PHIL-386 Chapter 7: False Beliefs and Autonomy by Savulescu
3 Jun 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
If her choice is to be justified, it will have to be in terms of her autonomy, not in terms of her
interests.
When should treatment be limited in a person’s best interests?
On this account, life would be not worth living when it fell below a certain threshold where a
person could no longer engage in a reasonable spectrum of valuable activity, could no longer
gain happiness from that life and no longer satisfy her desires to engage in worthwhile activity.
There are lives which are so bad.
A life with late stage Huntington’s Chorea is one example.
However, from empirical studies of patients with paraplegia, it appears that such people are
able to lead fulfilling lives.
• In some cases, it will not be possible to set the conditions which will facilitate
autonomous choice.
A young trauma victim, rushed to hospital, may refuse to have some urgent, life‐saving
operation, like having a bleeding spleen removed.
She may not believe that, if her spleen is removed, she will completely recover.
Or she might claim to “not like operations”.
There may not be time to present enough information in a way that promotes adequate
evaluation.
It is r easonably to operate on this young person if there is a reasonable expectation that, with
appropriate information and reflection, she would consent.
In some cases, we ought to satisfy a person’s rational, hypothetical desire (her values), rather
than her actual desire.
If we wish to respect autonomy, it is more important to respect a person’s values than satisfy
an obstructive actual desire.
The situation becomes more complicated when an obviously obstructive desire is resistant to
change, even after considerable counselling and provision of information.
My own feeling is that, if we wish to respect autonomy, such desires ought to be overridden.
This is contentious.
Document Summary
If her choice is to be justified, it will have to be in terms of her autonomy, not in terms of her interests. A life with late stage huntington"s chorea is one example. However, from empirical studies of patients with paraplegia, it appears that such people are able to lead fulfilling lives. In some cases, it will not be possible to set the conditions which will facilitate autonomous choice. A young trauma victim, rushed to hospital, may refuse to have some urgent, life saving operation, like having a bleeding spleen removed. She may not believe that, if her spleen is removed, she will completely recover. Or she might claim to not like operations . There may not be time to present enough information in a way that promotes adequate evaluation. It is r easonably to operate on this young person if there is a reasonable expectation that, with appropriate information and reflection, she would consent.
