THE ROLE OF INTIMATE OTHERS IN MEDICAL DECISION-MAKING

This paper shows how the present emphasis on patient autonomy overlooks ways in which intimate relations enable autonomy to function meaningfully and how traditional categories of competent and incompetent discount intimacy as a tool for accessing patients' subjective experiences. It is also urged that intimate associations mark moral boundaries for autonomy because they constitute a setting in which persons give and expend finite human resources. © 1990 The Gerontological Society of America.