Moral Issues in Special Education. Robert F. Ladenson
understanding of the reasons that justify the rights and responsibilities of membership in the American democratic body politic, especially the strong right of freedom of expression essential to democratic deliberation;
• recognition, in light of such justifying reasons, of the great extent to which the rights and responsibilities of members of the American democratic body politic are interpreted differently by reasonable persons;
• ability to follow lines of reasoning in arguments concerning public affairs and, especially, to recognize logical gaps and inconsistencies; and
• ability to recognize when factual evidence clearly supports, or does not clearly support, a particular conclusion and readiness to exercise the ability regardless of the factual conclusions that may ensue.
Turning to the second prong, and following Alan Gewirth, the idea of self-fulfillment has two key aspects—aspiration fulfillment and capacity fulfillment. The role of individual choice is integral to both of these aspects. An appropriate education for children in Group A, therefore, must aim to impart knowledge and develop abilities that foster growth with respect to particular faculties. These are the faculties which John Stuart Mill described in “On Liberty” both as crucial for “discerning or desiring what is best,” and also as exercised only in making choices. Mill’s examples, noted earlier, are “observation to see, reasoning and judgment to foresee, activity to gather materials for decision, discrimination to decide . . . and firmness and self-control to hold to one’s deliberate decision.”
Mill makes clear that the abovementioned faculties can be developed only through exercise in the context of making choices. But the developmental process is facilitated immensely and often indispensably when a choice maker can draw upon background resources of relevant knowledge and abilities. To provide such invaluable background resources, an appropriate education for children in Group A must contain, at a minimum, the following elements:
(1) principal academic focus in primary grades (K–5) upon developing to the greatest feasible extent competence in the basic cognitive skills of reading, writing, and numerical calculation as well as in basic computer literacy;
(2) significant exposure in subsequent grades (6–12) to diverse areas of enduring intellectual, artistic, and social interest and importance—for example, mathematics, science, literature, languages, history, civics (including contemporary moral and political issues), visual arts, and music;
(3) curricula and teaching methods in all academic grades (K–12) reasonably calculated to stimulate the engaged interest of students and to promote development of a wide range of important intellectual abilities;
(4) curricula and teaching methods which aim to develop all five of the first-prong elements apropos knowledge and abilities essential for meaningful deliberation as a member of the American democratic body politic (as enumerated above).
Significance from the Standpoint of Applied Ethics of the Minimum Content Account of the Moral Right of Children in Group A to Receive an Appropriate K–12 Education
“Applied ethics,” as understood here, refers to an approach drawing extensively upon various fields of philosophy. These fields include moral theory, political philosophy, legal philosophy, and other relevant philosophical areas. They are used as conceptual resources to identify and examine concrete, specific (contrasted with abstract, general) ethical issues either for society as a whole or for individual persons about whom decisions must be made.42
As stated in chapter 1, such an approach is invaluable for (1) framing morally crucial questions about applied ethics issues, especially when one experiences a sense of discomfort in trying to address a question and yet finds it had to articulate the crux of the problem; (2) aiding in identification of morally relevant considerations with regard to the crucial questions; and (3) ruling out morally unacceptable answers to them.
The minimum content account of the moral right of children in Group A to receive an appropriate education could function as an important tool of applied ethics analysis. It is relevant to controversial, highly viewpoint-dependent, and hard-to-resolve issues concerning special education in the United States.
In disputes between parents of children with disabilities and public school district personnel, the parties often harbor attitudes, beliefs, and sentiments that prolong or exacerbate their conflict. For example, parents frequently believe or strongly suspect that the school district wishes to deal with the issues in connection with their child’s special education program in the least costly and burdensome way.
At the same time, school district personnel often believe the following (although they rarely say so explicitly): the district personnel, in their opinion, have been compelled to expend large amounts of unproductive time and effort responding to the parents’ extremely uninformed or unreasonable concerns, issues, and complaints.
An applied ethics analysis incorporating the minimum content analysis of the moral right of children in Group A to receive an appropriate K–12 education cannot itself settle the most intense disputes concerning education with respect to either programs for individual children or general policy matters. It provides a framework, however, which foregrounds the basic moral objectives of an appropriate education for Group A children.
Utilizing such a framework could facilitate reasonable and responsible compromises that each party considers principled. It could help disputants to understand and to appreciate the moral force of each other’s position, their disagreement with the other’s position notwithstanding (e.g. with respect to key arguments of the opposing side and basic concerns motivating them.)As a corollary it could also help to provide each party a deeper moral understanding of its own position—of both its strongest and its less than strongest arguments—from a moral standpoint, and the core moral commitments implicit in the strongest arguments.
Crucial Difference between Group A and Group B Children for the Purpose of Understanding What an Appropriate K–12 Education Means
The IDEA enumerates diverse disability conditions entitling a child to receive special education and related services if such a condition adversely affects his or her educational performance. The following conditions are the ones currently covered under the IDEA: intellectual disabilities, hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairment, and specific learning disabilities.43 Each of the above disability conditions is defined explicitly in the IDEA’s associated federal regulations.44
The analysis in this chapter applies fully to all nondisabled children and to all children with disability conditions enumerated in the IDEA, with the exception of intellectual disability. Nothing intrinsic to any of the IDEA’s enumerated disability conditions, exclusive of intellectual disability, makes a child unable to derive meaningful benefit, with the aid of special education and related services, from receiving an appropriate K–12 education.
In regard to children with intellectual disability conditions, the analysis applies in a modified way, for reasons explained below, to children whose intellectual disability conditions are within the mild or moderate ranges. Intellectual disability has varying degrees of severity, which the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) of the American Psychiatric Association divides into four categories—mild, moderate, severe, and profound.45
The two-pronged objective of an appropriate K–12 education for American children applies only partially with respect to children with intellectual disability in the mild or moderate range; it does not apply at all to children whose intellectual disability conditions are in the severe or the profound range.
Persons with intellectual disability conditions in the DSM 5’s mild or moderate ranges can, with support, make personal choices in significant daily-living activities—such as shopping, traveling, and preparing food; recreation; and even employment. (Much more support, though, is needed in the moderate than in the mild range.)46 To this point, learning environments designed for children with mild or moderate intellectual