Liberalism In Health And Social Care

219 Words1 Pages
While the strengths perspective uses the language of social justice and empowerment, the solutions it suggests are essentially grounded in
(neo)liberal notions of individual responsibility, which have their roots in Kantian ethics and utilitarian means–end justifiation. Like liberalism, it upholds autonomy as an overriding moral ideal, a belief in people’s ability to choose with informed consent as the “standard liberal procedure by which agents manifest their autonomy” (Kristjánsson, 2007, p. 45). Liberalism promotes a small core of values, inflting autonomous choice and “the benefis of high self-esteem [which]…fosters the current self-help and therapy culture” (p. 178) of which social work, and especially the strengths perspective, is a part.