PHIL-386 Lecture 3: Autonomy and its relationship to competence
19 May 2020
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Document Summary
There are those that advocate that paternalism an outlook that justifies restricting an individual"s capacity for self-determination in favour of the individual"s own best interests is sometime necessary and acceptable in biomedical ethics. You can see examples of paternalism in certain laws in canada that restrict our autonomy--our capacity to freely do as we want with our own lives--for our own good". We are required to wear a seatbelt and a motorcycle helmet, even if we don"t want to, or there are penalties. Like a parent who restricts a child"s freedom in order to protect that child from potentially harmful decisions, paternalism often pops up in health care. Infringing on a patient"s autonomy is not at issue when it comes to those who don"t have healthy, mature faculties (children, mentally ill, etc,) or are unable to make their own decisions, such as a patient in a coma.
