On 17 May 2012 17:53, Jeremy Fox <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

This is a fascinating and very useful discussion. On the whole I find myself in sympathy with those to advocate a generous approach to the issue. I have been guided very much by Amartya Sen's thinking on the subject of disability and justice in which he points out that " a disabled person may need more resources and primary goods to achieve the same capabilities.... People with physical or mental disabilities have to incur extra costs to do the same things that others do with ease (such as walk, talk, or see), and sometimes the disabled will not reach comparable levels of activity or achievement as the non-disabled even with incurring much expense." There is a full chapter on this subject in Sen's The Idea of justice; and also a summary in a speech Sen gave at a World Bank conference in 2004. I do not think this challenge is one of simply of following SFE policy, but of working out and then advocating what each of us believes to be the correct approach and offering that view either collectively or individually to SFE. We may lose the argument; we may indeed disagree with each other; but I think we should at least have a foundation for what we do that goes beyond worrying about adverse public opinion or whether SFE has a coherent policy. In any case, SFE is not, in our experience, immune to appeal and has become, in fact, a pretty good listener.