The Best-Interests Standard as Threshold, Ideal, and Standard of Reasonableness
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 22 (3):271-289 (1997)
Abstract
The best-interests standard is a widely used ethical, legal, and social basis for policy and decision-making involving children and other incompetent persons. It is under attack, however, as self-defeating, individualistic, unknowable, vague, dangerous, and open to abuse. The author defends this standard by identifying its employment, first, as a threshold for intervention and judgment (as in child abuse and neglect rulings), second, as an ideal to establish policies or prima facie duties, and, third, as a standard of reasonableness. Criticisms of the best-interests standard are reconsidered after clarifying these different meaningsMy notes
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Parental refusals of medical treatment: The harm principle as threshold for state intervention.Douglas Diekema - 2004 - Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 25 (4):243-264.
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