With the idea of health and disease, I would define someone that is healthy and disease free if they can live a normal quality life even when he or she may have an illness that would reduce one’s independence. This viewpoint is called the constructivist viewpoint, which means that a person’s health is determined by cultural norms. However, some people believe in a naturalistic viewpoint, which means abnormalities are determined by examining the body for any dysfunctions. In the case of Amanda Baggs, I would defend that she has a disorder from a constructivist perspective because society creates the social norm that displays her as disordered.
Using Amanda Bagg’s as an example, I believe that she has a disorder due to her autism. When I look…show more content… One of which is the idea of harm, in the argument above there is an ill definition of what harmful is considered. The argument does not determine who should be the judge of what “harm” is, nor does it explain who should the act of harm be committed towards. If Amanda Baggs does not harm herself or another person, then that proves that she is not disordered. Looking back at what the argument that was stated above the only harm committed is her inability to communicate with people vocally. However, in the video she communicates through a program via computer. Her ability to form coherent thoughts shows that she has the capability to withhold from performing dangerous acts. Her inability to talk does not prove she is a dangerous person or even close. Another potential problem with Wakefield's argument would be that not all body parts are working properly due to the fact that she does not talk to others vocally. According to Boorse’s Biostatical Theory, it states that a person does not have disorder if he or she is functioning at a normal or supernormal circumstance. In the case of Amanda Baggs, she has shown that she has the ability to communicate and interact with objects at a supernormal level where others wouldn’t understand. According the theory, it states “X does its causal contribution to the goals of a system” (Kostko,2016), which means that a part must function as it is…show more content… When reexamining the theory, it states that “A person is healthy when all of their parts and processes are functioning at normal or supernormal levels of efficiency” (Kostko,2016). Even though it was stated that her ability to communicate was beyond other people’s comprehension. It still doesn’t prove that she is at normal or even supernormal. Boore’s theory uses the meaning “supernormal”, which means that a person is able to communicate at or even above the norm. In this situation she was about to understand other people’s word, however, she was unable to respond or even acknowledge other people’ response. Another problem with the argument that her vocal cords are functioning properly is that fact that social norms state the way words are formed from the vocal cords are normal. According the constructivist idea, the social norm is that people are able to form words from speaking and communicating. Since Amanda is not using her vocal cords to form words that other people can understand this shows that she has a disorder.
To conclude, I defended that Amanda Baggs has a disorder from a constructivist perspective because society creates the social norm that displays her as disordered. I supported my thesis by using Wakefield’s theory and determine if the biostatistics theory was good enough to prove Amanda as not disordered and concluded that Amanda Baggs is disordered based on what society states as abnormal
