Introduction

For the last few decades, the principle of respecting patients’ autonomy has been of major importance in medical ethics, notably in terms of the requirement of gaining patients’ informed consent for any treatment to be considered legitimate. However, there is still an ongoing debate about its exact understanding and implications. It is not only a matter of dispute how to analyze the concept of personal autonomy in general, but also whether and to what degree resulting specific conceptions of autonomy are suitable for being used in medical ethics in particular. Moreover, the authenticity criterion comprised in conceptions of autonomy raises questions about how it relates to conceptions of the self. This makes it necessary to include the latter in the medical ethics debate as well. In this introduction, we sketch the respective theoretical landscape and provide an overview of the contributions to the volum