Ethical Challenges in Genomics Research by Paula Boddington

Author:Paula Boddington
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg

6.2.2 Mere Choice: Or Reasoned Choice?

On one understanding, autonomy is fundamentally about choice; about who has control. On such an understanding, what matters is simply that the person chooses, without undue or outside influence. The content of the choice is entirely subjectively chosen – also, it must be noted, without much if any analysis of where that choice comes from other than that its origin is in the agent him – or herself.

On an alternative approach, an autonomous decision or action is that which a rational agent would choose. Certain standards of decision making apply. To illustrate this with a currently debated topic: broad consent (Lunshof et al. 2008; Hofmann 2009; Mascalzoni et al. 2008). Some argue that if autonomy is seen to imply that any choices are sound and based upon a full appraisal of the situation, then it has been argued that consent cannot be valid – cannot be genuine, fully informed consent – if it is simply broad consent, where we cannot know the full details of all future research. Rather, full detailed information must be provided, for it to be valid consent, and for it to rest upon a proper notion of autonomy.

Immediately we see how a practical debate may rest upon different philosophical conceptions of the nature of autonomy.

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