PHL 111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 20: Diminished Responsibility, Autonomous Agent, Dementia

• School: Tunxis Community College
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHL 111
• Professor: Minor

Document Summary

Depends on our conception of the right to autonomy. Autonomy: self-law; ability to decide for oneself on matters pertaining to one"s own life. 3 conceptions of autonomy: 1) evidentiary autonomy; 2) integrative autonomy: precedent autonomy. Evidentiary autonomy: respect decisions persons make for themselves because they know what is in their own best interest. For patients suffering from dementia it is increasingly the case that they no longer know what is in their own best interest. Since the respect of the right to autonomy depends on knowledge of best interests, there would be no duty to respect the autonomy of a person lacking such knowledge (dementia or not) But this is contrary to the essential import of respecting the right to autonomy; viz. Autonomy requires us to respect their decisions" (336) the welfare of the agent cannot ground our respect for the right of autonomy.