Abstract

The issue of informed consent has become a prominent issue in medical ethics. In spite of the numerous discussions on the criteria to be used for obtaining informed consent there has been little agreement. This is because most discussions approach the issue of informed consent from reasonable and rational yet incompatible comprehensive world views. Informed Consent And Rawls's "Political" Theory Of Justice overcomes this problem by using Rawls's political conception of justice. ;Part One presents the historical elements of informed consent. Classical utilitarian and deontological arguments are used to show how these comprehensive views both support the concept of informed consent. However, because the bases of these arguments are fundamentally different, little room for agreement exists about the support for informed consent. ;Part Two presents Rawls's Political Liberalism as a political common ground for agreement in which reasonable and rational comprehensive associational views, like utilitarianism and deontologism, can agree. ;Part Three is a practical application of this conception of consent through the use of a computer program called D scR. E scTHICS$\sp{\rm TM}$.