AUTONOMY, LIBERTY, AND MEDICAL DECISION-MAKING

A central tenet to much ethical argument within medical law is patient autonomy. 1 Although we have seen a welcome move away from a system governed by largely unchecked paternalism, there is not universal agreement on the direction in which medical law should advance. 2 Competing concerns for greater welfare and individual freedom, complicated by an overarching commitment to value-pluralism, make this a tricky area of policy-development. 3 Furthermore, there are distinct understandings of, and justifications for, different conceptions of autonomy. 4 In this paper, we argue that in response to these issues, there has been a failure by the courts properly to distinguish political concepts of liberty and moral concepts of autonomy.