2. PATERNALISM “Paternalism is the inference with a person’s liberty of action justified by reasons referring exclusively to the welfare, good, happiness, needs, interests, or values of the person being coerced.” -Gerald Dworkin
3. Example: A patient has frequently asserted that he would immediately commit suicide if he ever diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, and his physician believes he is serious. The patient says that this disease is antithetical to everything he values in life. The physician has now arrived at a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, but she lies to the patient about the diagnosis. She does so because she believes that a premature death is incompatible with the patient’s best interests.
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5. KANTIAN Ethical Theory Example: For physicians to withhold information about surgical procedures from patients simply because the physicians believe that their patients would refuse to undergo potentially beneficial procedures if informed of all the risks.
6. Charles Fried He adopts a Kantian approach to paternalism in the medical context, maintains that patients must never be denied relevant information. By withholding it, physicians fail to treat their patient as end in themselves.
7. John Stuart Mill “Prevention of harm to others is sometimes sufficient excuse for interfering with another’s autonomy, the individuals own good never is.” He assumes that individuals are, on the whole, better judges of their own interests than anyone else, so that minimizing paternalistic interventions will maximize human happiness.
