The early diagnosis of Alzheimer disease is a boon in that it enables advance planning, but that planning process can engender conflict between respect for future-oriented autonomy and future welfare.
It is difficult to argue that consumers are maximizing their welfare by consuming trans fats, particularly because the production and taste costs of replacing them do not outweigh the health benefits.
People with mental illness or a degenerative mental disease have special protections under the law when entering into contracts or other binding documents.
Physicians’ ethical obligations to disclose conflicts of interest to patients and to obtain their informed consent for treatment are particularly critical when proposed treatments are experimental.