MEDICAL PATERNALISM AND THE QUESTION OF PATIENTS’ RIGHTS
Keywords:
Medical Paternalism, Patients’ Rights, Ethics, Autonomy, Informed Consent, BeneficenceAbstract
Medical paternalism refers to a practice in which healthcare professionals make decisions for patients on the grounds that doing so promotes the patients’ welfare, even when those decisions conflict with the patients’ expressed wishes. This paper examines the ethical tension between medical paternalism and patient rights, asking whether physicians can ever be morally justified in overriding a patient’s autonomous choices for that patient’s own good. The debate centers on a conflict between two foundational principles of bioethics: beneficence, the obligation to promote patient well-being, and respect for autonomy, the commitment to honoring individuals’ rights to make their own decisions. Although modern healthcare places strong emphasis on informed consent, significant practical and philosophical disagreements remain regarding the limits of autonomy and the circumstances, if any, under which paternalistic intervention is warranted. Using a normative philosophical methodology, this paper engages in conceptual analysis and draws on influential liberal and bioethical theories, particularly those influenced by John Stuart Mill’s harm principle and contemporary autonomy-focused accounts. It ultimately argues for a balanced ethical position that permits weak paternalism only when a patient’s decision-making capacity is impaired, while firmly rejecting strong paternalism toward fully competent adults.
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