Is autonomy only a cognitive capacity test?
English capacity law treats autonomy as understanding, retaining, using and weighing information; phenomenology adds bodily and affective engagement as part of autonomous deciding.
Source
Patient autonomy, clinical decision making, and the Phenomenological reduction
Study at a glance
- Design
- Other — Phenomenological critique of English capacity-law autonomy as purely cognitive information-handling
- N
- Philosophical/legal-phenomenological analysis; not an empirical sample
- Population
- Informed consent and Mental Capacity Act decision-making standards
- Outcome
- Bodily and affective engagement as part of autonomous deciding beyond MCA cognitive tests
Structured fields used in claim comparison tables when every cited study has a complete layer.
What they did
The authors start from informed consent and the Mental Capacity Act 2005 test, then reject an introspective picture of phenomenology. Drawing on Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, they take the phenomenological reduction as suspending the natural attitude so meaning shows up in practical, bodily, affective coping.
What they found
When patients fail deliberative competence tests, interference is more readily justified. The paper argues affective and bodily intentional capacities are necessary components of the capacity for autonomy, not extras. Layer-cake readings that split pre-predicative coping from propositional thought are discussed in the notes.
The limits
What it doesn't show
This is legal-philosophical, not a new capacity instrument. It does not rewrite the MCA. Illness as unhomelike is cited via Svenaeus, not newly measured.
Key terms
- Mental Capacity Act test
- Inability to understand, retain, use or weigh relevant information, or to communicate a decision.
- Phenomenological reduction
- Suspending the natural way we judge things so meaning can show in practical, bodily engagement.
- Capacity for autonomy
- Often collapsed into competency/mental capacity; the authors want a broader, embodied reading.
- Practical coping
- Norm-governed bodily engagement with the world, which some readings treat as pre-predicative.
Flashcards
Research intelligence for this paper
See its role on concept claims, tensions it is part of, placement history, and related discoveries.
Quiz yourself
MCA incapacity includes inability to?
Common questions
What does the MCA test emphasise?
Cognitive performance: understand, retain, use/weigh, communicate.
What does reduction add?
Meaning in bodily and affective engagement, not only inner deliberation.
Why it matters clinically?
People who fail the cognitive test are more exposed to justified interference.
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