Beyond Autonomy to the Person Coping With Illness

Let us look at autonomy in a new way. Autonomy has a richly deserved place of honor in bioethlcs. It has led the set of principles that formed the basis of the discipline since the beginning. It is the leading principle In what is now regularly called “the Georgetown Mantra,” a phrase suggested by one of the first philosophers ever to be hired In a medical school, K. Danner Clouser. The phrase applies to the principled approach of autonomy, beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice. This kind of bioethics was developed by scholars like Beauchamp and Childress, Veatch, and Engelhardt, during their association with Georgetown University.