Treatment over objection: minds, bodies and beneficence

Abstract

“The only freedom which deserves the name is that of pursuing our own good in our own way, so long as we do not attempt to deprive others of theirs or impede their efforts to obtain it. Each is the proper guardian of his own health, whether bodily or mental and spiritual” John Stuart Mill – On Liberty1 This quote from Mill highlights an important distinction for medical ethics: a distinction between bodily and mental health. In this paper, we want to look at the ways that ethics and law have addressed this distinction, especially in relation to involuntary treatment. We will claim that both philosophy and case law appear to address involuntary treatment for physical disorders in very different ways to involuntary treatment for mental disorders; and will relate these differences in analysis to different approaches to understanding the capacity to make autonomous decisions.