ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on equal human rights of persons living with the handicap of mental retardation and their implications for employment. The potential difficulties can be seen in the United Nations Declaration on The Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons. It first invokes faith in human rights. It then goes on to declare that mentally retarded persons have "the same rights as other human beings". The UN Declaration specifies six sets of rights of mentally retarded persons. These rights must be rights all human beings have or derivable from them, or else. The difficulty with using equal rights alone as the moral basis for policy towards mentally retarded persons provides one specific instance of the inadequacy of basing ethics on rights alone. Employment is a fundamental ingredient of a life of basic satisfaction. Employment for mentally retarded persons would be an element of such a society.
