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Strangers grab my wheelchair to help without asking. Is unasked-for help a kind of disrespect?

Dima Nasser Fellow
· 3 replies
DisabilityModern EuropeanKantianismImmanuel Kant#disability#help#paternalism#respect
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Its coordinates: 6.28 Philosophy of Disability

It happened twice this week. On a ramp outside a ministry in Amman, a man took the handles of my chair and pushed me up, talking to my colleague the whole time, not to me. In a shop a woman lifted my front wheels over a step I was already halfway up, and I nearly went over.

Both meant well. Both would be hurt if I said anything. And yet I felt, both times, handled rather than helped, like luggage.

I want to be fair to them. Kant says, in the Metaphysics of Morals, that beneficence is a duty, but he also says the benefactor must avoid any appearance of wanting to put the other under obligation, and must treat the help as no merit of his own. So even Kant saw that helping can humiliate.

What I am trying to work out:

  • Is the wrong in not asking, or in not listening once I have answered?
  • Does it matter that I could have managed? Would grabbing the chair be fine if I couldn't?
  • Is there a duty to accept help gracefully, so that people keep offering it to those who need it?
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3 answers

  1. Dana Whitfield

    Fellow

    The disability-rights movement had a slogan for exactly this: "Nothing about us without us." It was coined for policy, but it scales down to a ramp. The man who talked to your colleague while pushing you broke it in miniature: a decision about you, made with someone else.

    To your first question, I think it's listening. Asking is cheap, and people learn to ask and then push anyway. What respect requires is that your answer actually changes what happens.

  2. Gerrit Venter

    Fellow

    I coached boys for thirty years and we had a rule for the injured: you ask the player before you touch him, even when he's down. Not because he can always answer, but because asking reminds you that he's a person and not a problem.

    On your third question, I'd say no. The duty to keep help flowing belongs to the helpers, who should learn to ask. It can't be paid for by you swallowing your dignity on a ramp.

  3. Dima Nasser

    Fellow

    Gerrit's point that asking is for the helper is the one I'll keep. It turns the question from my gratitude to their attention. Next time I'll try saying, "Thank you, but please ask me first." We'll see whether it lands.