Informed Consent, Proxy Consent, and Catholic Bioethics: For the Good of the Subject

✍ Scribed by Grzegorz Mazur, O.P. (auth.)

• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 2012
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 258
• Series: Philosophy and Medicine 112
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This work offers a comprehensive understanding rooted in Catholic anthropology and moral theory of the meaning and limits of informed and proxy consent to experimentation on human subjects. In particular, it seeks to articulate the rationale for proxy consent in both therapeutic and nontherapeutic settings. As to the former, the book proposes that the Golden Rule, recognizing the basic inclinations of human nature toward objective goods perfective of human persons, should underpin the notion of proxy consent to experimentation on humans. As to the latter, an additional scrutiny of the amount of risk involved is necessary, since the risk-benefit ratio frequently invoked to justify higher-risk therapeutic research does not exist in its nontherapeutic counterpart. This study discusses a number of possible solutions to this question and develops a position that builds upon the objective notion of the human good.

✦ Table of Contents

Front Matter....Pages i-xv
The Historical Development of the Principle of Free and Informed Consent....Pages 1-12
The Articulation of the Principle of Free and Informed Consent in Human-Rights Documents....Pages 13-48
The Major Current Interpretations of the Principle of Free and Informed Consent....Pages 49-80
Introduction to the Issue of Proxy Consent....Pages 81-85
Standards for Proxy Consent in the Therapeutic Situation....Pages 87-102
Critique of Proxy Consent Standards....Pages 103-113
The Golden Rule and Proxy Decision Making....Pages 115-123
Preliminary Considerations on Proxy Consent in the Nontherapeutic Situation....Pages 125-147
Proxy Consent in Nontherapeutic Settings....Pages 149-168
Analysis....Pages 169-182
Resolution of Issues Related to Proxy Decision Making....Pages 183-198
Back Matter....Pages 199-241

✦ Subjects

Theory of Medicine/Bioethics; Ethics; Medical Law; International & Foreign Law/Comparative Law