Liberty, beneficence, and involuntary confinement

My purpose in this paper is to show that current legal criteria for paternalistic involuntary psychiatric confinement of the mentally ill are both too narrow and too broad. I do this by first developing a principle of justified paternalistic interference with adults, which I take to be acceptably pr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe Journal of medicine and philosophy Vol. 9; no. 3; p. 261
Main Author Callahan, J C
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published United States 01.08.1984
Subjects
Aged
Beneficence
Commitment of Mentally Ill - legislation & jurisprudence
Dangerous Behavior
Ethical Analysis
Female
Humans
Jurisprudence
Mentally Ill Persons
Paternalism
Personal Autonomy
United States
United States
Philosophical Approach
Legal Approach
Mental Health Therapies
Analytical Approach
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Summary:My purpose in this paper is to show that current legal criteria for paternalistic involuntary psychiatric confinement of the mentally ill are both too narrow and too broad. I do this by first developing a principle of justified paternalistic interference with adults, which I take to be acceptably protective of individual liberty, but which does not require unnecessary sacrifices of individual welfare. After offering an analysis of current legal criteria for involuntary confinement, I argue that an acceptable theory of paternalistic interference reveals that those criteria (1) exclude some cases where confinement would be morally permissible, and (2) allow paternalistic confinement of many whose detention is not morally justifiable.
ISSN:0360-5310
DOI:10.1093/jmp/9.3.261