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Response to “Advance Directives and Voluntary Slavery” by Christopher Tollefsen (CQ Vol 7, No 4)

Slavery, Commitment, and Choice: Do Advance Directives Reflect Autonomy?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 1999

Thomas May
Affiliation:
Clinical Ethics Center at Memorial Medical Center, Springfield, Illinois, and the Department of Medical Humanities, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine, Springfield

Abstract

In an interesting response to an article I published in CQ that questions the ability of advance directives to reflect autonomy, Christopher Tollefsen raises a number of issues that deserve greater attention. Tollefsen offers several examples to illustrate how the critique of advance directives I offer would also threaten other choices that most people would consider autonomous. Importantly, I largely agree that the examples Tollefsen offers should be captured as autonomous. Where I disagree, however, is whether these examples reflect the particular type of second order decision strategy that I categorize advance directives as, and so whether the critique of advance directives I offer, if accepted, would commit us to an unreasonably narrow conception of autonomy.

Type
RESPONSES AND DIALOGUE
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press

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