It could be argued that “spiritual logic” is within the capability of at least some autistic people. Would this suffice for them to be considered “human”?

It may be enough to be able to interact successfully with humans, and if such social interaction itself is traditionally a defining feature of humanness, then what’s the problem? Often the “emotionally-right” thing to do can be the most sensitive as well. Thus “enlightened self-interest” can serve well.

And is “humanness” an inherent quality - something an individual “just is” - or is it based on externally-observable behavior? If autism itself is defined “from the outside”, then is there an “outside-to-outside” and “inside-to-inside” way of comparing autism and “humanness”? Maybe we need to construct a 2x2 matrix (not to say “truth table”) of inside and outside and see what it looks like (and tells us)...

What about emotions? Without them, opinions seem merely probabilities and preferences merely cost/benefit analyses. But is this true along all axes? There seem to be points-of-view from which reasonably-enlightened behavior is simply sensible. This suggests that the enlightenment was originally there but became obscured by socially-sanctioned distortion/masking, so the “enlightenment” process is not one of original discovery but of rediscovery.

Last revised: June 17, 2007
(c)2007 Dave Spicer
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