ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book considers the legitimacy of hastening the death of autonomous persons at their own request. It shows that the inquiry is extended more generally to the role of people's own wishes in decisions regarding health care provision. The book focuses on the attitudes of medical professionals by presenting and refuting a mechanistic model of health education and outlines an autonomy-respecting alternative which ideally aims at rendering people aware of the conditions of their own physical health. It suggests solutions to the problems of medical responsibility and individual liberty are classified according to the political and ideological assumptions which can be found at the foundations of mutually contradictory views on bioethics. The book also focuses on the applications of philosophy to the questions related to liberty and medical control.
