Review: adults with disabilities experience more violence than non-disabled adults

doi:10.1136/ebmental-2012-100827

Treating Disabled Adults as Children

Respect ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198824930.003.0014 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 270-288

Author(s):

Adam Cureton

Keyword(s):

Decision Makers ◽

Adults With Disabilities ◽

Basic Rights ◽

As If ◽

Disabled Adults

Adam Cureton points out that the intuitively plausible claim that it is disrespectful to treat mentally competent adults as if they were children gives rise to a puzzle, within a Kantian framework. It seems possible to fulfill basic Kantian duties of respect toward adults with disabilities (respecting their basic rights, for example, and recognizing their intrinsic worth), while still treating them like children. So how is it disrespectful to offer unwanted paternalistic assistance to a disabled person, or to speak to her condescendingly, if one is otherwise treating her as an end in herself? Cureton answers that Kant not only describes duties of respect toward rational beings in general, but also says that specific forms of respectful treatment are appropriate for particular people because of their situation or station. Cureton proposes that treating disabled adults like children typically involves miscategorizing their “station” of being competent adult decision makers.

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Cultivating Empathy and Community for Adults with Disabilities: Germany’s “Die Lebensgemeinschaft e. V.” of Sassen and Richthof

Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography ◽

10.15273/jue.v8i2.8685 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 17-31

Author(s):

Nicolas Gedigk

Keyword(s):

Romantic Relationships ◽

Rural Community ◽

Participant Observation ◽

Full Time ◽

Adults With Disabilities ◽

Mentally Disabled ◽

Sense Of Purpose ◽

Personal Community ◽

Disabled Adults

Sassen, a German rural community, cares for mentally disabled adults with the purpose of providing them with the empathy, freedom, and community that other institutions often fail to provide. Through participant-observation and interviews, this study examines the ways in which this isolated community does not deny disabled individuals of their humanity. Sassen has full-time, live-in caretakers that care for their own surrogate family of disabled residents, creating an empathetic, and personal community. Through its isolation from society and its live-in staff, Sassen goes beyond ensuring their residents’ survival and provides them with the freedom and empathy to engage in romantic relationships, belong to a family, and have a sense of purpose through their jobs that help sustain their community – to live and not just survive.

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