Abstract
In this article, we argue that physicians have normative authority over patients. First we elaborate on the nature of normative authority. We then examine and critique Arthur Isak Applbaum’s view that physicians lack authority over patients. Our argument appeals to four cases that demonstrate physicians’ authority.
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Notes
1986, 44.
ibid.
Alternatively, we can imagine a physician ordering a patient to receive a vaccination. In Jacobson v. Massachusetts, the US Supreme Court upheld the right of states to enforce compulsory vaccination.
Case 3 is actually fairly commonplace, as any physician who works in a hospital will tell you. Nevertheless, it is certainly true that instances of Case 3 occur less often than Case 4.
We should note that Applbaum defines authority as the “normative power to govern, where a normative power is the ability, in some context, to change the normative situation of others – their rights and duties, permissions, and restrictions,” (209). The duty-based view of authority we endorse is consistent with Applbaum’s, since duties are a kind of normative liability. Therefore, if we successfully demonstrate that physicians impose duties, then they must have authority even on Applbaum’s own terms.
Of course, Vice-Principal Campbell and other senior administrators have ultimate authority over students. They can discipline Anne if, for instance, she is causing a commotion in the hallway, even when she has the hall pass, and they can rescind the rule permitting holl monitors to grant other students permission to use the bathroom.
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Greenblum, J., Hubbard, R. Why physicians have authority over patients. Med Health Care and Philos 25, 541–544 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-022-10083-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-022-10083-2