title: Autonomy, Trust, and Respect.
abstract: This article seeks to explore and analyze the relationship between autonomy and trust, and to show how these findings could be relevant to medical ethics. First, I will argue that the way in which so-called "relational autonomy theories" tie the notions of autonomy and trust together is not entirely satisfying Then, I will introduce the so-called Encapsulated Interest Account as developed by Russell Hardin. This will bring out the importance of the reasons for trust. What good reasons do we have for trusting someone? I will criticize Hardin's business model as insufficiently robust, especially in the context of health care, and then turn to another source of trust, namely, love. It may seem that trust-through-love is much better suited for the vulnerability that is often involved in health care, but I will also show that it has its own deficiencies. Good health care should therefore pay attention to both models of trust, and I will offer some tentative remarks on how to do this.
authors.affiliation: University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands T.R.V.Nys@uva.nl.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nys
mesh_terms: D002983:Clinical Competence; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000941:ethics*; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D026684:Personal Autonomy; D010686:Philosophy, Medical; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D035502:Trust / Q000523:psychology*
keywords: autonomy; care; love; respect; trust