Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Frontispiece
- 1 Gaining autonomy and losing trust?
- 2 Autonomy, individuality and consent
- 3 ‘Reproductive autonomy’ and new technologies
- 4 Principled autonomy
- 5 Principled autonomy and genetic technologies
- 6 The quest for trustworthiness
- 7 Trust and the limits of consent
- 8 Trust and communication: the media and bioethics
- Bibliography
- Institutional bibliography
- Index
Preface
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 November 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Frontispiece
- 1 Gaining autonomy and losing trust?
- 2 Autonomy, individuality and consent
- 3 ‘Reproductive autonomy’ and new technologies
- 4 Principled autonomy
- 5 Principled autonomy and genetic technologies
- 6 The quest for trustworthiness
- 7 Trust and the limits of consent
- 8 Trust and communication: the media and bioethics
- Bibliography
- Institutional bibliography
- Index
Summary
Autonomy has been a leading idea in philosophical writing on bioethics; trust has been marginal. This strikes me as surprising. Autonomy is usually identified with individual independence, and sometimes leads to ethically dubious or disastrous action. Its ethical credentials are not self-evident. Trust is surely more important, and particularly so for any ethically adequate practice of medicine, science and biotechnology. Trust – or rather loss of trust – is a constant concern in political and popular writing in all three areas. Why then has autonomy landed a starring role in philosophical and ethical writing in bioethics? And why has trust secured no more than a walk-on part?
When I was invited to deliver the Gifford Lectures for 2001 in the University of Edinburgh, I rashly chose the title Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics. I was interested in this divergence between philosophical and popular ethical concerns, and the reasons for its persistence. The topic proved fruitful and more recalcitrant than I had expected. With the help of a thoughtful and encouraging audience in Edinburgh, and of numerous suggestions and comments from friends and colleagues, I have explored a wider terrain than I had originally intended. I have come to think that many recent discussions of both autonomy and of trust are unconvincing, and that this matters greatly for the ways in which we think about ethical questions that arise in the practice of medicine, science and biotechnology.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics , pp. ix - xiiPublisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2002