As I said in my post, a treatment has different purposes and effects in each case. Yes, very often the fact that children are expected to learn is a good reason to dispense a different treatment.
What I am saying is that the reasoning about purpose and effect of a treatment is sometimes simply overriden by an automatic assumption of difference of the subject.
Like autonomy and emotional comfort are unduly taken less into consideration in the treatment of children (in my view); and I don't believe that is a result of reasoning, but probably due to a fragmentation of the ethical standards applied to care.
I will give some examples that come to my mind when it comes to double standards in the care of children and of the intellectually disabled.
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it is more socially acceptable to say "If you don't stop crying I am going to walk away and leave you here forever" to a child. The same is more frowned upon if said to a disabled person.
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it is more socially acceptable to ignore a child's wishes to control the time when they eat, shower and go to bed, while for the disabled it is more often seen as a harmful disrespect to their autonomy.
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it is more socially acceptable to ground a child for misbehaviour than it is to do the same to a disabled person.
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It is (sometimes) more socially acceptable to allow an intellectually disabled person to engage in activities that are harmful to their health (smoking, opting out of a medical procedure) than it is for children.
I don't claim these things have the same purposes and effects in all cases, and no treatment is a one size fits all. So yes, very often the difference in treatment is reasonable and justified.
But I think people put the "ethical considerations for treating a child" and "ethical considerations for treating a disabled person" in two different boxes for no justified reason.
There are indeed cases of deception being applied to increase one's well being, as well as for causing discomfort in order to guide behaviour. Both for children and for the elderly.
What I would like to focus however are some things like for example:
-Use of fear to guide behaviour.
-Use of routines in favour of the caretaker's convenience, in detriment of the patients autonomy.
-Use of punishment for undesired behaviour
-Use of rewards as incentive for good behavour
-adequation of responsibilities according to the patient's ability
I think there are some double standards in the general view of how acceptable these things are in the care of children and people with intellectual disabilities. Of course, there is no consensus in each case, and it may even vary for different cultures. Also, the actual treatment is heavilly affected by the circumstances, and children more often enjoy the care of more goodwilling caretakers. But even in ideal situations, I think there is significant fragmentation between what what people believe are the best ethical standards for the treatment of children and for the treatment of the intellectually disabled
VeevaHon
1yr ago
It is true that children generally enjoy a level of goodwill and competence from their caretakers that other people with intellectual disabilities will hardly come across, and that there are differences in context that justify differences in treatment - most notably, that children will develop and have a long future ahead of them, while other people won't.
What I criticise is that there are many similarities between the different situations that do not seem to be widely acknowledged, and that people seem to have two separate sets of ethical rules for treting children or the intellectually disabled.
What I propose integrating more the discussion of ethical treatment of children and of the intellectually disabled as they are arguably of the same in nature, in order to improve both.
Maybe there could be benefits in introducing more elements of parenting to the treatment of the adult intellectually insufficient, and more elements of incentivized autonomy to the raising of children.
But as of right now I feel there is undue fragmentation in the ethical standards in the treatment of vulnerable people
Medical ethics is a field I am interested in, and I came across an old article in particular in the New York Times that drew my attention lately
https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/02/magazine/nursing-home-pitfalls.html?ref=theethicist&_r=0
The article in question in The Ethicist column describes a method used to keep dementia patients from wandering to unsafe areas by placing a black doormat in the way. According to the writer, the patients tend to perceive the doormat as a “hole” and feel deterred from passing, and raises the question about whether it is ethical to use one’s disability and/or fear to guide behaviour. In the columnist’s opinion, this application is ethical.
It got me thinking about the treatment given to individuals affected by the most common form of intellectual disability, that is called childhood (I say that half jokingly. Just half).
The fact that the aforementioned question about dementia patients is raised, in a world where adults guiding the behaviour of children through their lack of judgement is just a fact of life, is curious to me. Is there a good reason why childhood and intellectual impairments should be considered fundamentally different, and that the dilemmas of one should be considered separately from the other?
That is not to claim that the purposes and effects of a given treatment are uniform in every context. Of course, there are different degrees and forms of intellectual disabilities, each requiring different types of treatment. But it seems to me that it is relevant to question whether these differences in context justify the difference in treatment.
Right now I tend to think that disproportionately more regard is given to the autonomy of adults with an intellectual disability than to that of children
Your comment is not sufficiently related to the topic I am trying to explore here.
If you would like to discuss views on abortion or death penalty, I recommend you start your own thread.
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