequality that it sends. The indeterminacy of this expressive argument makes its application problematic, however. The objective of this article is to improve the applicability of the expressivist argument by providing clear guidelines of evaluation of SRE. I develop a three‐step test that helps distinguish permissible from impermissible cases of SRE: religious symbols that are divisive, political, and not appropriately justified are impermissible because of their exclusionary message. One important upshot of the argument is that the appeal to the value of heritage does not provide a plausible justification for the introduction of new religious symbols, and therefore that such neo‐establishment is always impermissible.

Response to commentaries on ‘Expressivism at the beginning and end of life’

I appreciate all of the commentaries for their careful and thoughtful engagement with my article. Because of limited space, I can only focus on some criticisms and cannot develop my...

Expressivism at the beginning and end of life

Some disability rights advocates criticise prenatal testing and selective abortion on the grounds that these practices express negative attitudes towards existing persons with disabilities. Disability rights advocates also commonly criticise...

'You are inferior!' Revisiting the expressivist argument.

According to the expressivist argument the choice to use biotechnologies to prevent the birth of individuals with specific disabilities is an expression of disvalue for existing people with this disability. The argument has stirred a lively debate and has recently received renewed attention. This article starts with presenting the expressivist argument and its core elements. It then goes on to present and examine the counter-arguments before it addresses some aspects that have gained surprisingly little attention. The analysis demonstrates that the expressivist argument has a wide range of underpinnings and that counter-arguments tend to focus on only a few of these. It also reveals an important aspect that appears to have been ignored, i.e., that people do not select foetuses based on chromosomes or other biological traits, but based on characteristics of living persons with specific disabilities. This makes it more difficult to undermine the claim that negative selection of foetuses expresses a disvaluing of persons with such disabilities. It leaves the expressivist argument with a strong bite still.

"This lifetime commitment": Public conceptions of disability and noninvasive prenatal genetic screening.

Recently, new noninvasive prenatal genetic screening technologies for Down syndrome and other genetic conditions have become commercially available. Unique characteristics of these screening tests have reignited long-standing concerns about prenatal testing for intellectual and developmental disabilities. We conducted a web-based survey of a sample of the US public to examine how attitudes towards disability inform views of prenatal testing in the context of these rapidly advancing prenatal genetic screening technologies. Regardless of opinion toward disability, the majority of respondents supported both the availability of screening and the decision to continue a pregnancy positive for aneuploidy. Individuals rationalized their support with various conceptions of disability; complications of the expressivist argument and other concerns from the disability literature were manifested in many responses analyzed.

Debating disability

This paper responds to the reviews by Edwards, Holm, Koch, Thomas and Vehmas of Disability Rights and Wrongs (2006). After summarising the recent history of disability studies as a discipline,...

Prenatal Testing for Selection against Disabilities

Disability rights advocates sometimes claim that prenatal tests to select against disabilities discriminate against people with disabilities. The “expressivist argument” that supports this position has been challenged on grounds of the difference between fetuses and born persons. In this essay, I explain why the expressivist argument is valid despite the questionableness of its conclusion, and why the distinction between fetuses and born persons fails to provide an adequate counterargument to the expressivist conclusion. I also consider a compelling argument for prenatal testing to select against disabilities and propose a reformulation of this argument that, I think, supports prenatal testing for disabilities while avoiding discrimination against people born with disabilities.

Testing, Terminating, and Discriminating

In my previous thinking about the considerations that go under the heading of the “expressivist argument,” I have been fascinated chiefly by two of its features: its (implicit) semantic commitments and its independence from disputes about the moral standing of fetuses. Abortions prompted by prenatal testing are undertaken because of indications that the fetus has physical features that would be configured as disabilities in the social world into which it would otherwise emerge. The expressivist argument's allegation, as I have understood it, is that abortions so motivated convey semantic content—“send a message”—to people who are currently living with disabilities that is somehow insulting, hateful, dismissive, or disparaging. It is thus uncontroversial moral subjects who are wronged, not—or, at least, not necessarily—the aborted fetuses. So far as this argument goes, a person might hold strongly pro-choice views about abortion generally and still object to “selective” abortions.

Prenatal diagnosis, personal identity, and disability.

A fascinating criticism of abortion occasioned by prenatal diagnosis of potentially disabling traits is that the complex test-and-abortion sends a morally disparaging message to people living with disabilities. I have argued that available versions of this "expressivist" argument are inadequate on two grounds. The most fundamental is that, considered as a practice, abortions prompted by prenatal testing are not semantically well-behaved enough to send any particular message; they do not function as signs in a rule-governed symbol system. Further, even granting, for the sake of argument, the expressive power of testing and aborting, it would not be possible, contra the argument's proponents, to distinguish between abortions undertaken because of beliefs about the disabling conditions the fetus might face as a child and abortions undertaken for many other possible reasons -- e.g., because of the poverty the fetus would face or the increase in family size that the birth of a new child would occasion. Here, I respond to criticisms of those arguments, and propose and defend another: the expressivist argument cannot, in general, distinguish successfully between abortion and therapy as modalities for responding to disabilities.

The rights and wrongs of school music: considering the expressivist argument and its existential component

All reflective music educators ponder the questions posed by this title. Over the years, they have channelled an enormous amount of energy into the improvement of musical teaching and learning in our schools. Ross (1995) argues that these efforts continue to be futile, for the basis of thought and practice is misconceived. This paper examines Ross's thesis highlighting and developing its existential component. A case study illustrates the argument for placing authentic self-expression and ‘music proper’ within the context of wider contemporary debate.