Justifying risk-related standards of capacity via autonomy alone
Abstract
The debate over risk-related standards of decisional capacity remains one of the most important and unresolved challenges to our understanding of the demands of informed consent. On one hand, risk-related standards benefit from significant intuitive support. On the other hand, risk-related standards appear to be committed to asymmetrical capacity-a conceptual incoherence. This latter objection can be avoided by holding that risk-related standards are the result of evidential considerations introduced by (i) the reasonable person standard and (ii) the standing assumption that patients have capacity. This evidential approach to justifying risk-related standards of capacity avoids the most significant challenges faced by extant views while grounding risk-related standards in two fairly uncontroversial views in biomedical ethics.
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- Authors
- Graber, A.
- Affiliations
- The University of Texas at San Antonio (US)
- Corresponding author
- Graber, Abraham
- ORCID
- Graber, Abraham
- Venue
- Journal of Medical Ethics
- Publisher
- BMJ
- Published
- 2021-01-05
- Volume
- 47
- Issue
- 12
- Pages
- e89-e89
- ISSN
- 0306-6800 (ISSN-L)
- 1473-4257
- OpenAlex
- W3120592264
- Cited by
- 7
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 2
- FWCI
- 1.03
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Medical Ethics (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Healthcare Decision-Making and Restraints
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Ethics and bioethics in healthcare
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare
- Keywords
- decision-making capacity, informed consent, patient autonomy, reasonable person standard
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