(This is a somewhat personal topic for me, as I have a close relative who had to drop out of university due to mental health problems and ultimately ended up on an early disability pension when they would have preferred to be working. And things wouldn’t have needed to go very differently for something similar to happen to me.)
That’s unfortunate for your relative, of course, and they have my sympathies. But I don’t think anyone would call it implausible that this person would’ve benefited from being granted accommodations for their difficulties. The question is what this would cost their professors, the other students, society in general, etc.
You could in theory make several arguments here, and you seem to be making some of them—but it’s not clear which and when. You could say:
(a) It would cost the professors / other students / society so little to accommodate your relative that, on altruistic grounds, we should do this, because the benefit to the accommodated person is so great and the total cost is so low.
(b) The professors / other students may pay a non-trivial cost to accommodate your relative, but this is outweighed by the benefit to society from having this person be accommodated, so we should do it (which is to say, we should force any unwilling cost-bearers to bear the cost against their wishes, as a form of redistribution of resources).
(c) The professors, the other students, and society would all benefit from accommodating your relative, so we should obviously do it because it’s good for everyone.
(d) The professors / other students / society may pay a non-trivial cost to accommodate your relative, but we should do it anyway, because… something. (Social justice?)
Argument (d) seems hard to justify morally. Argument (c) is very implausible empirically. Argument (b) also seems hard to justify morally, but perhaps marginally less so than (d). Argument (a) also seems implausible empirically, as I’ve already discussed.
So my view is that it’s bad to take an “ignore/deny” type approach because the selective effects have an overall negative composition on both the student body of that particular school, as well as on the composition of society in general.
How can this be true? Why is it better to have the student body contain students who have this sort of mental disability, than to not have the student body contain such students?
I have described some of the costs and negative effects of such a thing. But here you seem to be saying not merely that the costs and negative effects are very low, but that actually there are benefits? What could they be…?
That’s unfortunate for your relative, of course, and they have my sympathies. But I don’t think anyone would call it implausible that this person would’ve benefited from being granted accommodations for their difficulties. The question is what this would cost their professors, the other students, society in general, etc.
You could in theory make several arguments here, and you seem to be making some of them—but it’s not clear which and when. You could say:
(a) It would cost the professors / other students / society so little to accommodate your relative that, on altruistic grounds, we should do this, because the benefit to the accommodated person is so great and the total cost is so low.
(b) The professors / other students may pay a non-trivial cost to accommodate your relative, but this is outweighed by the benefit to society from having this person be accommodated, so we should do it (which is to say, we should force any unwilling cost-bearers to bear the cost against their wishes, as a form of redistribution of resources).
(c) The professors, the other students, and society would all benefit from accommodating your relative, so we should obviously do it because it’s good for everyone.
(d) The professors / other students / society may pay a non-trivial cost to accommodate your relative, but we should do it anyway, because… something. (Social justice?)
Argument (d) seems hard to justify morally. Argument (c) is very implausible empirically. Argument (b) also seems hard to justify morally, but perhaps marginally less so than (d). Argument (a) also seems implausible empirically, as I’ve already discussed.
How can this be true? Why is it better to have the student body contain students who have this sort of mental disability, than to not have the student body contain such students?
I have described some of the costs and negative effects of such a thing. But here you seem to be saying not merely that the costs and negative effects are very low, but that actually there are benefits? What could they be…?