Doctoral Dissertations

Date of Award

8-1994

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Philosophy

Major Professor

Glenn C. Graber

Committee Members

Richard E. Aquila, George G. Brenkert, Charles H. Reynolds

Abstract

The issue of informed consent has become a prominent is-sue in medical ethics. In spite of the numerous discussions on the criteria to be used for obtaining informed consent there has been little agreement. This is because most discussions ap-proach the issue of informed consent from reasonable and ra-tional yet incompatible comprehensive world views. Informed Consent And Rawls's "Political" Theory Of Justice overcomes this problem by using Rawls's political conception of justice. Part One presents the historical elements of informed consent. Classical utilitarian and deontological arguments are used to show how these comprehensive views both support the concept of informed consent. However, because the bases of these arguments are fundamentally different, little room for agreement exists about the support for informed consent. Part Two presents Rawls's Political Liberalism as a politi-cal common ground for agreement in which reasonable and ra-tional comprehensive associational views, like utilitarianism and deontologism, can agree. Part Three is a practical application of this conception of consent through the use of a computer program called DR. ETHICS™.

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