Deferring to expertise whilst maintaining autonomy

Journal article

This paper will consider the extent to which patients' dependence on clinical expertise when making medical decisions threatens patient autonomy. I start by discussing whether or not dependence on experts is prima facie troubling for autonomy and suggest that it is not. I then go on to consider doctors' and other healthcare professionals' status as ‘medical experts’ of the relevant sort and highlight a number of ways in which their expertise is likely to be deficient. I then consider how this revised picture of medical expertise should lead us to view the potential threat to patient autonomy that results from depending on such ‘experts’. I argue that, whether or not patients are aware of the limitations of medical expertise, in practice it is difficult to do other than defer to medical advice, and this presents a threat to patient autonomy that should be addressed. I conclude by suggesting some ways in which this threat to autonomy might be mitigated.

Authors: Brown, RCH

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Journal: Episteme
• Publication date: 2024-02-15
• Acceptance date: 2023-12-05
• DOI: 10.1017/epi.2024.3
• EISSN: 1750-0117
• ISSN: 1742-3600
• Language: English
• Keywords: social epistemology; epistemic authority; epistemic autonomy; medical ethics; expertise; autonomy