nine - Promoting a good life
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 September 2022
Summary
Introduction
Fortunately the feebleminded are much more easily made happy than a sane person. (Mary Dendy, quoted in McDonagh, 2008, p 321)
“I think staff need training to be more confident, you know, and to speak the right way to me, you know, ‘cos some of them can be a bit bossy you know. I think they need to really put their feet in my shoes, kind of.” (Marie Wolfe)
In this chapter we continue our consideration of the implications of working towards a good life for the roles of those who support people with intellectual disabilities. Here we focus on the idea of independence, one that is prominent in current thinking (see DH, 2009).
We continue to stress the centrality of relationships, and consider what kinds of relationships are needed to promote a good life for people with intellectual disabilities. In doing this we put forward an argument that in current thinking staff are cast as a way to compensate for people's perceived lack of reason. This has consequences for staff roles, for training and the underpinning values and philosophy to inform practice, which simply are not in place.
To recap, in Chapter Three we observed:
Given the strong focus on the importance of reason in philosophical thought about a good life, what are the consequences for groups of people whose reason is perceived as flawed, impaired or ‘inferior’ to those around them? Does this preclude them from leading a ‘good life’? (p 49)
If we accept the centrality of reason to a ‘good life’ then we really do have a problem. Rather than face this conundrum, we believe that ingenious efforts have been made to make up for the perceived lack of reason by constructing relationships that will compensate. They are part of what Dowse described as:
Technologies of agency or citizenship seek to enhance and improve the individual's capacities for participation and action and thereby assist them in becoming actors capable of managing risk. (Dowse, 2009, p 577)
If these fail, then we can blame others rather than consider the problem posed by the perceived impaired reason.
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- People with Intellectual DisabilitiesTowards a Good Life?, pp. 151 - 170Publisher: Bristol University PressPrint publication year: 2010