Abstract
M o st medical codes of ethics, and most physicians, agree that the physician ought to obtain the free and informed of his subject or patient before attempting any serious medical procedure, experimental or therapeutic in nature. They agree, moreover, that a proxy consent ought to be obtained on behalf of the incompetent subject. And informed consent is seen as not merely a legal requirement, and not merely a formality: it is a substantial requirement of morality. Acceptance of this doctrine, however, requires the solution of a number of problems. How much information need be imparted? At what age is a person mature enough to consent on his own behalf? Can prisoners give a free and informed to be experimented upon? Lurking behind these and similar questions there are more fundamental difficulties. What are the functions of consent for the competent and the incompetent? What is the sense in which the patient/subject must be free, informed, and competent? It is by way of an approach to these latter questions that I shall attempt to respond to the more specific questions.'
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