Defending Deaf Culture: The Case of Cochlear Implants*

COCHLEAR implants” are a technology which attempts to “cure” deafness by bypassing the outer ear through electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve. In the last two decades, these implants have been offered as treatment options not only for adults who have lost their hearing as a result of accident or disease in later life, but also for children who were deafened as infants or who were born deaf. An increasing number of operations are being undertaken on children as young as two years old to install these implants in order to allow them to begin hearing and learning spoken language. While the existing technology is at best only partially successful in allowing the deaf to hear, if the technology continues to improve then one day we may live in a world in which no-one needs to be deaf. It comes as a great surprise to most people in the hearing community to learn that a sizeable section of the deaf community has reacted with hostility and dismay to the development of this technology. Throughout the 1980s and the early 1990s, Deaf people mobilized to protest the use of cochlear implants. In particular, they objected to the choice being made on behalf of young children to insert the implant. These critics reject the very idea of trying to find a “cure” for deafness. Indeed they have compared it to genocide. They argue that deaf people should not be thought of as disabled but as members of a minority cultural group. The search for a cure for deafness represents the desire of a The Journal of Political Philosophy: Volume 13, Number 2, 2005, pp. 135–152