Narrowed Lives: Meaning, Moral Value, and Profound Intellectual Disability

Peer reviewe

Vammaisuus ja yhteiskunnallisesti luodut haitat

Non peer reviewe

DISABILITY AND MORAL RESPONSIBILITY

Abstract. This article offers an introductory analysis of the philosophical and empirical considerations having to do with the significance of psychopathy, intellectual disability and ADHD regarding one's moral responsibility. Moral responsibility comes in degrees and is ultimately determined on social grounds. Whether a certain diagnosis and its underpinning neuro-cognitive impairment affects one's cognitive, emotional and moral conduct, depends also on social and relational factors

The Moorean argument for the full moral status of those with profound intellectual disability: a rejoinder to Roberts

In a recent paper we argued that a Moorean strategy can be employed to justify our continued belief in the following proposition, even in the presence of philosophical views that entail it is false, without any philosophical argument against those views, and without any positive philosophical argument in its favour: H>A: Humans have an equal moral status that is higher than the moral status of non-human animals. The basic idea is that our confidence in the truth of this proposition is greater than our confidence in the propositions that make up those philosophical views that entail it is false, and that this is sufficient to justify rejecting those views and continue to believe H>A. Roberts has recently responded to our suggestion by claiming: (i) Although the Moorean strategy is valid, it is not powerful. (ii) A resort to the Moorean strategy reflects too great a pessimism about the accounts available that purport to justify H>A.2. In this short rejoinder we explain why we think that Roberts's two claims are false

'He is, after all, a young man' : Claiming ordinary lives for young adults with profound intellectual disabilities

This paper discusses youth and the significance of age in the lives of persons with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities. The analysis is based on an ethnographic research project that explores what makes a good life for this group of people. The findings indicate that whilst the meaning and significance of youth and age were discussed often by care workers and family members, age had very little significance in the lives of our research participants. Youth as a phase of life gets lost in the transition from children's services to adult services: age in the lives of persons with profound intellectual disabilities means merely a move from one service system to another. For the care workers, age provides a way to evaluate and criticize the service system and whether it caters for the individual needs of persons with profound intellectual disabilities.Peer reviewe

Parental and professional agency in terminations for fetal anomalies: analysis of Finnish women's accounts

This study explores the construction of parental and professional agency in the written accounts by women who have undergone selective abortion (N=8). The analysis of the data was based on qualitative, linguistic discourse analysis. The accounts indicate that the mothers themselves exhibited both strong and weak agency during the process of prenatal diagnosis. The role of the professionals was usually discussed in these accounts concerning only the phases of pregnancy when something out of ordinary had been detected. After the termination, the mothers expressed that they were forced to exhibit strong agency and find ways to cope with their distress unaided due to a lack of professional support. The findings provide new viewpoints for discussing the realization of parental autonomy in prenatal counseling as well as knowledge about the various emotional reactions which prenatal diagnosis and selective abortions evoke

Moral wrongs, disadvantages, and disability: a critique of critical disability studies

Critical disability studies (CDS) has emerged as an approach to the study of disability over the last decade or so and has sought to present a challenge to the predominantly materialist line found in the more conventional disability studies approaches. In much the same way that the original development of the social model resulted in a necessary correction to the overly individualized accounts of disability that prevailed in much of the interpretive accounts which then dominated medical sociology, so too has CDS challenged the materialist line of disability studies. In this paper we review the ideas behind this development and analyse and critique some of its key ideas. The paper starts with a brief overview of the main theorists and approaches contained within CDS and then moves on to normative issues; namely, to the ethical and political applicability of CDS

Floating Signifiers: Managing Disability Language in Sweden

This paper analyzes the management of intellectual disability language. I will focus specifically on the term flerfunktionsnedsättning which is the recommended Swedish equivalent for Profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD). This term reflects how, in Sweden, discourses and practices with an aim to conform language to linguistic, ethical, and political ideals are enacted. The result of such process in relation to disability has been the creation of different co-existing vocabularies that often create confusion. This is especially the case with flerfunktionsnedsättning which is hardly used or even recognized in the field among professionals. I will argue that this terminological confusion reflects the normative confusion in disability studies and disability policy