WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES THE BODY MAKE? 57rooted in majority experiences of bodily boundaries, such as those related
to autonomy and self- reliance, may be less resonant for people whose em-
bodiment is rarely or never autonomous, such as persons who are highly
dependent on caregivers for bodily maintenance. Metaphors rooted in ver-
ticality (e.g., “standpoint”) are similarly shallow for those who spend their
lives prone. Those dependent on sight (“blind spot”) make little sense for
those who hear the world but do not see it. People with variant perceptual
and motor experiences do, quite literally, “see” and “feel” the world differ-
ently. Recalling Prinz’s (2005) emotional theory of moral reasoning, Scully
also argues that embodied appraisals vary, inasmuch as different bodies
learn to expect different patterns of treatment from the world. A sense of
outrage at bodily violation or intrusion, for example, may reflect experi-
ences of privacy and bodily integrity that are not universally shared among
people with disabilities who rely on caregivers for bodily maintenance.^15
Her point is that bioethics, which concerns itself with morality in relation
to medicine, must take into account the ways in which moral knowledge is
shaped by embodied experiences, which often are not shared by those who
are the target of bioethical considerations.
Scully insists that neither physical nor epistemic universality can be as-
sumed. Not only do body- subjects diversely interact with environments,
but they do so with variable outcomes. Yet her argument also highlights
the difficulties of conceptualizing physical embodiment as a source of epis-
temic difference. It raises the prospect of a physicalist standpoint theory of
disability, or the idea that physical variation affords a distinctive vantage
point on the world.^16 Recognizing the risks of this position, Scully takes care
to disavow an essentialist conception of disability. She argues that if “adap-
tations of the environment are as distinctly formative of moral cognition
as unusual morphologies, movements or perceptions themselves” (103), we
cannot speak of something like a “disability mind” or a “disability brain.” I
argue further that bodily morphology and the environment are not sepa-
rate elements with independent epistemic contributions. Rather, ability and
disability — and other kinds of difference as well — can be seen in terms of
the different ways body- minds couple or fit with various elements in the
world. In other words, rather than seeing disability as an essential category
of the body- subject, it must be seen (along with ability) as an experience