Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T19:50:30.395Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Concept of Autonomy and Its Role in Kantian Ethics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 February 2012

IAIN BRASSINGTON
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Among bioethicists, and perhaps ethicists generally, the idea that we are obliged to respect autonomy is something of a shibboleth. Appeals to autonomy are commonly put to work to support legal and moral claims about the importance of consent, but they also feed a wider discourse in which the patient’s desires are granted a very high importance and medical paternalism is regarded as almost self-evidently indefensible.

Type
Special Section: Kant, Habermas, and Bioethics
Information
Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , April 2012 , pp. 166 - 176
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Notes

1. Beauchamp, T, Childress, J.Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 6th ed.New York: Oxford University Press; 2009:99.Google Scholar

2. Gillon, R.Ethics needs principles. Journal of Medical Ethics 2003;29(10):307–12, passim.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

3. Dworkin, G.The Theory and Practice of Autonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1997:3–6.Google Scholar

4. Dean, R.The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press; 2006:197–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Kant, I.Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Indianapolis: Hackett;1993:4:412Google Scholar. Where possible, I shall give pagination as it appears in the Prussian Academy edition of Kant’s work.

6. See note 5, Kant 1993, at 4:427; emphasis mine.

7. Ibid., at 4:412; emphasis mine.

8. Ibid., at 4:390.

9. Ibid., at 4:440; emphasis mine.

10. Kant, I. The conflict of the faculties. In: Kant, I.Religion and Rational Theology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1996CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 7:27.

11. O’Neill, O.Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 2005Google Scholar, at 85; emphasis mine.

12. Kant, I.The Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1996CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 6:207.

13. Kant, I.Critique of Practical Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1997CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 5:161.

14. Norman, R.The Moral Philosophers. New York: Oxford University Press; 1998Google Scholar, at §6.

15. See note 5, Kant 1993, passim.

16. See note 12, Kant 1996, at 6:462; emphasis mine.

17. See note 5, Kant 1993, at 4:429.

18. Ibid., 4:436.

19. See note 12, Kant 1996, at 6:462.

20. See note 5, Kant 1993, at 4:390, 397–9.

21. See note 12, Kant 1996, at 6:443.

22. Kant, I. On a supposed right to lie because of philanthropic concerns. In: Kant, I.Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Indianapolis: Hackett; 1993Google Scholar, passim.

23. See note 13, Kant 1997, at 5:33.

24. See note 5, Kant 1993, at 4:427–8.

25. See note 13, Kant 1997, at 5:61, emphasis added.

26. Although cf. Law, I.Autonomy, sanity and moral theory. Res Publica 2003;9(1):39–56CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, passim, although esp. 51, para 2.

27. See note 12, Kant 1996, at 6:237.

28. See note 12, Kant 1996, at 6:454.

29. See note 5, Kant 1993, at 4:452–3.

30. Walker M. How Kant should have justified his categorical imperative. Unpublished, 2007.

31. Rousseau, JJ. The Social Contract. In: Barker, E, ed. Social Contract. London: Oxford University Press; 1960:167–307Google Scholar, at 184.

32. Ibid., at 185.

33. Kant, I. An answer to the question: What is enlightenment? In: Reiss, H, ed. Kant: Political Writings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1991:54–60Google Scholar, at 55, 59.

34. Schopenhauer, A.On the Basis of Morality. Indianapolis: Hackett; 1995Google Scholar, at §§ III and IV.

35. See note 34, Schopenhauer 1995, at 211.