This chapter is concerned with a central question: how far can the ideas embedded in contemporary views of rights and justice take us in the development of a good life for people with intellectual disabilities?

Rights

Like many other concepts addressed in this book, ‘rights’ is a generally used term, the meaning of which is seldom unpacked, and, as Bill Roberts says, for people with intellectual disabilities it can be a difficult one to explain in concrete terms. To describe the history and development of rights would take a book in itself, however we believe it is important to provide a brief account of how ideas about rights have evolved and their implications for people with intellectual disabilities. It is also important to position them in relation to the philosophical accounts in Part One of what constitutes a good life because:

What are rights?

The conception of rights is deeply embedded in Western philosophical views about the nature of being human and of ‘a life well lived’ or, in our terms, ‘a good life’. As we will see in this brief account, they resonate strongly with the discussion of a good life in earlier parts of this book.

Rights are not a new concept, although there has been a strong focus on them since the middle of the 20th century. They have their basis in theological writing and philosophy in the late middle ages. Thomas Aquinas, for example, asserted that there were certain natural laws or principles of justice. He defined justice as ‘what is owed to everyone in common’ as opposed to obligations to particular individuals. Aquinas saw rights as entitlements that encompassed life, reason, determination of one's life course, peaceful living and the search for God. Enlightenment philosophers such as Kant and Mill removed rights from their theological context and reconstituted them as moral principles derived from reason alone.