RT Article
T1 Response: Making Yourself Useful
JF Journal of religion, disability & health
VO 8
IS 3/4
SP 31
OP 36
A1 Bérubé, Michael 1961-
LA English
PB Routledge
YR 2005
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1765263379
AB In this essay I reply to Stanley Hauerwas' reading of my book, Life as We Know It, by way of engaging Hauerwas' critique of Enlightenment humanism, and, more specifically, the Kantian categorical imperative. I argue that Hauerwas is mistaken to claim that “humanism cannot help but think that, all things considered, it would be better if [the mentally handicapped] did not exist,” even as I agree in part with his trenchant critique of my own work and of the widely-accepted Kantian proposition that human beings should treat each other as ends in themselves, never as means to an end. Finally, I defend my antifoundationalist formulation of moral “obligation” with regard to persons with mental disabilities against Hauerwas's Christian critique thereof by noting that even Hauerwas, at a critical juncture of his argument, relies on a pragmatist, antifoundationalist understanding of what it means to “help” other humans-and what it means to make oneself useful.
K1 Disability
K1 Autonomy
K1 Dependency
K1 Humanism
DO 10.1300/J095v08n03_04