Pollard B J
Med J Aust. 1993;159(11-12):797-802. doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1993.tb141355.x.
The role of ethics in medical practice is now receiving close scrutiny, so it is timely that ethical concepts, such as autonomy and paternalism, be re-examined in their applied contexts. As neither autonomy nor paternalism has a current universally accepted meaning, their significance varies in both ethical and clinical discussion. Of the two, autonomy has moved further from its original moral context, to the extent that it often now signifies no more than a person's expressed intention. Paternalism, characterised as the antithesis of autonomy, is widely thought not to have any role in medicine. The transforming effects of illness, which may radically alter a person's decision making capacity, are commonly ignored.
伦理学在医疗实践中的作用如今正受到密切审视，因此，诸如自主和家长主义等伦理概念在其应用背景下重新得到审视是适时的。由于自主和家长主义目前都没有一个被普遍接受的含义，它们的重要性在伦理和临床讨论中都有所不同。在这两者中，自主已经在很大程度上偏离了其最初的道德背景，以至于它现在常常仅仅意味着一个人的明确意图。家长主义被视为自主的对立面，人们普遍认为它在医学中没有任何作用。疾病的转变作用可能会从根本上改变一个人的决策能力，而这一点通常被忽视了。
