PHIL 1550 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Moral Agency, Moral Responsibility, Paternalism
15 Dec 2017
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Phil 1550 september 28th, 2017 personal. In making choices we are self-determining or autonomous individuals. Autonomous persons are morally responsible for their choices and may be praised or blamed for what they do. People lacking autonomy not responsible for their choices. Examples: all apparently made choices for themselves but we need to ask how responsible are they actually for their choices. Boy refusing treatment because of religious reasons. Late person causes accident from answering a text from client. Alzheimer"s patient injures nurse because they believe they are getting attacked. To be autonomous: must satisfy several conditions the most basic is this. Independence condition: a person must have the capacity to make choices and not be under control of any external constraint of inner compulsion. Autonomous person must certainly be able to make choices infants and comatose adults lack this fundamental capacity. This is why children are treated differently in a court of law.
