Abstract

This article argues that autistic people occasionally experience greater comfort from imposed routines than from a yielding form of love and understanding, which I will call naive humanism. Collins's theory of action, with its attention toward the achievements residing in a reductionist approach, can help to point out the flaws of a naive humanistic stance. It would, however, be a mistake to stop at this point and remain satisfied with the problem-solving capacity of such a reductionist stance. In a ward for autistic youths, the risk of cruelty resides in a purely mechanistic stance as much as in a naive humanistic approach. Thus, the social context of care of autistic people urges us to question the scope of a traditional scheme of thought, which cherishes a deep distinction between humans and machines.