Personale Autonomie als ein Kernprinzip der Ethik Sozialer Arbeit: informierte Einwilligung oder Biographie?

Abstract

The following considerations are concerned with the question, what conception of autonomy for common morally relevant scenarios of social work is applicable as well as philosophically well founded. In order to answer this question I will focus on the thought to connect autonomy closely with the duty to obtain informed consent of clients to steps of the intervention. Subsequently, I will determine in how far this connection can be adequate for the moral praxis of social work. Based on se92 Personale Autonomie als ein Kernprinzip der Ethik Sozialer Arbeit lected features of Beauchamp’s and Childress’ medical ethics I will then demonstrate that a conception of autonomy, which concentrates on obtaining informed consent, is not adequate for social work contexts, since it is not compatible with several features of social work interventions. In many contexts of social work, a conception of autonomy that includes in its criteria the biography of clients is far more adequate. In order to substantiate this claim, I will refer to the conception of personal autonomy