The Individual as the Centre of Subjective Experience and the Right to Self-preservation

Abstract

How individualization impacts on the delivery of welfare services depends essentially on the idea of the individual that is in play. I have suggested that there are two distinct ideas of the individual that have quite different implications for how we conceive welfare services and their delivery. The first of these ideas is the individual considered as a unique centre of subjective experience, a self; the second is the individual considered as the subject who wills or chooses—the individual considered as will.