Premium
Competence and Ability
Author(s) -
Vogelstein Eric
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
bioethics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.494
H-Index - 55
eISSN - 1467-8519
pISSN - 0269-9702
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2012.01998.x
Subject(s) - scrutiny , prima facie , competence (human resources) , rationality , sort , epistemology , psychology , social psychology , philosophy , computer science , law , political science , information retrieval
It is nearly universally thought that the kind of decision‐making competence that gives one a strong prima facie right to make one's own medical decisions essentially involves having an ability (or abilities) of some sort, or having a certain level or degree of ability (or abilities). When put under philosophical scrutiny, however, this kind of theory does not hold up. I will argue that being competent does not essentially involve abilities, and I will propose and defend a theory of decision‐making competence according to which one is competent only if one possesses a certain kind of rationality in making treatment decisions.