{"title":"Personal autonomy and mental capacity","authors":"Fabian Freyenhagen","doi":"10.1016/j.mppsy.2009.09.005","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><p>The Mental Capacity Act 2005 has put the assessment of mental capacity for decision-making at the forefront of psychiatric practice. This capacity is commonly linked within philosophy to (personal) autonomy, that is, to the idea, or ideal, of self-government. However, philosophers disagree deeply about what constitutes autonomy. This contribution brings out how the competing conceptions of autonomy would play out in psychiatric practice, taking <em>anorexia nervosa</em> as a test case.</p></div>","PeriodicalId":88653,"journal":{"name":"Psychiatry (Abingdon, England)","volume":"8 12","pages":"Pages 465-467"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2009-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1016/j.mppsy.2009.09.005","citationCount":"7","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Psychiatry (Abingdon, England)","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1476179309002043","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 7
Abstract
The Mental Capacity Act 2005 has put the assessment of mental capacity for decision-making at the forefront of psychiatric practice. This capacity is commonly linked within philosophy to (personal) autonomy, that is, to the idea, or ideal, of self-government. However, philosophers disagree deeply about what constitutes autonomy. This contribution brings out how the competing conceptions of autonomy would play out in psychiatric practice, taking anorexia nervosa as a test case.