Autonomy & the Refusal of Lifesaving Treatment

Abstract

C ontemporary, normative ethics-both theoretical and applied-has reacted against utilitarianism because of its tendency to regard the individual as little more than a recipient of good and evil. To avoid the pernicious effect of this notion, many philosophers have insisted that the concept of a person as an autonomous agent must have a central and independent role in ethical theory.' From this position there is firm ground to resist coercion and its less forceful, but more pervasive, cousins: manipulation and undue influence. It also provides a warrant for treating a person's own choices, plans, and conception of self as generally dominant over what another believes to be in that person's best interest.