Democracy without Autonomy: Moral and Personal Autonomy in Democratic Confucianism

Moral Autonomy, Civil Liberties, and Confucianism

Personal Autonomy and Mental Capacity

The Mental Capacity Act 2005 has put the assessment of mental capacity for decisionmaking at the forefront of psychiatric practice. This capacity is commonly linked within philosophy to (personal) autonomy, that is, to the idea(l) of self-government. However, philosophers disagree deeply about what constitutes autonomy. This contribution brings out how the competing conceptions of autonomy woul...

Autonomy, moral constraints, and markets in kidneys.

This article concerns the morality of establishing regulated kidney markets in an effort to reduce the chronic shortage of kidneys for transplant. The article tries to rebut the view, recently defended by James Taylor, that if we hold autonomy to be intrinsically valuable, then we should be in favor of such markets. The article then argues that, under current conditions, the buying and selling ...

Informed consent without autonomy.

This Essay explains why and how the Roman Catholic basis for informed consent is different from the secular basis. It argues that the Catholic basis, which is rooted in “natural law,” is the better model for society to adopt. The author explains that the secular view is rooted in the belief that patient autonomy must never be violated but the Catholic view is based on human dignity, which simpl...

Confucianism and Democracy

The caning for vandalism last year of American high-school student Michael Fay by the Singaporean authorities underscored the challenge now being put forth by Asian societies to the United States and other Western democracies. The issue was not simply whether Singapore, as a sovereign state, had the right to subject an American expatriate to its laws and legal procedures, but a much more fundam...