Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T22:57:35.379Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Philosophical Inclusive Design: Intellectual Disability and the Limits of Individual Autonomy in Moral and Political Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 September 2014

Laura Davy
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Drawing on the built environment concept of “inclusive design” and its emphasis on creating accessible environments for all persons regardless of ability, I suggest that a central task for feminist disability theory is to redesign foundational philosophical concepts to present opportunities rather than barriers to inclusion for people with disability. Accounts of autonomy within liberal philosophy stress self‐determination and the dignity of all individual persons, but have excluded people with intellectual disability from moral and political theories by denying their capacity for individual autonomy, seen as a chief marker of moral personhood. This paper modifies and extends feminist theories of relational autonomy by arguing for the need to view autonomy as a feature of persons that is manifested only through relations of support, advocacy, and enablement. An “inclusively designed,” relational account negotiates the tensions encountered in attempts to apply autonomy to people with high support needs, and politicizes the concept as an advocacy tool for people with intellectual disability and their allies.

Type
Articles
Information
Hypatia , Volume 30 , Issue 1: Special Issue: New Conversations in Feminist Disability Studies , Winter 2015 , pp. 132 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Badano, Gabriele. 2014. Political liberalism and the justice claims of the disabled: A reconciliation. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 17 (4). http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13698230.2013.775734#.U9ptSqi0Zyw (accessed July 31, 2014).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barnes, Colin. 2012. Understanding the social model of disability: Past, present and future. In Routledge handbook of disability studies, ed. Watson, Nick, Roulstone, Alan and Thomas, Carol. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carlson, Licia. 2001. Cognitive ableism and disability studies: Feminist reflections on the history of mental retardation. Hypatia 16 (4): 124–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, Licia. 2010. The faces of intellectual disability: Philosophical reflections. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Carlson, Licia, and Feder Kittay, Eva, eds. 2010. Cognitive disability and its challenge to moral philosophy. Malden, Mass.: Wiley‐Blackwell.Google Scholar
Christman, John. 2010. The politics of persons: Individual autonomy and socio‐historical selves. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Code, Lorraine. 2000. The perversion of autonomy and the subjection of women: Discourses of social advocacy at century's end. In Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self, ed. MacKenzie, Catriona and Stoljar, Natalie. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Gerald. 1988. The theory and practice of autonomy. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fineman, Martha. 2000. Contract and care. Chicago‐Kent Law Review 76 (3): 1403–40.Google Scholar
Feinberg, Joel. 1989. Autonomy. In The inner citadel: Essays on individual autonomy, ed. Christman, John. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Frey, R. G. 2005. Autonomy, diminished life, and the threshold for use. In Personal autonomy: New essays on personal autonomy and its role in contemporary moral philosophy, ed. Stacey Taylor, James. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gottlieb, Roger S. 2002. The tasks of embodied love: Moral problems in caring for children with disabilities. Hypatia 17 (3): 225–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Peter, and Imrie, Rob. 2001. Inclusive design: Designing and developing accessible environments. New York: Spon Press.Google Scholar
Hayek, Friedrich A. 1960. The constitution of liberty. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Keates, Simeon, and Clarkson, John. 2003. Countering design exclusion: An introduction to inclusive design. London: Springer.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder. 1999. Love's labor: Essays on women, equality, and dependency. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Kittay, Eva Feder. 2010. The personal is philosophical is political: A philosopher and mother of a cognitively disabled person sends notes from the battlefield. In Cognitive disability and its challenge to moral philosophy, ed. Carlson, Licia and Feder Kittay, Eva. Malden, Mass.: Wiley‐Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mackenzie, Catriona, and Stoljar, Natalie, eds. 2000. Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Macklin, Jenny. 2010. Breaking the vicious cycle of welfare dependency. The Australian, June 21.Google Scholar
McMahan, Jefferson. 2002. The ethics of killing: Problems at the margins of life. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyers, Diana. 2000. Intersectional identity and the authentic self? Opposites attract! In Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self, ed. MacKenzie, Catriona and Stoljar, Natalie. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, Jennifer. 1989. Reconceiving autonomy: Sources, thoughts and possibilities. Yale Journal of Law and Feminism 1: 7–36.Google Scholar
Nedelsky, Jennifer. 2011. Law's relations: A relational theory of self, autonomy, and law. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Nicki, Andrea. 2001. The abused mind: Feminist theory, psychiatric disability, and trauma. Hypatia 16 (4): 80–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 2010. The capabilities of people with cognitive disabilities. In Cognitive disability and its challenge to moral philosophy, ed. Carlson, Licia and Feder Kittay, Eva. Malden, Mass.: Wiley‐Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rawls, John. 1992. Political liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas. 1996. Governing “advanced” liberal democracies. In Foucault and political reason, ed. Barry, Andrew, Osborne, Thomas and Rose, Nikolas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Rose, Nikolas, and Miller, Peter. 2008. Governing the Present: Administering Economic, Social and Personal Life. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Google Scholar
Silvers, Anita, and Francis, Leslie. 2010. Thinking about the good: Reconfiguring liberal metaphysics (or not) for people with cognitive disabilities. In Cognitive disability and its challenge to moral philosophy, ed. Carlson, Licia and Feder Kittay, Eva. Malden, Mass.: Wiley‐Blackwell.Google Scholar
Taylor, Charles. 1989. The sources of the self. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Thomas, Matthew, and Daniels, Dale. 2010. Welfare to work: A reform agenda in progress. Parliamentary Library Briefing Book. Canberra: Parliament of Australia.Google Scholar
Tillman, Rachel. 2013. Ethical embodiment and moral reasoning: A challenge to Peter Singer. Hypatia 28 (1): 18–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Washington Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs. 2013. Disability community. http://www.wcsap.org/disability-community (accessed July 31, 2014).Google Scholar
Wong, Sophia Isako. 2010. Duties of justice to citizens with cognitive disabilities. In Cognitive disability and its challenge to moral philosophy, ed. Carlson, Licia and Feder Kittay, Eva. Malden, Mass.: Wiley‐Blackwell.Google Scholar