Affect, Values and Problems Assessing Decision-Making Capacity.
The dominant approach to assessing decision-making capacity in medicine focuses on determining the extent to which individuals possess certain core cognitive abilities. Critics have argued that this model delivers the wrong verdict in certain cases where patient values that are the product of mental disorder or disordered affective states undermine decision-making without undermining cognition. I argue for a re-conceptualization of what it is to possess the capacity to make medical treatment decisions. It is, I argue, the ability to track one's own personal interests at least as well as most people can. Using this idea, I demonstrate that it is possible to craft a solution for the problem cases-one that neither alters existing criteria in dangerous ways (e.g. does not open the door to various kinds of abuse) nor violates the spirit of widely accepted ethical constraints on decision-making assessment.
Duke Scholars
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Related Subject Headings
- Social Values
- Personal Autonomy
- Mental Disorders
- Mental Competency
- Humans
- Decision Making
- Cognition
- Applied Ethics
- Affect
- 5001 Applied ethics
Citation
Published In
DOI
EISSN
ISSN
Publication Date
Volume
Issue
Start / End Page
Related Subject Headings
- Social Values
- Personal Autonomy
- Mental Disorders
- Mental Competency
- Humans
- Decision Making
- Cognition
- Applied Ethics
- Affect
- 5001 Applied ethics