¹Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RQ, UK. E-mail: dtw23@cam.ac.uk

Abstract

For at least the last three decades or so the hegemony of scientific knowledge and technological expertise has been subject to sustained critique in the domains of health and social services. Expert sources of policy legitimation are increasingly challenged by more thoroughly democratic and consensus-based orientations to the legitimation of public programmes. This phenomenon is not confined to practical politics but is increasingly evident in the domain of political theory as well. While this trend in political theory is laudable in many respects, it introduces quite serious and troubling theoretical questions regarding the rights of citizens with learning disabilities who may be intellectually ill-equipped to participate in the deliberative public sphere. In this essay, I critically assess the work of Jurgen Habermas, one of the world's most sophisticated proponents of deliberative democracy, in order to highlight the theoretical problems learning disability poses for his political theory. I conclude with a brief sketch of what empirical research might contribute to a more satisfying approach to understanding the rights of learning disabled citizens.