Kant’s Religion postulates the idea of an ethical community as a necessary requirement for humanity to become good. Few interpreters acknowledge Kant’s claims that realizing this idea requires building a “church” characterized by unity, integrity, freedom, and unchangeability, and that this new form of community is a non-coercive version of theocracy. Traditional theocracy replaces the political state of nature with an ethical state of nature ; non-coercive theocracy transcends this distinction, uniting humanity in a common vision of a divine legislator (...) whose legislation is inward: the law of love binds church members together like families. (shrink)

Although informed consent is an integral part of clinical practice, its current doctrine remains mostly a matter of law and mainstream ethics rather than empirical research. There are scarce empirical data on patients’ perceived purpose of informed consent, which may include administrative routine/courtesy gesture, simple honest permission, informed permission, patient-clinician shared decision-making, and enabling patient’s self decision-making. Different purposes require different processes.