The Place of Autonomy in Bioethics

Abstract

Childress defends the principle of respect for personal autonomy as one among several important moral principles in biomedical ethics. His main argument focuses on the autonomy principle as "an important moral limit and as limited." As a moral limit, the principle of respect for personal autonomy constrains actions, but is itself limited in scope and weight, as well as being complex in its application. Childress argues that both critics and defenders of personal autonomy tend to neglect these senses of limit in their focus on an "oversimplified, overextended, overweighted principle of respect for autonomy."