ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the concept of dependency, distinguishing dependence from related states as powerlessness and helplessness and explores how dependency is related to reciprocity. Dependencies are distinguished according to whether they are economic, legal, social, political or psychological. The chapter also explores the claims that acknowledging dependency is what truthfulness demands, and that it is a precondition for any society in which dependent people are valued as they ought to be. A profoundly disabled person may need help when eating and drinking; her meal is prepared by others and her food is put on a spoon and given to her. The dependency of a profoundly disabled person will be less than otherwise if her social and material environment is well equipped to accommodate her feeding needs. Western philosophy has tended to neglect dependency as a feature of the human condition.
