RT Article
T1 Patient Autonomy in Talmudic Context: The Patient’s “I Must Eat” on Yom Kippur in the Light of Contemporary Bioethics
JF Journal of religion and health
VO 55
IS 5
SP 1778
OP 1785
A1 Berger, Sholem 1973-
A2 Cahan, Rabbi Joshua
LA English
PB Springer Science + Business Media B. V.
YR 2016
UL https://www.ixtheo.de/Record/1566809398
AB In contemporary bioethics, the autonomy of the patient has assumed considerable importance. Progressing from a more limited notion of informed consent, shared decision making calls upon patients to voice the desires and preferences of their authentic self, engaging in choice among alternatives as a way to exercise deeply held values. One influential opinion in Jewish bioethics holds that Jewish law, in contradistinction to secular bioethics, limits the patient’s exercise of autonomy only in those instances in which treatment choices are sensitive to preferences. Here, we analyze a discussion in the Mishna, a foundational text of rabbinic Judaism, regarding patient autonomy in the setting of religiously mandated fasting, and commentaries in the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds, finding both a more expansive notion of such autonomy and a potential metaphysical grounding for it in the importance of patient self-knowledge.
K1 Religion
K1 Autonomy
K1 Jewish bioethics
K1 Shared decision making
K1 Talmud
DO 10.1007/s10943-016-0276-x