Autonomy and Intervention Parentalism in the Caring Life [Hardcover]

The basic relationship between people should be care, and the caring life is the highest which humans can live. Unfortunately, care that is not thoughtful slides into illegitimate intrusion on autonomy. Autonomy is a basic good, and we should not abridge it without good reason. On the other hand, it is not the only good. We must sometimes intervene in the lives of others to protect them from grave harms or provide them with important benefits. The reflective person, therefore, needs guidelines for caring. Some contemporary moralists condemn paternalism categorically. This work examines weaknesses in their arguments and proposes new guidelines for paternalism, which it calls parentalism to avoid the patriarchal connotations of the old term. Its antiparentalism is more moderate than standard antipaternalism based on an exaggerated respect for autonomy. The work explores implications for both the personal sphere of interactions between individuals, such as friends and family members, and the public sphere of institutions, legislation, and the professional practices.

...the work is a useful contribution to an ongoing philosophical discussion of autonomy... --Medical Humanities Review

This is a valuable book for those concerned with an area that is rapidly becoming more urgent as clinicians have readier access to the advancing biomedical technologies that pateitns and families find harder to comprehend. --Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease

...this is a readable and well-researched book that should be of interest not only to moral philosophers, but to those in the caring professions who must wrestle with the complex ethical dilemmas that caring for presumptively competent yet needy individuals presents. --Ethics

...valuable reading, especially for those interested in understanding the implications of various approaches for the relationship of parentalism and autonomy. --Journal of Ethics, Law, al*