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My conscience may be my guide, but you may not need to honor it.
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2016
ISSN
0963-1801
Abstract
A number of healthcare professionals assert a right to be exempt from performing some actions currently designated as part of their standard professional responsibilities. Most advocates claim that they should be excused from these duties simply by averring that they are conscientiously opposed to performing them. They believe that they need not explain or justify their decisions to anyone, nor should they suffer any undesirable consequences of such refusal. Those who claim this right err by blurring or conflating three issues about the nature and role of conscience, and its significance in determining what other people should permit them to do (or not do). Many who criticize those asserting an exemption conflate the same questions and blur the same distinctions, if not expressly, by failing to acknowledge that sometimes a morally serious agent should not do what she might otherwise be expected to do. Neither side seems to acknowledge that in some cases both claims are true. I identify these conflations and specify conditions in which a professional might reasonably refuse to do what she is required to do. Then I identify conditions in which the public should exempt a professional from some of her responsibilities. I argue that professionals should refuse far less often than most advocates do . . . and that they should be even less frequently exempt. Finally, there are compelling reasons why we could not implement a consistent policy giving advocates what they want, likely not even in qualified form.
Language
en_US
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Recommended Citation
Lafollette, H. (2017). My conscience may be my guide, but you may not need to honor it. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 26(1), 44-58. doi:10.1017/S0963180116000256
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Comments
Abstract only. Full-text journal article is available through licensed access provided by the publisher. Published in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, (2017), 26(1), 44-58. doi:10.1017/S0963180116000256. Members of the USF System may access the full-text of the article through the authenticated link provided.