Argues against the conceptions of individual autonomy which are widely relied on in bioethics.

Personal autonomy is often lauded as a key value in contemporary Western bioethics, and the claim that there is an important relationship between autonomy and rationality is often treated as an uncontroversial claim in this sphere. Yet, there is also considerable disagreement about how we should cash out the relationship between rationality and autonomy. In particular, it is unclear whether a rationalist view of autonomy can be compatible with legal judgments that enshrine a patient's right to refuse medical treatment, regardless of whether ". . . the reasons for making the choice are rational, irrational, unknown or even non-existent". In this book, I bring recent philosophical work on the nature of rationality to bear on the question of how we should understand autonomy in contemporary bioethics. In doing so, I develop a new framework for thinking about the concept, one that is grounded in an understanding of the different roles that rational beliefs and rational desires have to play in personal autonomy. Furthermore, the account outlined here allows for a deeper understanding of different form of controlling influence, and the relationship between our freedom to act, and our capacity to decide autonomously. I contrast my rationalist with other prominent accounts of autonomy in bioethics, and outline the revisionary implications it has for various practical questions in bioethics in which autonomy is a salient concern, including questions about the nature of informed consent and decision-making capacity.

A study of the importance of self-trust for women's autonomy in reproductive health. The power of new medical technologies, the cultural authority of physicians, and the gendered power dynamics of many patient-physician relationships can all inhibit women's reproductive freedom. Often these factors interfere with women's ability to trust themselves to choose and act in ways that are consistent with their own goals and values. In this book Carolyn McLeod introduces to the reproductive ethics literature the idea that in reproductive health care women's self-trust can be undermined in ways that threaten their autonomy. Understanding the importance of self-trust for autonomy, McLeod argues, is crucial to understanding the limits on women's reproductive freedom. McLeod brings feminist insights in philosophical moral psychology to reproductive ethics, and to health-care ethics more broadly. She identifies the social environments in which self-trust is formed and encouraged. She also shows how women's experiences of reproductive health care can enrich our understanding of self-trust and autonomy as philosophical concepts. The book's theoretical components are grounded in women's concrete experiences. The cases discussed, which involve miscarriage, infertility treatment, and prenatal diagnosis, show that what many women feel toward themselves in reproductive contexts is analogous to what we feel toward others when we trust or distrust them. McLeod also discusses what health-care providers can do to minimize the barriers to women's self-trust in reproductive health care, and why they have a duty to do so as part of their larger duty to respect patient autonomy.

This collection of original essays explores the social and relational dimensions of individual autonomy. Rejecting the feminist charge that autonomy is inherently masculinist, the contributors draw on feminist critiques of autonomy to challenge and enrich contemporary philosophical debates about agency, identity, and moral responsibility. The essays analyze the complex ways in which oppression can impair an agent's capacity for autonomy, and investigate connections, neglected by standard accounts, between autonomy and other aspects of the agent, including self-conception, self-worth, memory, and the imagination.

The notion that consent based on the concept of autonomy, underpins a good or beneficent medical intervention is deeply rooted in the jurisprudence of most countries throughout the world. Autonomy, Consent and the Law examines these notions in the UK, Australia and the US, and critiques the way in which autonomy and consent are treated in bioethics and law.

Informed consent is a central topic in contemporary biomedical ethics. Yet attempts to set defensible and feasible standards for consenting have led to persistent difficulties. In Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics, first published in 2007, Neil Manson and Onora O'Neill set debates about informed consent in medicine and research in a fresh light. They show why informed consent cannot be fully specific or fully explicit, and why more specific consent is not always ethically better. They argue that consent needs distinctive communicative transactions, by which other obligations, prohibitions, and rights can be waived or set aside in controlled and specific ways. Their book offers a coherent, wide-ranging and practical account of the role of consent in biomedicine which will be valuable to readers working in a range of areas in bioethics, medicine and law.

The principle of patient autonomy dominates the contemporary debate over medical ethics. In this examination of the doctor-patient relationship, physician and philosopher Alfred Tauber argues that the idea of patient autonomy—which was inspired by other rights-based movements of the 1960s—was an extrapolation from political and social philosophy that fails to ground medicine's moral philosophy. He proposes instead a reconfiguration of personal autonomy and a renewed commitment to an ethics of care. In this formulation, physician beneficence and responsibility become powerful means for supporting the autonomy and dignity of patients. Beneficence, Tauber argues, should not be confused with the medical paternalism that fueled the patient rights movement. Rather, beneficence and responsibility are moral principles that not only are compatible with patient autonomy but strengthen it. Coordinating the rights of patients with the responsibilities of their caregivers will result in a more humane and robust medicine. Tauber examines the historical and philosophical competition between facts (scientific objectivity) and values (patient care) in medicine. He analyzes the shifting conceptions of personhood underlying the doctor-patient relationship, offers a "topology" of autonomy, from Locke and Kant to Hume and Mill, and explores both philosophical and practical strategies for reconfiguring trust and autonomy. Framing the practicalities of the clinical encounter with moral reflections, Tauber calls for an ethical medicine in which facts and values are integrated and humane values are deliberately included in the program of care.

Gives an extended argument for epistemic authority from the implications of reflective self-consciousness. Epistemic authority is compatible with autonomy, but epistemic self-reliance is incoherent. The book argues that epistemic and emotional self-trust are rational and inescapable, that consistent self-trust commits us to trust in others, and that among those we are committed to trusting are some whom we ought to treat as epistemic authorities, modelled on the well-known principles of authority of Joseph Raz. Some of these authorities can be in the moral and religious domains. The book investigates the way the problem of disagreement between communities or between the self and others is a conflict within self-trust, and argue against communal self-reliance on the same grounds as the book uses in arguing against individual self-reliance. The book explains how any change in belief is justified--by the conscientious judgment that the change will survive future conscientious self-reflection. The book concludes with an account of autonomy. -- Información de la editorial.

Vulnerability is an important concern of moral philosophy, political philosophy and many discussions in applied ethics. Yet the concept itself—what it is and why it is morally salient—is under-theorized. Vulnerability, Autonomy, and Applied Ethics brings together theorists working on conceptualizing vulnerability as an action-guiding principle in these discussions, as well as bioethicists, medical ethicists and public policy theorists working on instances of vulnerability in specific contexts. This volume offers new and innovative work by Joel Anderson, Carla Bagnoli, Samia Hurst, Catriona Mackenzie and Christine Straehle, who together provide a discussion of the concept of vulnerability from the perspective of individual autonomy. The exchanges among authors will help show the heuristic value of vulnerability that is being developed in the context of liberal political theory and moral philosophy. The book also illustrates how applying the concept of vulnerability to some of the most pressing moral questions in applied ethics can assist us in making moral judgments. This highly innovative and interdisciplinary approach will help those grappling with questions of vulnerability in medical ethics—both theorists and practitioners—by providing principles along which to decide hard cases.

This book discusses the common principles of morality and ethics derived from divinely endowed intuitive reason through the creation of al-fitr' a (nature) and human intellect (al-‘aql). Biomedical topics are presented and ethical issues related to topics such as genetic testing, assisted reproduction and organ transplantation are discussed. Whereas these natural sources are God’s special gifts to human beings, God’s revelation as given to the prophets is the supernatural source of divine guidance through which human communities have been guided at all times through history. The second part of the book concentrates on the objectives of Islamic religious practice – the maqa' sid – which include: Preservation of Faith, Preservation of Life, Preservation of Mind (intellect and reason), Preservation of Progeny (al-nasl) and Preservation of Property. Lastly, the third part of the book discusses selected topical issues, including abortion, assisted reproduction devices, genetics, organ transplantation, brain death and end-of-life aspects. For each topic, the current medical evidence is followed by a detailed discussion of the ethical issues involved.